Just about anyone who's lived in a dorm knows that there's a chance you'll have a terrible roommate whose sole purpose in life is to make your life as miserable as possible. It's not always intentional - it can just be a conflict of personalities - but people can only take so much.
A Reddit thread recently asked people to share their college roommate horror stories, and boy, were these posts something else. While there were numerous stories about wasted roommates, or bunkmates who had less than ideal personal hygiene practices, there were some that were so disgusting, so deplorable that we had to include them in this list. So take a look at some of our favorite stories.
She Never Knew What The Night Would Bring
“Freshman year is always the hardest. My first roommate came from a party family and wanted to continue the tradition at school. I would wake up to her hooking up with random dudes or loudly pleasuring herself whilst wasted (she would sometimes throw up when orgasming). The worst part was she cared about her fellow partiers. Every night when she went out, she would get smashed but would find people worse off than her. If they couldn’t find their home or communicate, she’d drop them back at our tiny dorm room and go back to parties for another few hours – if she came back at all. The bad part was my bed wasn’t lofted originally, so every night I’d wake up to people getting into bed with me and have to put them to sleep elsewhere.
One night, she dropped off a pledge who had triple what he should have to drink and had dropped some molly. He was all over the place and I was afraid to leave him to sleep. She didn’t come back that night. All night was spent carrying this guy back and forth to the girls only restroom so he could try to sober up. He was pretty messed up well into the next day. Eventually, he was good to go home and I walked him to his dorm across campus. When I returned home, there was my roommate, furiously wasted and pleasuring herself yet again.
Why would you do that Carol?! I just wanted sleep!”
He Opened The Door Hoping It Wouldn’t Find His Roommate In The Middle Of…
“Toward the end of the year, I walked in on my roommate jerking off a LOT; up to three times some days.
It got to the point where I’d pretend to yell to my friends down the hall about things like ‘I’ll be there in a minute. Let me just grab something from my room real quick’ just to buy him a few seconds of time to close out of his tabs (he’d watch videos at his desk right in front of the door) and pull his pants up.
Sadly, that stopped working when he started wearing headphones.
People would ask ‘Why didn’t you knock,’ and I’d say it was because I never formally addressed the situation, and didn’t want to make it uncomfortable for knocking every time I went in. He was generally pretty quick when I went in my room to cover himself up and close out of the tab and act like nothing happened, so I did the same. I would walk in, he’d exit out of his tab and cover himself (generally with like a hoodie or something), so I would walk in, grab something, and head out, never acknowledging that I noticed.
For all he knows, I was super oblivious and he was ‘close’ to getting caught a lot.
Plus I didn’t want to knock every time I wanted to go to my room. That’s just crazy.”
His Roommate Just Couldn’t Get Enough Of The Pills
“I lived in a frat house for two years which was fun at times, but for the most part, I really didn’t love the party hard, frat lifestyle.
I had a roommate during my junior year who was a year younger than me. He developed addictions to multiple prescription medications over the course of the year and it really affected his personality. He would be irritable and lethargic one minute, and then a few minutes later after popping some pills, he would be incredibly happy and tell me how much he loved and appreciated me.
He would bring girls into the room and hook up with them literally right next to me. He would leave food all over the room and blame me for it. It was pretty bad.
The absolute worst of it was when one night he crawled into our room after heavy drinking and pill popping and woke me up. He was sobbing and begged me to throw away his pills for him (which he kept in an old McDonald’s french fry box). I told him that I would in the morning. This ended up being a mistake because the next morning he heard the pills rattling around in the box as I picked it up and immediately leaped out of bed asking me what I was doing. He threatened to fight me if I didn’t put them down and I decided it wasn’t worth it.
The story has a happy ending, though, because he took a year off from school, admitted himself to rehab, got better and is now a semester away from finishing his degree. The best part is we’re still very good friends. We are both avid gamers and when he’s home from school we still go out for drinks. He’s got a strong will. I honestly gave up on him at a certain point, but he never gave up on himself.”
Good Thing He Was On The Top Bunk
“I used to play college baseball back in the day. One day, a buddy of mine showed up to practice with a broken arm, so naturally everyone wanted to know what happened. What he told us next is quite easily the funniest broken bone story I have ever heard.
His roommate (we’ll call him Brad) and his roommate’s girlfriend (we’ll call her Grace) told my friend (we’ll call him Frank) that they were going out to the bar and asked him to come along. He declined, stating that he was going to go to bed early as we had early baseball practice.
Frank fell asleep on the top bunk. Hours passed before Brad and Grace returned, both pretty well wasted. They had forgotten or just didn’t care that Frank was in the top bunk and Brad and Grace started hooking up in the bottom bunk. Frank decided to be a bro and not say anything. So Brad and Grace were going at it when Brad got the bright idea to try going through the butt for the first time with Grace, who agreed and let him try.
