I've had enough

The BBQ Pit
1

Almost everybody has had a bad roommate, right? The guy who left the toilet seat up, the girl who never hung up the towels so they’d dry, or the one who was perpetually late with their half of the rent. You know the type. Well, I have one, and I’ve had enough.

First, a bit of backstory. I got back from Iraq this past March and recieved temporary housing at my base. Now, Air Force dorms aren’t bad, but they’re small. Seeing as I wasn’t sure if I was going to remain at Shaw, or move on to another posting, I wasn’t going to apply to get real housing (plus, I’m single, and going to get out in a few months anyway, so the dorms it is.) Two days back home, and I’m in touch with one of my oldest friends, lets call him Michael (or just Mike.) Well, Mike, being the great guy he is, is about to go homeless due to no fault of his own (well, he failed to plan. The two folks he was rooming with got married and moved on him. He could swing his apartment for only two months on his own.) So, after an evening of swilling $1.00 pints at our local hole in the wall, I say “Well Mike, we’ve been friends for years. I’ve got a two bedroom lined up. It’s only $550 ($275/person) a month, plus half of the utilities (it’s all utilities included, save for water/cable/phone.) Hell, that’s less than half of what you were paying living with Pete and Randi.” Facing a hard life on the streets, living out of his ancient red pickumup truck, Mike jumps at the chance. Move-in was Monday, March 21.

Fast foreward to tonight. No rent. He owes me a full month now. No utilities, same deal. Not that he can’t pay. He does have a full time job as an assistant manager at Blockbuster, making close to $11/hr. I know this because I got the info from him before I let him sign on as a member of the ‘household’ on the lease. He’s never brought any food into the apartment. Ever. He’s never washed the towels. Ever. To the best of my knowedge, he hasn’t cleaned any of the common areas in the apartment. He’s never washed any of the dishes. I have to don my body armor and MOPP gear to enter his room to retreive the plates, glasses, and assorted cutlery which accumulate on his computer desk. I worry that he may be a terrorist or something, trying to brew up a weapon in the crusty bowls of microwave chili and glasses of dried Pepsi. Lord knows that after he ‘raids’ the pantry, the next day he becomes a chemical weapon (ok, a less-lethal one, like CS gas.) But flatulance aside, he’s a slob and he steals my beer. That would get most folks thrown out of an apartment in which you are not the leaseholder. Seeing as we’ve been friends forever, I’ve let this ALL slide.

And for the past half hour (starting at 1120pm or so), screaming. Lots of screaming. Oh shit, now it’s two people screaming in the room next to mine. Well, not screaming. Its more of a high pitched moaning punctuated with a nails-on-the-chalkboard “OHMYGODYESYESYES!!!AAAAAEEEEE!!!” Yes, Mike’s girl Sara (her real name. I use it, because otherwise I’d have to drop ‘dirty slut’ on there instead) likes to vocalize when they fuck. She lives in the next town over, so she’s over here three or four nights out of the week (also consuming the apartment’s foodstuffs and drinking my fucking beer, not bothering to replace it.) I won’t say its every time, because it’s not. It’s MULTIPLE TIMES, EVERY FUCKING TIME! In three months, I’ve had perhaps twenty nights of good sleep. I’ve gone so far as to use my ear foamies (41dB rated noise reduction,) and it does not help. I really, really want to go throw them both out, right fucking now. I’ve had enough.

I can’t keep food in the place, it’s often a sty (as I’m on duty six days a week, with one day off to launder my BDU’s), some days I can’t find a clean plate, I’m being nibbled to death by his not paying his share of the bills, I’m losing sleep, can’t bring my girlfriend over, and frankly I’m ready to just lob a grenade in there the next time they wake me in the middle of the night. No, no, that’s illegal. Hmmm…perhaps lobbing an angry Shi-tzu instead? Anyway, thanks for the time.

2

Pitch him out! Throw him out! WAAAAAY OUT!

Sorry, just thought you needed a little cheering. :wink:

3

And you haven’t kicked him out yet because…?

4

Perhaps you should consider [Fumigation

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For Those Difficult Situations

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5

Suggestion for the next time you meet:

“Mike, we have been friends for a very long time. If we’re going to stay friends, you are moving out in seven days. Even if we are not going to remain friends, you are moving out in seven days. Whatever happens, whatever you have to do, in eight days you will not be living here; if you make it necessary, I will have you and your belongings removed. There is only so much you can walk all over my good nature, and you went over the limit. You owe me several hundred dollars, you’ve made my apartment a HAZMAT site, you steal my food and my beer, and I can’t get a decent night’s sleep because of your sex life. That is coming to an end. You are moving. Start packing, or have it done for you. You might have been OK as a friend, but as a roommate, you are moving in seven days.”

