I'm almost rid of the most annoying housemate I've ever had.

Okay, I sublet rooms to students and travellers to reduce my expenses, and so I’ve lived with a wide variety of folks for the past few years. Some of them haven’t worked out – but I’ve never looked forward to anyone’s departure quite so much as this guy.

Bear in mind that when I had to give the boot to the last guy, it was because he didn’t pay the rent, and some cracked-out guy that he also owed money to was coming around and threatening to beat the crap of him unless he found a way to make good his debts – and smoking crack in my house while he waited for restitution.

Even that guy, though, was less disruptive than this guy. That guy kept his drug habit hidden, and, until he failed to pay the rent and was given notice, the only hint I had of his dysfunction was that he started coming home beat up. Oh, and that the job he had when he moved in vanished in the first month. Until the day that his fellow crackhead showed up, the most obnoxious thing about the guy was that he started to spend too much time on the couch watching bad TV.

This guy… while reliable when it comes to paying the rent, and drug-free as far as I can tell, is just impossible to have around. I had no qualms about bringing him in, because I have a preference for foreign students. They are usually here to get something done, friendly, and interesting. (And they are much less likely to be crackheads. Funny, that.)

Anyway, this fellow is from Cambodia. He was earnest and friendly. He seemed to understand when I stressed that this is a quiet house – no partying, etc. Seemed good.

Oh my god.

I had no idea that a human being could be so noisy and obnoxious. He is friendly, but he’s like living with six people. Six loud people.

For example-- when he prepares meals, he beats them up. Okay, meat tenderizing isn’t that unusual, but I’ve never heard it done so loudly, so frequently, or for so long. This is a big house, but there is no corner in it which is far enough away to escape having your bones rattled by the sound of steel on flesh.

BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

The dishes rattle in the upstairs kitchen. And, I swear, he spends more time on this stage of preparation than he does actually cooking. He’ll typically start with a chicken breast, and reduce it to a sort of paste that can be squeezed into a little tube for consumption.

But you can’t ask a guy to change his diet to suit your peace of mind, even if pasta is a lot quieter. So you let that pass. Really, it’s the least of it, anyway.

His TV-watching habits, then. He likes sports. Fine. He likes that circus they call “wrestling” on TV. Okay. He’s actually pretty considerate with the volume of the TV. That’s great. Every few minutes, though, he’ll be impressed or shocked by something. Not great. He yells. At the top of his voice, like a beered-up 'Leafs fan watching the playoffs in a room with a dozen other beered-up 'Leafs fans. “YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” “AH, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” This is a bit startling.

But there’s only so much sports broadcast in a week. I can deal with that.

Now we’re getting to the main event:

The telephone.

This guy likes to talk on the telephone. A lot. Loudly. He also seems to have a lot of people who like to talk to him. Good for him. But it gets a little wearing. The routine strains the limits of credibility. It usually starts at about four in the afternoon. And then it goes on… and on… and on…

Now, I’ve heard, from many quarters, the old canard “Why do asian people have to talk so loud?” Personally, I’ve never observed this to be terribly significant. This guy, though-- he’s loud. Some of the people he talks to are pretty loud, too. Loud enough that I can hear them through the phone when I’m fifteen feet away. He gets very excited on the phone, and when he gets particularly excited, he starts making interjections in heavily-accented English – and I swear he’s channeling a mid-eighties Valley Girl. “OH. MY. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD!

I could probably deal with this, too. Actually, I can. Have been. What makes it especially hard, though, is the duration. He breaks for dinner, but typically he’ll wind down the phone thing at some point between 1:00am and 2:30am. Nearly every day, I have to come out around midnight and remind him that people are sleeping and he has to try to keep his voice down. More than once, I’ve been jarred out of a deep sleep by an exuberant “OH. MY. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD!

Now, some of you might think that I’m being a bit whiny about this. After all, it’s only ten hours or so a day. Except…

When he’s not on the phone, or watching TV, or preparing meals at decibel levels that would make an Aerosmith roadie wince in pain, he’s still just as noisy.

Right now, he’s singing. Some sort of a love ballad, it sounds like. He sings a lot. Loudly. When he’s not singing, he’s talking to himself. Not muttering, either. It often seems as though he’s just remembered something astonishing. At these times, he shouts something that sounds, to my ears, like “HEY, MA!”

When I started writing this, he was in the shower. He sings in the shower, naturally. You can’t really fault someone for that. That’s not really the shower behaviour that grates. It’s the throat-clearing. Horrible, wall-vibrating horking. It sounds like he’s bringing up phlegm from somewhere down around his toes. He can make a hork last four or five seconds, easy. Whatever he brings up, he ejects with an unnecessarily plosive “PAH!” And then he repeats… and repeats…

I went outside for a smoke to get away from that (my door is a quite close to the bathroom) and was dismayed to find that I could still hear it outside.

Ah, now he’s in the bathroom again, blowing his nose, and sounding for all the world like David Sanborn with a mouth full of novacaine.

Anyway, it’s just until August 31[sup]st[/sup]. I haven’t lined up anyone else to take over that room yet, and so will probably end up paying another share of rent for September.

You know what? I’m still feeling pretty cheerful about it. :slight_smile:

(While I was previewing, he started his daily telephone marathon. 2:55. He may be able to get eleven hours in today. It’s a good thing everyone else in the house has a cellphone.)

You have my sympathies.

I had a suitemate in college who spent all night on the phone. The wall between our rooms was thin, and I could hear freakin’ everything. When she went away for a weekend and left her answering machine on top volume, my boyfriend finally attempted to pick the lock just to turn it down.

You should have a quiet little celebration once he leaves.

Does he make noise when he eats? Slurpity schlurp, tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap with the spoon, schluuuuurp, schluuurp. Aaaaaah! Burp, buuuurp!

If this sounds familiar, you’ve let a room to one of my college roommates. It would have to be a re-incarnation though, because I killed her after one too many taps at three in damned morning.

You have my sympathies. My husband makes that horking sound. I wear earplugs to bed. He was in another room (though the doors were open). So, when I tell you that it continually woke me up in the morning, you should understand my full meaning.

I think the phrase, “shut the goddamn door!”* was yelled once or twice before he listened. I don’t normally talk to him that way; I’m just really foul-mouthed when I’m woken up unexpectedly.

Do you have earplugs, though? My husband is a very loud guy, and I live and die by 'em. They’ll stop just about anything…exceph the horking.