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Of roommates, quirks, and breathing room
By Meg | May 28, 2008
This has been a crazy month. Almost as soon as our guests left earlier this month, our best friend Katy started moving in as our new roommate. We’ve had roommates before — four just since we’ve been together, with two of them repeat roommates. However, she’s the first to bring so much stuff. In fact, it was in anticipation of her move that we started decluttering at a whole new level.
I must admit, I had gotten pretty used to the decluttered look when the boxes started piling up at every turn. Somewhere along the line, I’ve turned into a bit of a neat freak, and for a while I thought I was going to go crazy. But we combined our spice collections, added some more stuff to the yard sale pile, rearranged furniture, and stashed more stuff in the back room where it’s not as visible.
So here I sit, looking around at the new landscape of the living room. Ah, this is nice. I like it when roommates bring comfy furniture.
On a related note, there’s nothing like living with someone to make you reexamine your daily life, knowing that someone else is watching. Fortunately, Katy knows us well enough to know that my husband and I value decluttered living space, being eco-conscious, eating healthy, and saving money. And for the most part, we have similar values and hobbies, hence why we’re willing to live under one roof. However, I still worry about being the annoying roommate with odd rules and habits — especially since our roommates have certainly all had their quirks, some more tolerable than others.
Of course, I know I’m not the only one with roommate stories. So, I’m curious — What quirks have you come across while living with other people? Any quirks of your own that a potential roommate might find strange?
Tags: Behavior & Etiquette, De-stressing, Etiquette, Impressions, Organization & Decluttering
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May 29th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Like many folks I dormed it for a few years in college. I have a desperate television addiction and it probably bugged the CRAP out of my roomies that I had the TV on 24/7 if I was in the room. I need it on just as background noise all the time.
On the flip side, my sophomore roomie and her boyfriend were always playing slap and tickle on her bunk. My junior roomie would cry hysterically in the middle of the day for no reason. That was by far the most disturbing thing I’ve ever witnessed. She moved out suddenly just before spring break that year. I came back on a Sunday night to a half empty dorm room.
People are strange.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Ohhhhhh, man….I have had some bizarre roommates. I’ve had some really inappropriate ones (asking to borrow my car the day after they moved in, moving a boyfriend/girlfriend in and denying it, the usual division of cleaning duties problems) and some great ones, several of whom are still very good friends.
Specific incidents that stand out: one 27-year-old roommate who was perfectly lovely to live with until the day before we moved out when she threw a literal screaming, foot stomping, throwing-herself-on-the-floor temper tantrum because she brought three guests home without warning and the living room was inaccessible (moving boxes, etc, in the way). Another roommate who began referring to herself in the third person and ate only raw food because that way it didn’t hurt the food when she cooked it.
Only once have I moved in with someone I was already friends with, and while not disastrous, it was difficult. Sometimes a friend’s quirks are more difficult to handle than a stranger’s. My quirks would probably be that I’m a little obsessive about things being clean (not neat, but clean), but I’m aware of it and willing to do more cleaning so that things are at my level of comfort.
I now live alone, and will never live with someone I’m not sleeping with again.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:00 am
anon,
I’m a bit of a t.v. addict myself. Despite not watching many shows, I like to have it on in the background. I’ve tried playing music, but it’s not the same. Sounds like your roommate did have some issues — not uncommon. It’s tough knowing what to do in situations like that. I hope she got the help she needed.
Little Miss Moneybags,
LOL, I about threw a tantrum with all the moving boxes come in. It got bad when they started blocking doors and the t.v. and I was already overtired from all the moving and painting. I just acted very sullen, though. I’m still not too picky about cleaning, but I’m definitely turning into a neat freak. But, I hate throwing things out.
As for my previous roommates…
There was the one who seemed to be contrary for the sake on contrariness (even when we agreed on something there’d be an argument), the one that hung the hair from the drain on the shower wall (kinda scary looking), the one that somehow used more water than my husband and I combined (and I love my long showers), and the one who left her dirty clothes on the bathroom floor (we tossed them behind the t.v. when we found them). There was one other roommate that we had but I can’t remember her bad habits, so they couldn’t have been that bad. Our current roommate, Katy, hasn’t been there long enough for us to notice anything. Before I knew him, my husband did walk into his room one day to find his roommate and the roommate’s boyfriend on his bed going at it — a bit more shocking since he didn’t know his roommate even had a boyfriend.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
My roommate would leave a small square piece of foil on the kitchen countertops every single day. He used it for toasting a tiny baguette in the morning. But every day he felt the need to cut a new piece and leave it there after he was done - like a symbol or a place marking. So so irritating.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
LOL! Yeah, it took me a while to get my husband to simply put food wrappers in the garbage instead of leaving them on the counter.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
My [husband] roommate refuses to use a towel when he gets out of the shower, so every time I walk into the bathroom after him, my socks get wet. I hate wet socks.
His former roommate left so much trash in his room from fast food restaurant take-out that I once went in there and filled a regular kitchen-sized trash bag and he didn’t even notice.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Ick! I hate wet socks, too, and food trash is really bad in my book. My dorm roommate had friends that would come by and leave take-out salad containers in our itty bitty garbage can. Because of the salad dressing, you can imagine how quickly that got disgusting — and that’s IN the garbage can. I guess I should consider myself lucky that they got them that far.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Meh. I am in college and have had three roommates, each for one semester. The rest of the semesters I was/will be a singleton (worth it worth it). I admit I am strange in my hours (work till 4 or 5, bed till 1, class at 3) and fastidious in my habits, but I was able to live comfortably with two of the three women, who are both in my sorority. One of them became one of my closest friends. The other roommate, my very first of life (I am an only child) was simply a poor match for me. Where I prefer constant order and organization, she thrived on piles. She commandeered the vast majority of the storage space and the better half of the room before I moved in. She used my desk to prepare food on and left a small puddle of oil (it could have ruined one of my texts!). She allowed food to rot in my fridge. She left the dirty knife from her peanut butter atop the closed jar. Once, I found bits of raw chicken in the bathroom sink, where she had prepared it BEFORE carrying the meat down to the (full, nice) kitchen for cooking. I am sure my habits annoyed her equally. We were a wretched pairing. We are better as sorority sisters than as living mates.