I'm not your maid.

Okay, roomies…guess what? I didn’t come to college to play Cinderella.

I’m the one who constantly vacuums the suite. I also am the one that takes out the trash in my room and the bathroom. I also am the one who wipes off the bathroom counters, cleans the bathroom floor, and gets the clumps of hair that clog the drain out.

What the fuck? How on earth do I manage to do well in all my classes, to perform with the theatre department, have a social life, and CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR NASTY SELVES?! I’m not Superwoman, I’m just damned nice.

I’ve asked you all very very VERY nicely to please vacuum or empty the trash when it needs it, but do you do it? Noooooooo.

Suitemates: You collected cans to be recycled in the bathroom until I could’ve sworn I was peeing in the junkyard. So I crushed ALL those cans for you AND took them to the recycling bin down the hall, which is all of ten steps you couldn’t take.

Roommate: You have this bad habit of leaving food in the fridge unopened until it spoils or gets moldy and then have the audacity to yell at me when I throw it away. You also BARFED all over the place on Friday. Who cleaned it up? Not you, you fucking spoiled princess. Not your mom, who showed up to take you home. Oh no. I cleaned it up because I didn’t want to live in Puke Palace.

I also don’t appreciate the note whoever left on the bathroom door that said, “Whoever made the big mess, clean it up.” WE ALL MADE THE BIG MESS, YOU CUMDUMPSTERS! But who always cleans it up? Me.

And a nice little note to whoever dumped all the glass shards in the trashcan: When I find out which one of you did it, you will be eating these glass shards for dinner. And after you vomit them back up, I will use them for suppositories…because someone failed to mention they were in the trash and they cut through the bag and now I have nice cuts on my hand and finger from it.

So fuck you, you spoiled bitches. I don’t fucking care how hard your classes are or how much you miss home or how much you hate the room so you have to stay out all the time. PITCH IN AND HELP. Otherwise, I’ll take all the dust bunnies and hair clumps dripping with sludge and food remains and used tampons and I will DUMP THEM ON YOUR BEDS and CRUSH THEM INTO YOUR SHEETS.

Thank you. That is all.

Why don’t you actually do it?

Give it up. Anyone who has the crust, so to speak, to leave her puke for someone else to clean up is a lost cause. To bad you couldn’t have left it around and casually mentioned it in front of her mom. “Gee, Buffy, that must have been some party–when are you planning to clean up that pile of barf you left?”
Really, you’ve cleaned yourself into a corner. My hubby takes all the garbage cans out for our side of the apartment building every week. Why? Well, if he didn’t people would let theirs ferment for weeks, right under our windows. Does he get any thanks for it? Does anyone offer to alternate, or even get shamed into taking out their own trash for a change? Guess.

This thread could have been written about me.

Back in school, my housemates once put all the dirty dishes in my bed after I let them go for a week or so. (It was my turn on dish duty.)

I responded in my usual mature way by grabbing the bedsheet by all four corners, making a neat bundle, lighting the bundle on fire and throwing it out the window. That was not well received.

Since that little “incident,” though, I’ve learned to be a bit more tidy. By senior year, I was usually the guy telling everyone to pick up their empty pizza boxes and beer cans. It’s just one of those things - some people come to college not used to the idea of cleaning up after themselves. For some, college is where they learn to manage their own messes.

Make sure that your suitemates know the penalties for leaving messes. Make sure they know that any lingering trash will be swept up and placed on their beds if they let them go for too long. You might want to even draw up a rotation for common chores (emptying trash, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floors, etc.) They’ll come around.

Gah. That sucks. In college I shared a 7 bedroom house with 6 guys, 4 other girls, a dog, and a cat. We had 3 toilets, 2 showers, and only one refrigerator.

It was hell.

One of the guys didn’t believe in flushing. We all knew who it was because his favorite dinner was mac’n’cheese with chopped up hot dogs and CORN. Even faced with the evidence he still denied it.

We set up a rule that any dishes left on the counter for more than 48 hours would be placed in a box by the dumpster for a week, and if they weren’t claimed they’d get tossed. We agreed unanimously. Of course when they were actually tossed (by me) people completely flipped out.

I caught one girl moving my food out of the refrigerator to put hers in. She just left mine sitting on the stove. Nevermind the big Costco box-o-bageldogs with only 2 left in the freezer that belonged to her.

The really scary thing, I’m a first class slob. It takes a lot to gross me out or piss me off. You can’t imagine (or maybe you can) how bad it had to be to make me snap.

I’ll never have more than one roommate again. There’s no accountability otherwise.

Have you looked into the possibility of a cleaning service for the common areas? For my 2 bed 2 bath apartment it’s 40 bucks a week. If you can get them to help with the bill it might be worth the cost.

You could also try your RA. This is obviously stressing you out and probably affecting your sleep and school work. The school probably has resources to help. As much as it sucks for you, I’m sure they’ve heard it before and have a suggested plan of attack.

Good luck.

Who’s name is the phone bill in? That’s where rommates can do more than puke on your landlords carpet and screw you out of your security deposit - they can reach for the stars and screw up your credit rating.

Slithy–I live in a dorm. No landlord, no security deposit. And we can’t make long-distance phone calls on the phone in our room. It just simply won’t dial them out.

I use my cell phone for long-distance calls, and that’s hidden from my suitemates/roommate.

By the way, there is no “common area” that I clean. There’s a foyer, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. I’m usually stuck vacuuming my room, the bathroom, and the foyer. (I don’t dare go into my suitemates’ room without their permission.)

Nocturne, don’t imagine it will ever stop. You will graduate, get a job and work with the same inconsiderate pigfuckers as live in your dorm.

…or marry them.

my s.o. is perfect in all ways but one: he is a huge slob.

now, i myself am not an incredibly clean person. it takes all of my willpower to keep our apartment from turning into a stinky garbage heap. and i am only spurred on by the joy of seeing good results.

when the s.o. does not keep up his share of the housework, no matter how well i do my job things do not look or smell clean, and i lose my motivation.

i’ve tried everything. i’ve cut back his chores to the bare minimum. all he has left is doing the dishes, taking out the garbage, and generally picking up after himself (ie, not leaving empty mountain dew cans around and actually putting the brush up when he’s done with it.) i do everything else.

amazingly, this is too much for him. we’ve been using disposable plates/cups/silverware for about two months now and the sink stinks the entire apartment. the garbage, which needs to be taken out once a day, usually gets taken out once a week. and that’s only the kitchen garbage. god forbid he’d empty the bathroom garbage which is full of dirty diapers. the worst part is that he is totally incapable of even the basics. i am constantly finding hs clothes carelessly strewn about, his hygene products left wherever they happened to drop, and a growing pile of soda cans, snack wrappers, and dirty socks all around the computer desk.

i figure i have two choices. i can either do his chores while performing mine, or leave his and point them out later. when i do the latter, he tells me how childish it is that i cleaned up around his messes. when i bring up the fact that this is a recurring problem, he points out every little thing that he did do. as if everytime he manages to do a half-assed rendition of part of his chores i should jump for joy and shout, “it’s better than nothing!”

How’s this for a step towards a solution?

Do the dishes. But first scrape off all the food onto their beds. Even better if the scum in question (the roomies, not the crusted food) are still in bed when you do this.