It’s 2am, and you’re fast asleep. Dreaming about the amazing pizza you had for dinner and the leftovers you’re going to have for lunch tomorrow. You’re curled up in bed snug as a bug in a rug, and your phone is playing meditation music to help you stay relaxed all night during your slumber. Then BOOM. The front door slams shut, and suddenly you’re awake. You hear the stomping of footsteps echoing through the apartment, and the glass jars in the fridge clang against one another as the door is opened swiftly and then slammed shut. What in the world could that be? You muster up the strength to step out of your bed, slip on your robe and walk to the kitchen to find your roommate, drunkenly devouring your leftover pizza, along with a trail of muddy footprints leading from the front door to the fridge… “Good morning!”
If you attended university or you live in a city where rent prices are ridiculously high, chances are you have experience living with roommates. They might have started off as strangers and quickly become your best friends, or started as your best friends and quickly transformed into your arch enemies. You never know exactly what you’re going to get from a roommate, because you never truly know a person until you live with them.
One curious Reddit user recently asked others to share their most interesting roommate stories, and boy, did they deliver. We’ve gathered some of the wildest, funniest and most disturbing experiences people have had with roommates down below, so you can either relate to the pain of being stuck in an awful living situation or be thankful that you no longer have to deal with roommates. Be sure to upvote the stories that resonate with you, whether they’re the most wholesome or most terrifying, and let us know in the comments below if you have ever lived with a fascinating person. Then if you’re interested in even more strange roommate stories, be sure to check out this Bored Panda article next.
#1
I’m pretty sure I used to live with a hobbit.
-Man about 5’1″, curly brown hair, constantly cheerful demeanor
-Never wore shoes, inside or out
-Literally slept on the floor in what can only be explained as a nest of blankets
-Started a garden and encouraged me to eat his tomatoes all the time
-Would bring home samosas and other goodies, always giving me half just because
-He and his wife had a dream of living off the grid in a tiny home on a truck
I hope he’s doing well
Image source: Opposite_Lettuce, Jordan Whitt
#2
I used to live with two strippers. Needless to say, they weren’t early risers.
One Sunday morning, we get a knock at the front door. Jehova’s Witnesses.
So, K goes to the door, and invites them in for coffee. While buck naked.
K is pretty, ummm, impressive naked. built like Chyna in her prime,lots of tattoos and piercings.
Needless to say, they left, quickly. And we never had missionaries at our door again.
Image source: Squigglepig52, Eric Nopanen
#3
Mine starts off a little sad but is also quite sweet.
In 2007 I went backpacking around Australia and lived in a house share in Sydney for a bit. I shared my room with a guy I had met at a hostel previously.
Sadly, my best friend at home in the UK died very suddenly and unexpectedly which obviously left me completely devastated. I really wanted to get home quickly to be with my circle of friends and support system, so I booked the first flight I could afford which was about a week later.
My landlord at the time was not at all sympathetic to my situation and told me he was going to keep all of my deposit, so in an effort to try to appease him and hopefully get some back, I immediately set about finding a new room mate via sites like gumtree so that my room wasn’t left empty. There were a few applicants and after a few days I found a girl who seemed cool and like she’d fit in with the rest of the household so we made arrangements for her to move in. (Despite this my landlord still said he wasn’t going to give me my deposit back, so I nearly didn’t bother, but I really liked all of my housemates and I didn’t want them to end up with a lemon).
I go home and obviously have a very sad time for quite a long time. But I stay in touch with my housemates and they love this new girl, who fits in to the household perfectly.
Next thing I know, she and my old roommate from the hostel start dating. Then they spend the next two years travelling the world together. I was so happy for them. They then move to Canada together. I visited them once and it was cool to see my old roomie again and get to know his girlfriend that I had unknowingly picked out from gumtree applicants. It’s now been 15 years and not only are they still together, but they have two beautiful children together.
I still miss my best friend after all these years, but it brings me a lot of comfort to know that the chain of events caused by her passing resulted in a beautiful love story and two new babies.