6

Excellent suggestion, fishbicycle.

7

Are you sure you’re not just jealous he has a girlfriend?
[sub]Please don’t hit me Mr. Air Force guy[/sub]

Kick him out; you’ll feel sooo much better, I know this from experience. Totally worth the trouble and expense, though I’d hope he’d eventually pay you what he owed. Only, if he were much of a friend he wouldn’t be treating you this way, I suppose.

8

I had one of those. He used most of the common food and bathroom supplies but never replaced them…ever, very late on paying bills if at all, used up every fucking dish in the house and didn’t wash them (once there were maggots), wiped the blood from when he cut himself shaving on the other roommate’s towels, threw plates in the garbage (not his) instead of cleaning them…the list goes on.

There were three of us sharing the house and he was a childhood friend of the other roommate. Since I was the one paying the bills, and making sure shit didn’t fall apart, I was the totalitarian asshole. When he finally moved out, to live with another old friend, he and the other guy made constant snide remarks about what it would be like to not live with the dictator anymore. Whatever.

One month later the new roommate stopped by, almost in tears of frustration, asking me how the hell I dealt with that guy. I just kind of laughed and said, “he’s your problem now.”

Haj

9

fushj00mang in my many years of crappy roommates, there is one thing I have learned: when you’re pissed say something (oh and never room with a friend, but it’s too late for that). Your friend is not psychic. He’s stupid, but not psychic. So I suggest you tell him your issues.

Write a list, approach him calmly, and tell him if he can’t abide by the rules, he’s out. Here is my list (I know some things seem goofy, but it’s many moons experience)

  1. Pay the damn rent. On time.

  2. Steal my stuff, and your out. Stealing is defined as taking anything I own without my permission. This includes such items as: Food, beverages, laundry detergent, clothes, cars, and of course money.

  3. Do not do anything illegal in my place. This includes drugs (selling and using), and serving minors.

  4. Any “guest” who stays more than one night a week is now a roommate, and starts to pay rent (or you can leave, this is at my discretion)

  5. I am not your fucking mother. Clean up your own damn stuff. If it’s too dirty for my mother to come over, it’s too damn dirty. Clean up weekly at a minimum, or you’re out.

  6. I will give you two weeks notice of what is pissing me off before I actually kick you out, so as to allow you to remedy the situation. However, remember, this place is in MY name, therefore I make the rules. If you don’t like if, feel free to leave now.

It’s best to give the list prior to move in, but it’s never too late.

10

I feel yer pain, fushj00mang. I had one of those too. I was flat broke and needed a roomate desperately just to make rent. I was talking to this guy I vaguely knew over a few beers and he offered to move in immediately. I knew the guy was a bit eccentric, but I didn’t realize he was batshit insane. He would go on and on about all the rock stars he knew–Joe Strummer, Hank Williams III–and how they would soon come to our apartment to jam with him. He also fancied himself a chef and would cook massive amounts of glorp of one sort of another and tell me “You’re in for a treat, Larry, this is the best pasta you’llever eat.” There would then be this big pot of enough food to feed a prison wing sitting in the kitchen. He would drink and smoke weed at all hours, from when he woke up at the crack of 1:00 pm to whenever he passed out. Once I saw him repeatedly walk in too a closet, bang his head, and walk back out. He was unable to reason out that this was not the way to the living room.

After six weeks of this I’d had enough. I’d like to say I boldly confronted him with the facts and kicked him out, but I must report I used subterfuge. My best friend is a woman, and alot of people think she’s my girlfriend. (She used to be. We’ve got kind of a Jerry and Elaine thing going on, but that’s another story.) I told him she was moving in in a month, so he had to move out. He accepted this better than he would have accepted “Dude, you’re fucking nuts and I can’t live like this.” Fortunately I’d been living here for years and was the only name on the lease. He paid me and not the landlady, so I had the law more or less on my side. He found out the ruse just after he left. It was pretty obvious no one was moving in when he came for the rest of his stuff. He left a couple of drunken rambling threats on my phone, but when I went to his workplace to confront him about this he was all apologies. I haven’t seen him since. I think he went to New Orleans, but I don’t really know, or, at this point, care.