They started slowly and from what Frank said, it sounded like they were enjoying themselves. Well, eventually Brad got off and decided to pull out and noticed he had poop on his junk, and he reacted by throwing up all over his girlfriend. Totally disgusted in herself, Grace ended up throwing up as well. Frank was now laughing so hysterically in the top bunk that he fell out of the bed, hitting the ground and breaking his arm.
To this day, Brad and Grace do not acknowledge this story.”
He Bathed Himself In Axe Body Spray
“I lived off campus through most of college, but my boyfriend’s coworker moved in with us. This guy was huge, easily over 400 pounds, and bathed himself in Axe body spray before leaving the house every morning. I would always know when he’d left the house for the day because he’d leave a scent trail of Axe all the way through the living area.
I quickly learned the reason he bathed himself in Axe was because he couldn’t be bothered to bathe more than once every couple of weeks. When he used the toilet, he’d leave a dirty ring of skin and muck on the toilet seat. I started keeping Clorox wipes on the back of the toilet just so I could clean every time he used it. Once he took a dump and then left for work…when I went in to pee and shower later, I found that he had actually left smudges of feces on the toilet seat. I texted him and said, ‘I really don’t want to be rude, but it’d be really helpful if you could clean up after yourself when you use the toilet.’ It didn’t help, so I kept wiping the toilet seat every time he left the bathroom.
His mom would come once a week and do his laundry (we had a washer and dryer in the apartment…in the room next to his) and bring him food.
He was also persistent in his attempts to download as many movies, shows and other videos as he could manage. He downloaded so much, our ISP sent us notices not once, not twice, but three times. Our landlord ended up changing the password and locking him out of the internet. I’m so glad she did, because this is what caused him to finally leave.
As he was moving out and mostly staying elsewhere, we started noticing many of our dishes were missing. We ventured into his room and found so many crusty forks, moldy cups, and plates. We also found three one-TB drives, and, worst of all, three one-gallon Gatorade jugs filled with what I thought at first was apple juice. I said, ‘Why does he have so much apple juice?’
My boyfriend said, ‘Well, that’s not apple juice at all.’
Gross. Gross gross gross. The bathroom was easily 20 steps away.
The day he finally, actually moved out, I noticed that he still had the same shampoo and body wash he moved in with. When he moved in, they were half full. When he moved out after six months, they were still a quarter full. He was straight up gross.”
It Was Like He Wanted To Be Caught
“My first-ever roommate was, for the most part, a very likable guy. He had a great sense of humor, he was phenomenally creative, he was clean, and he was quiet. The two of us even shared a wide variety of interests, which made conversation with the fellow incredibly easy… but he wasn’t without his faults.
For one thing, the guy had a small problem with pathologically lying. There was the time, for instance, that he came back to our dormitory after a trip to the nearby mall, then regaled a group of us with the story about how he’d fought off three aggressive gangsters using nothing but his backpack and a handful of vomit. On another occasion, he told us about having jumped over speeding car, and he was never shy about reminding us that some criminal organization or another had put out a contract on him (after he had cleaned out one of their casinos or something). There was even the time that a mutual friend of ours – despite my protests – looked through the young man’s computer, after he had claimed to be hiding some terrible, friendship-ending secret. My friend didn’t find anything quite so scandalous, so we assumed that it was another lie.
Unfortunately, it was my roommate’s true stories that made living with him horrific.
Not long after the two of us had moved in together, my roommate treated me (and a few other folks) to a tale of missed opportunities and unrequited love. There had been a girl with whom he had been truly enamored, and who had supposedly considered giving up her future for him. She had ultimately decided to attend a college in another state, though, thereby bringing an end to their relationship before it had even begun. This young woman was real enough – as evidenced by the alert noise that would play whenever she signed into AIM – but my roommate’s interactions with the girl often raised a few eyebrows.
He would frequently pleasure himself to her LiveJournal account, for example.
I’ll never forget the first time that I ‘caught’ the young man in the act. I had gone to bed at around midnight or so, only to be woken by the sounds of heavy breathing and fast-paced, skin-on-skin rubbing. A glance at my roommate’s desk revealed that he was sitting there, staring intently at a page of text, while his arm moved in that telltale motion. Not wanting to embarrass the fellow, I feigned slowly waking up… but the guy didn’t even pause. It wasn’t until I muttered, ‘Ugh, what time is it?’ that he saw fit to cover himself and rush to the restroom (which was in our dorm room).