Image source: XLittleMagpieX, Patricia Prudente
#4
We met when we showed up for dorm room assignments our freshman year of college. Almost 50 years later, we’re still the closest of friends. I recently attended his daughter’s wedding. A grand affair, because he happens to be uber-wealthy. At one point I found myself choking up, and it wasn’t for the bride and groom, it was for John and me. How far we’ve come from that first awkward handshake a half century ago.
Image source: Scrappy_Larue, Centre for Ageing Better
#5
My South Korean roommate in college played StarCraft (2? not sure) welllll into the night. We’re talking like I’d be getting up to go to class and he’d be logging off.
It cured my insomnia. Listening to a game in a language I didn’t understand was very soothing, apparently, and I went from taking 3-4 hours a night to fall asleep (if I would at all) to falling asleep within 30 seconds of laying my head down.
Image source: truthinlies, Soumil Kumar
#6
I woke up around 5:30am and made my way to the kitchen, groggy and barely awake. As I turned the corner, I stopped in my tracks because my roommate of 3 months was crouched on the counter, wearing a speedo. In a Gollum voice, he said “My precious!!!” and mimicked Gollum’s weird movements. I refused to react to it, said nothing, and made breakfast. It’s been 10 years and we’re still great friends.
Image source: antwauhny
#7
I lived in a house with 2 other guys. Let’s call them Steve and Jake. At the time, we were all working pretty well paid jobs so we decided to hire a cleaner to come and spruce up our man den twice a week. I don’t remember how, but we ended up with an absolutely drop dead GORGEOUS young Polish girl who spoke no English whatsoever. We had to get our Polish neighbour to tell her what our expectations were etcetera.
For the first month or two, everything was going great and we were happy with her. She’d usually come in when we were all out working so we’d never see her, but she’d leave the place looking emaculate.
Then, out of the blue, her work quality went to absolute s**t and it became apparent that she was either not doing anything or she wasn’t even going to the house anymore. One night, after a few weeks of her s**tty work, I’m talking to Steve and Jake and I suggested we fire her. Jake was all for it but Steve, for some reason, was dead against it. Instead, he suggested we have our neighbour give her a warning. I just kind of said whatever and let him take care of it.
Fast forward another month, I’m at work and I suddenly get sick, so I go home early. I walk in the door and Lo and behold I see Steve, a*s naked on the sofa, hands and feet tied up, and wearing a ball gag – with the cleaner riding him whilst wearing an extremely revealing maids outfit. The look on both their faces when I walked in was f*****g hilarious! And even though I was sick I died laughing knowing why her work quality sucked so bad. It turned out he used to come home every lunchtime when she was there, bang her senseless, then drop her off at her next job!
Long story short – he got her pregnant, and she still lives with him to this day with their little girl.
Image source: MiloCybin22
#8
I had a very religious roommate once named Mike, who thought I was religious too, I guess, and he would often exclaim things like, *”OMG KITTENKLYN! There’s so many people outside! We should be EVANGELIZING!”* He would never read any books except the Bible, literally, and he would often pray right in the middle of the common space on his hands and knees. Weird guy, but he always paid his rent on time, kept his dishes clean, and it’s hard to find roommates.
Anyway, one day while I was reading a book in the living room, Mike came out looking very concerned and asked to talk.
“I think there’s a demon living in this house,” he said.
I’m the kind of person who likes to “Yes/And” people, especially when they say something a little crazy. So I asked him to tell me more.
“Well,” he started, “Last night I had a dream- no, not a dream, a nightmare. A snake was choking me, and I was fighting with it-” he exaggerated hand movements a little aggressively to demonstrate his wrestling. “Finally I threw it off of me, but then I realized I was awake, so I sat up and looked over at your side of the bed, and that’s when I saw it”
“Saw what?” I asked, more excited by the second.
“The demon. The dark cloud man was just standing next to your bed, watching you sleep. He was like a cloudy shadow with white eyes. I think it’s possessing the house.”
Amazed by what he was saying, I asked what we should do about it.
“Have an exorcism”
I almost spit out my drink. “Well, I’ve never done that before -”
“I have,” he interrupted. So I was like, well if you say so.