That was only the beginning of the nightmare, too. My roommate must have discovered a previously unknown fetish that evening, because from then onward, it almost seemed like he wanted to get caught. I can’t begin to count the number of times that I would come back from class, make a lot of noise in the hallway – whistling, singing, jingling my keys, running into walls, whatever – fumble with the lock on our door, and then still be treated to the sight of him pulling up his pants. Even when I provided him with a schedule of my comings and goings, he still appeared to time his own ‘comings’ with my arrival at the dormitory.
I moved into my own apartment the next year, citing a desire to have more space.
According to the folks who lived with the young man, though… the peepshows continued in my absence.”
I Didn’t Know People This Disgusting Exist
“I wasn’t living on campus, but I pretty recently gave moving out a try and had to move back home after two months because my roommate ended up being crazy. I underwent the following experiences:
She left her dead rat in the living room in the middle of summer for three days and refused to dispose of it or let me dispose of it.
She would walk around without clothes (that alone I had no problem with, I did the same sometimes) and just lounge about in absolutely nothing. The image of her grossness splayed out on my couch is burned into my mind for eternity. Oh, and she would scratch herself with her long disgusting nails. THE SOUND.
She was almost definitely a hoarder. We had next to no living room space because of all her junk everywhere. This alone I maybe could have tolerated to an extent, but she refused to organize everything, or to let me help with it, and everything was covered with a fine oily sheen.
There were so many more animals in the apartment, more than she could possibly handle, and this is coming from an avid animal-lover and hobbyist. I had to refill so many water bottles because she wouldn’t take care of them, and she had around thirty rats spread between three cages, not counting mice/cats/reptiles. I have rats as well and I love my babies, but she kept hers in the closet after we almost got evicted and the smell was atrocious. Everything was covered in a fine sheen of pee and buck grease.
She kept her hyperactive pit bull crated and locked in a closet all day. This dog was confined and neglected just because she was destructive and undisciplined, which was in no way the poor dog’s fault. When let out, she would barrel out of the closet like a furry freight train. She was such a sweet dog, too. Again, the smell was awful.
My portion of the rent was continuously jacked up and then she got mad at me when I couldn’t afford it, even though we had very carefully and specifically agreed on monetary matters before my moving in. Her boyfriend also didn’t have a real job and would hole up in his room all day and yell if anyone visited. He treated her badly, too, which her own general foul mood doesn’t justify.
She would go days without showering, which was not fun when it coincided with her hanging out on the couch in nothing more than her birthday suit.
She would also, whenever she needed to cough, hack without covering or even turning away.
Before I moved in, I helped her finish moving out of her old place. It was incredible. Aside from junk and trash everywhere, there was rat/dog/cat poop all over the floors and walls in piles because they were moving out anyway and didn’t feel like they needed to clean. And yeah, that was a red flag I really shouldn’t have overlooked. I was really naive about the whole thing and believed her explanations.
I worked at a pet store and she would go there and commandeer my customers while I was trying to talk to them. She would not stop interrupting and following people around when I asked.
Then she nearly got us evicted several times because of complaints of all our animals – we did have pets we weren’t allowed to have, but when we moved in the leasing agent told us it wouldn’t be a problem, but her animals really went over the line to the extent that neighbors were complaining about the smell.
At one point, I just broke down and texted my mom crying. She picked me up the next day and took me to the doctor for the severe bronchitis I had developed from living in that space (was coughing up blood and took several weeks to recover.) We went to the apartment and snuck moved out shortly thereafter. My mom had to pull over on the side of the road several times to dry heave and made me keep all my things outside in the yard until I could properly sanitize them. Upon finding out I had left, my roommate started verbally abusing and stalking me, threatening to call the police, and actually came to my house at one point.
I left the couch at the apartment.”
The Theft Could Only Go On For So Long
“One of the jerks in my dorm was a massive thief. He would go out at night, open any cars that were unlocked, loot anything of value (change, GPSs, etc.), and bring them back to his room. He’d remove any serial numbers, wait a few days, then take them in a bin down to the pawn shop.
I gave him a ride one time, not knowing at that time the full situation, and went in to browse while he ‘sold some old stuff he found while he was back home’ and this guy was selling this stuff literally CONSTANTLY. The guys there knew him by name, and would crack jokes like, ‘Oh, did your mom buy you guys ANOTHER new GPS?’ He didn’t have to wink. I knew he knew it was all bull.
He had been good about leaving my stuff alone. I didn’t report him out of laziness, or misguided fear of consequences, or something. But one day, he must have been light on his take so he thought I wouldn’t notice my iPod missing. This was back when iPod video was a huge deal, and I had the largest hard drive size available. I was all about my music. I immediately went to the campus police, my RA, and then the local PD. They found my iPod (it had been reset and the serial number ground off, but they knew it was mine once they booted it up and saw the serial).