Anyway, basically he had blessed holy water (from the tap) and was walking around the room tossing it here and there yelling, “IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST, I COMMAND YOU TO LEAVE, DEMON!!”
Meanwhile, I’m trying not to laugh for the whole 30 minutes until he finishes, he’s literally sweating in prayer, and finally stands up to say “It is done,” and walks to his room. We never talked about it ever again.
Image source: kittenklyn, K. Mitch Hodge
#9
I moved into a house with a guy when I was 19. We were pretty good friends but quickly became best buds. I’m a lesbian and my gf at the time wanted to try our first strap on experience. Being a noob, I purchased a dildo that was comically large so we couldn’t use it.
So naturally, I decided to hide it under my roommates pillow as he was out of town for the weekend. When he came home that Sunday he proudly announced he had a hookup coming over and I was like oops…..meh not gonna say anything
Morning after, we get up, I’m putting coffee on the pot and he comes out. I asked, “how was your night?” To which he replied, “pretty good honestly!” With a cheeky smile. I just sipped my coffee and smirked at him.
He was like”…..what did you do?”
Eventually he found it, we had a few laughs, and there began a 3 year long game of hiding this massive suction cup purple dildo in each other’s things. The fridge, sock drawers, bathroom mirror, car mid consoles, etc. It stopped when his grandparents came to visit and grandpa was met by the bit purple member staring him in the face when he went to use the bathroom
Image source: StaleRomantic
#10
My freshman year college roommate was a random pairing. This kid partied all night and slept all day (legit wouldn’t wake up until 5pm) He goes MIA for like a week. I call my mom because I’m not sure he’s even alive. She searches to see if he has been arrested. Before she can call me back the cops are knocking at our door and ask “have you seen ____” and I say no. Mom calls me back a few minutes later, he had been booked for robbery at a convenience store which was in our dorm building! He tried to hide in an air vent…he made the front page of the campus newspaper, was expelled and I got the whole dorm to myself for the rest of the fall & spring semester
#11
There are PLENTY, but one of my roommates used to sleep walk and sleep talk almost every night and I was the only one who’d be awake whenever it would happen.
I’d witness her cleaning our fridge, sealing our opened bag of chips, and i’d hear her quote Shakespeare in her sleep. What made her go back to bed was me asking her to sleep and she’d look at me and close her eyes. Whenever I ask her if she recalled any of it, the answer was always no.
Image source: bbbonjh3ng, Ehud Neuhaus
#12
My roommate in college claimed he was involved with the mafia. He was constantly sweaty, was very jumpy, and always had a lot of cash in his car. He never was around on the weekends, and I never saw him drink. Strangest of all, is that he never once slept in his room. He was always on the couch by the door. He eventually told me that it was because if someone ever broke in looking for him, he wanted “them” to find him right away, so no one else would get hurt. I still don’t know if he was telling the truth but nonetheless I ALWAYS locked my bedroom door at night.
Image source: DrLandingStrip, cottonbro
#13
I used to cook dinner and always made enough to offer to our room mate. He paid his bills and rent always but sometimes he didn’t have enough for food so I would cook and say “hey man, wanna have dinner with us?”. He would usually say he didn’t like whatever I was making. Fastforward to morning…all the leftovers were gone.
His explanation? He must have been sleepwalking and ate it in his sleep. This happened 15 to 20 times over a year period. Minimum. He would make these big song and dances about how what I was making was gross, so I would put up enough leftovers for two (my boyfriend and I) then go to bed. What was to be lunches for work gone and often dirty utensils in the sink.
Fast forward another 5 years and he called me at 3 am after not talking to me or my partner for 3 years, and told me my now husband (aforementioned BF)was doing Crack in front of our 4 year old. I called my husband, who was asleep. Neither of us had talked to him in years…what was this?
Fast forward another 5 years. He’s on death row for killing his roommate. His defense? He did it sleepwalking.
Image source: dissapointingsex
#14
My roommate once create a whole new lifeform by leaving beans in the fridge until they molded so bad they became pure white. Then she got mad when I threw it away because she was going to use it later.