I have no idea what the consequences were for him. I switched dorms and never saw him again.”
What Was He Even Doing In There?
“University of Arizona, Santa Cruz Hall, fall of ’72. It was the second or third week, classes had started and there was some shuffling of people and I got moved down the hall.
The dorm manager took me there, gave me my new key, and introduced me to my new roommate, who I immediately got a weird vibe from, as he wouldn’t say anything or look me in the eye. I put down my suitcases, and left for a class. When I opened the door just a few hours later, my way was blocked by a butcher-paper wall with two paper doors in it. The doors were hinged with tape, and only the left one was open.
I could see my things through it, so I entered, and from there I could see that he had constructed a central wall of butcher-paper, dividing the room floor to ceiling, giving us each half the window. The (metal) bunk bed had been moved to the center of the room and embedded in the paper wall, such that I could only get to the bottom bunk. He had the top. It was quite skillfully done. We each had complete privacy – there were no gaps anywhere, even on the floor.
What blew me away the most was that he did it so quickly. Four hours, tops. Where did he get all the paper? Did he run across campus to an art room? Were the materials already in his closet, because he’d heard he was getting a roommate?
Though I admired his work, I didn’t want half a room, or a crazy roommate, so I got the manager, who gave me another room. Even though my new room was just two doors away, I never saw the crazy guy again.”
We’ve All Known “Caveman” At Some Point
“First year of college, living in a dorm. It was nearly the end of the second semester. My roommate was away for a few days on a trip somewhere, and I was up late at night playing video games.
I had my headphones on and my dorm door was open (I was great friends with all the guys I lived around). Well, around 2:30 am, one of the guys from the other end of the hall walked in the room, and he was just in his boxers. His nickname was Caveman, and Caveman was a frat guy, and he was known for getting blackout wasted and doing harder stuff and just being crazy in general.
I figured he was wasted and just got back from a party. Caveman stood over my shoulder as I was playing GTA V for who knows how long before I realized he was even there. To be honest, I thought he was my friend who lived across the hall. I didn’t know him very well, so I tried to get him to leave but he just crawled into my roommate’s bed and passed out.
I tugged at him, but Caveman’s a much larger fellow than I am so I didn’t want to get hit or something so I didn’t tug too much. I finally just woke up my RA, and after about five minutes, we got Caveman to walk back down the hall to his room. No problem.
Pretty weird situation. Well, a few days later my roommate came back, and he sat down to play on his brand new $500 keyboard, only to find out that it was acting up. We investigated a little bit and come to find that there was urine in the keyboard. It smelled like pee, and when he opened it up, he poured out pee that had just been sitting there. The only explanation was that Caveman had peed on the keyboard thinking, ‘Oh look, white…toilet.’ He ended up getting it cleaned up and got it to work just fine, but it still smells like pee to this day.
This happened last year. An update on Caveman… At the last home football game of the season, he ran out on the field completely clothesless, and was taken off by some police officers.”
And They Thought His Vines Were The Problem
“My roommate was really famous for Vines back when that was a new thing. You could tell that he was crazy, but he just kept setting the bar higher. He would take dumps completely nude with the stall door open. He would sit nude at his desk and occasionally adjust his balls. He would constantly do ridiculous things and record it for his vines. He would get up in your face and scream random stuff. You could hear him constantly making random honking noises and yelling things about his junk, but he definitely didn’t have tourettes. I would have to tell him to stop making ridiculous noises about five times before I could get to sleep.
The rumor is that he violated his last roommate, but apparently the college didn’t find enough evidence to kick him out and the criminal investigation isn’t done yet. I’m just glad that I got out of there.”
Talk About Awkward
“I had a ditz of a female roommate. I’m a very quiet lady and we did not really agree on the type of people we hung out with.
The first week of college, she got a job at Hooters. Four weeks in, it was about 3 am and she came in wasted and laid down on her bed. My bed was less than two feet away only blocked by a chest-high bookshelf.
Anyway, she broke up with her boyfriend the first week because she wanted to… have new experiences. Honestly, I’m not trying to fault her for liking random hookups. She’s more than welcome to explore her body, but didn’t appreciate it this way. She called up her ex and talked to him. And they started getting hot and heavy over the phone.
I was way too awkward at this age and just tried not to act like I was awake (she knew I was there, she even mentioned it to the ex). This went on for like 20 minutes, and I was getting annoyed because I stupidly signed up for an 8 am class. She finally climaxed… and then started crying.
For a good half an hour, she was crying to this guy about how much she missed him. I felt bad… And really tired.
I was grumpy the next day. And weirded out that she thought that was okay with her roommate in the room.”