#15
Had a ‘friend’ who turned out to be a man child. Not just immature, but at 32 years of age he would not do basic things for himself. Things like brushing his teeth, cutting his nails, cooking, cleaning, showering, etc. He tried to cook once, which involved him dumping 3 boxes of pasta into one pot and tossing in ground beef and shredded cheese. He smacked his food, his hair was matted because he wouldn’t take care of it.
He moved in with my partner and I because he wanted to find opportunities for education and a better job. He was with us for 8 months and in that time MAYBE sent out 2 job applications. I told him to stick to community colleges but he insisted on some overpriced proprietary school and asked if he could stay with us for the year and a half it would take to finish the program. I said absolutely not. He was also incredibly immature. Like he definitely peaked in high school for a reason. And if you look up “weaponized incompetence” I’m pretty sure his photo is next to it. Every time my partner or I cooked he’d stare until we offered him some of it. He smoked my weed, ate our food and never replaced it, wondered around in his boxers, and never left the apartment. If you tried to show him simple things like how the coffee maker worked he’d freak out and say he couldn’t do it. When he moved out, and back in with his mom, we celebrated.
Image source: Relevant-Branch-4324
#16
Came home from my first day of classes to *poop everywhere*. Toilet seat, tile, bath mat, toilet paper holder, sink, carpet.
Had a long discussion. Not acceptable.
Happened again, took 6 weeks to get her out.
Image source: SnooChocolates4588, Karolina Grabowska
#17
This is my only roommate story. After this, I swore never again.
A childhood friend and her boyfriend. He was a “chef” (line cook at a chain restaurant) who would cook mediocre meals when the urge took him, which took damn near every pot and pan in the kitchen to make, and f****d off without cleaning up after himself. He also had a cat, kitten really, who he never bought food for, so I had to feed it because I’m not a monster. She was an unemployed student, like me, who would use the cups from my dinner set as ashtrays, and load up a single plate of food, take it to her room, eat from it throughout the day, and keep it. Rinse, repeat every day until we were out of plates. I said I’d clean them if she just brought them back to the kitchen, but nah. I’d have to wait until she was out then go get them, complete with mouldering food remnants.
Eventually, my boyfriend joined our happy little household, and I started setting boundaries because it was no longer 2:1. That led to a blow-up screaming match, and me and him moving out.
My only regret is that I didn’t take the cat.
Image source: fbb_katie_jane, Gary Barnes
#18
She was majorly depressed. She worked a lot and for very little money, so she would mostly come home and lock herself in her room. At some point, she stopped cleaning or doing laundry.
She worked at a childcare center, and at some point contracted impetigo. Gross, but treatable. She wouldn’t get it treated, however, because it was too expensive. So I lived in fear I would contract it, let alone the other kids she was watching (she told her work it was being treated and was no longer contagious, they just believed her). She had these massive, crusty patches all over her face and just didn’t care. After five whole weeks, she FINALLY went to the doctor.
Things were tense until her mom came to visit a few weeks later and convinced her to be committed. She had been sending suicidal messages to her mom every day for weeks. Her mom paid her rent for the next three months until the lease was up, and she moved back home. Never spoke again. Hope she is doing better.
#19
I had a college roommate who was obsessed with CSI. She had a CSI pillow and sheets/blankets. She refused to turn on any lights and kept all blinds shut. She hated light and would sigh loudly if I would turn the lights on to do anything. I went to college right around when you needed a college email to make a Facebook, and she would tell me that Facebook is how they spy on you… she said she would never have a MySpace or anything of the like. (She might have been right on that one) and she would always say I was a sheep and that I would have my identity stolen by “them”.
My other roommate (we were 4 with two bedrooms and a common area) was extremely loud at all hours, and if you ever asked her to keep it down, even very politely, she would purposely start doing cartwheels and banging on things and singing. She claimed to be Jay Leno’s niece.
One more: I had a roommate that slept with a new guy every weekend and we could hear her LOUDLY through the wall. We would tell her we heard her and she vehemently denied every time that she slept with anyone. Come on, girl.
Image source: xpollydartonx, Bich Tran
#20
Lived in a dorm with this Mormon guy who just came home from being a missionary. He was the most sexually repressed person I’d ever seen. This dude had never heard of masturbating. He’d stay up until like 2 in the morning looking at girls’ Facebook photos and muttering “oh man, she’s so hot”. He was super creepy around women, he’d sit next to them and try and put his arm over their shoulders. He had real creepy, rapey vibes, and he also had some kind of fungus that stunk up the apartment, so I got the f**k out the next semester.
Image source: AdamBombKelley
#21
Freshman year of college, I was randomly assigned a roommate to share a tiny room (11′ x 15′, I think?). I was a quiet comp sci student from the San Francisco area who liked video games and D&D. My assigned roommate was a huge Mechanical Engineering major from the South who liked his lifted truck, dip tobacco, and getting drunk as often as possible.
Needless to say, the next 6 months were not fun. He left his spit cups everywhere, constantly played loud country music, and messed around with my stuff (including scratching a nasty slur into my Office Space-esque stapler). As the year went on he seemed to get worse, probably due to finding a group of like-minded people in the dorms.
Long story short, he was kicked out of the dorms about 2 weeks before the spring break – he and another guy went on a rampage through the dorm with Airsoft guns shooting the little whiteboard on everyone’s door. For some reason, though, he was allowed to stay until the break. I stupidly left for home before he did, and when I got back my very nice gaming PC was missing. I reported it missing, and told the police exactly where I thought it was (at his new place). They apparently searched it, and though they didn’t find my computer, they found enough other stolen goods to get him expelled from school.
Thankfully, my replacement roommate was a very nice, quiet guy,. and the rest of the year went well.
Image source: Obligatory-Reference, Brad Starkey
#22
I had a roommate for several years who was a decent guy, quiet, cleaned up after himself, respectful. The poor guy’s life was terrible. He dropped out of high school at age 17. Then he started selling weed, which he was arrested for by an undercover cop. Being uneducated, he ended up with a felony on his record, permanently.
Throw on top of that, having a child and things not working out with his baby momma, so he owed child support. This guy was working as a dishwasher at restaurants for $10 an hour (probably less, this was from 2010-2015 when we were roommates). He had no car, and the closest bus rout to where we lived was a mile walk (uphill) from our apartment. He did this every day. One day I was talking to my dad, who loves to ride bicycles and has many, if one could be offered to my friend. He put some new pedals on a road bike of his (that’s all he had), and I gave it to my friend.
On the third day after he had been given the bike, I was awoken randomly to knocks on my bedroom door and some mumbled speech. I open my door and there’s my roommate, with his hand up to his face, covered in blood and maybe a tooth in there. He had placed his bag of clothes on the handlebar, and the drag from the front tire pulled the bag in and caused him to faceplant on concrete.
I remember taking him to the hospital, and he asked me to look at his mouth…good god.
This has a happy ending (or something like it). After this injury, he had enough with walking to the bus, so he got a second job, and began saving up to buy a car. For the first few weeks though, this guy was walking to the bus, and then working a 16+ hour day. There was a gap between jobs, where he couldn’t rest much, so was probably getting 4 hours of sleep a night. He was saving funds and due to his child support, he could only eat Banquet $1 frozen dinners. All day. That’s all he had was one of those. He eventually got the car and his quality of life got marginally better before he parted ways.
He ended up moving in with family and closer to bus lines. Maybe not the most extraordinarily interesting story ever, but nonetheless, what that guy went through, I can’t imagine. He used to tell me when he was walking home at night, he often contemplated stepping into oncoming traffic. Thankfully he never did.
After we both left the apartment and went our separate ways, we kept in touch. However, he frequently had phone issues when we lived together, and had several different #s in 5 years. I reached out to him to check in 5 years ago and never heard back. I hope he’s ok.
Image source: gmanasaurus
#23
First college roommate rarely did laundry and would “borrow” my underwear – especially for dates – and return them dirty (unwashed).
I told him in unequivocal terms to keep his hands off my junk, but he’d borrow whatever he needed anyway.
Image source: Back2Bach, Fahad Waseem
#24
I taught a roommate how to boil water. Iced tea was the first thing, other than sandwiches and salads, that she had ever made.
Image source: maruffin, Joe Pregadio
#25
He started watching me from dark corners of the house at night if I was in the common areas. Super f*****g creepy
Image source: Enough-Salamander919, charlesdeluvio
#26
A few years back my former roommate and I let our downstairs neighbour move in with us because the guy he was living with had taken up a new habit.. he’d befriended the pigeons that hung out on the rooftop outside his bedroom window and eventually started taking them inside and caring for them like pets. S**t got real dirty real quick.
Image source: neuro_illogical, Vicky Deshmukh
#27
In my freshman year of college, I got a roommate who had absolutely no boundaries. The night before classes started she asked if she could have one of my granola bars and a kcup for coffee the next morning and I said yes. After that she just kept eating my snacks and using my kcups without asking and I didn’t realize until I got really shaky from not eating and went to get a granola bar and noticed they were all gone. She constantly went through my stuff and would stalk what I did so she could talk to me about absolutely everything I do. Eventually she told me she would only stay in the room over night on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday so her boyfriend could give her a ride to class, but she would randomly barge into the room unannounced. In December that year I went to the ER cause I sprained my knee falling off a skateboard and I left the paperwork on my desk when I left for winter break. I got a call from her that night and she basically told me she read the papers and she read everything they prescribed me for my knee. I put in a room change request form right after that. Then the week before we got back she called me and told me she dropped out, or in her words “taking a semester off” cause she missed so many classes that she was on warning from financial aid. I had the room to myself for the rest of the year.
Image source: Primary-Skirt-2196
#28
I spent over a year falling asleep to the angry, muffled, whisper-but-not-really arguments between my roomie and his girlfriend. Just muffled enough that I couldn’t understand what the problem was, but they were clearly not happy together.
So I’d just lie in bed wondering, *what’s my duty of care here?* Like they weren’t violent with each other, and it wasn’t like one person was terrorizing the other, it was just two young people in a consensual and mutual spiral of despair.
Image source: NomenNescio13, Ron Lach
#29
If I had the screenwriting skills, I was, at one point, ready to write a pilot about a former roommate of mine. Things he decided as a 38 year old man after getting fired from his job for repeated sexual harassment: He would join the NFL and be the next jerry Rice! He would become a rockstar like Motley Crue and dyed his hair blond! He would become the next martial arts cinema star like Bruce Lee! He was going to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger and began drinking Protein Shakes!
In his defense, he was physically ripped, but he was half Taiwanese, half Chinese and was 5’7″ 110 pounds. He got up to 140 during his ‘Arnold phase’, then while trying to get his yellow belt at a local TKD studio, he told the instructor that he needs personal attention because of who he is going to be, and the master should give him private lessons for free. After the guy laughed in his face, he tried to pick a fight with him. When he decided to become a rock star, he decided he wanted to be a guitarist because they get chicks, but guitars are expensive, so he bought 2 drumsticks instead.
I couldn’t make up this s**t if I tried. Dude was absolutely not connected to reality and would get downright indignant if you tried to tell him his dream was not possible. Mix this personality in with attractive women and you have a recipe for disastrous sexual harassment claims. In the time I knew him, he was fired from 3 different jobs for sexual harassment and that was only about 2 years. For reference, his father was in prison for raping his 12 year old stepdaughter… at gun point.
Image source: joen00b
#30
My college roommate didn’t know how to do laundry before we started school. We had a community washer and dryer on our floor. Probably the third week of school, I went down to get a soda from the machine and I walk in and there are bubbles four inches deep on the floor. My roommate walks in behind me to check his laundry. He had put 3 full scoops of Tide in the washer with his load. I had to take him to an off campus laundromat to wash all of the excess soap out of his clothes.
Image source: micromaniac_8, Joe Pregadio
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