If your roomate is driving you nuts and it’s your place, you’ve gotta get rid of him. That’s I guess the point of this story. You can make new friends, not new sanity. Do it by any (legal) means necessary. You can copy fishbicycle’s excellent speech, use subterfuge like I did, or do something else entirely. Even if it costs you a friend, you’ll still be glad you did.

11

This, in and of itself, deserves an Article 15.

If your name is on the lease, he’s late with rent, you need to go into MOPP 4 to enter his room, &c, &c, then . . . uh, you get my drift. You don’t need his bad karma.
And on an off topic subject, if you’re working six days a week, I’m betting you are a 3P0X1. Am I close?

Tripler
32E3E

12

I lived with one of these nasty bastards, I feel your pain. When he moved in everything came in a garbage bag, all clothes, he had not one dish or piece of furniture. To start off with he very rarely showered, and smelled to high heaven, fucker slept on the living room floor, and when I bought a new futon, he took up on that, my mother felt sorry for him (he was 30 at the time) and bought him a bed, it sat in the stairs for 2 months until me and one of my friends decided to put it in his room for him. His room had this lovely pungent odor of shit, and not even an inch of floor space, and was not one piece of furniture in there. While shoveling what smelled like shit towards the walls to find a place to put his bed, we found maggots living amongst his fragrant wardrobe, by the time we were done, his bed was in place and it was the lowest point in the entire room.

This dipshit, (are all assholes named mike?). Got himself a DUI, so me being the nice guy(gullible) that I am would drive him to work, at 7pm (bartender) and get up at 3:30 am to go pick him up before I went to work at 5:30, did this lazy fuck ever even buy me a beer, hell no, the lazy bastard never even said thanx. If I wasn’t around to bring him to work he was known to oversleep by several hours to be at work at 7PM. I’d have a couple of people over to have a few beers in the afternoon sometimes and there was his nasty carcas either on my futon or sprawled on the floor and we’d drink and party and have a good old time, and the whole time this slug was snoring away, people stepping over him emitting this wonderful smell of ode-idontshower.

One time, i’ve posted this before, me and a friend were drinking with him and I went to bring her home because he was obnoxious to her and when I get back, I get to the door and I hear moaning, good porn style moaning, I walk in and guess what?.. Its porn, very loud porn, the slug is passed out on the floor, the coffee table is flipped over and hes wearing a fucking snow suit IN JUNE, he was wearing shorts when I had left 20minutes earlier. Its unzipped so that I can see a nice little tuft of curly pubes sticking out and he had pissed himself (wish I had a camera back then). So I say fuck it, I’m going to walk to the bar down the street, and when I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, there is a bottle of ‘hot cock’ lotion on the sink, great, gum works, I went and tried to scrub my brain of the images with vast quantities of alcohol.

The slug would cook, and then throw my cast iron pans into the sink to soak, and rust. I would have rather had them sitting on the stove with crap in them than in the sink rotting, what a fucking asshole. Dishes, he thought they magically washed themselves, food, it just appeared in the fridge, I went on vacation once and made sure to use the last of the toilet paper, when I got home there is a pile of dunkin dognuts napkins on the back of the shitter, CLASSY!! Actually from the way he smelled most of the time, I’m surprised he even wiped. There is the time he puked all over the bathroom and when I woke up to take a leak, ended up sitting on the kitchen counter scrubbing my feet in the sink, thats also were I eventually had to relieve myself, gross I know, but I wasn’t going back in the bathroom.

I also had two cats and he used to brag at the bar he worked at about how far he could throw them, how hard he kicked them etc… I was gone for the weekend once and when I came back one cat had a huge gaping gash down the front of her leg and the other one was cowering under the kitchen table and wouldn’t let me near her, she stayed there for 2 days, I brought her food and water, but I don’t think she ate or drank.

I finally said fuck it and moved out, the landlord was threateneing to take my cats to the spca, I’d had them for two years and she knew, but got a bug up her ass, apparently her and the slug had made friends and I was treated to nice big bunch of threats when I tried moving. When I left, there was not on dish in the kitchen, and not one bit of furniture in the entire apartment, except the bed my mom bought him. I left him one cheapy phone and told him I had called the phone company and he needed to call with his info to swap it over. He never did, and I was the big asshole because I had the phone shut off on him and took the TV and the futon, and the dishes, and the microwave and everythnig else. Now the fucker still owes me $996 dollars, its been about 5 years and I pretty much have written it off, but it still pisses me off.
My suggestion, kick the slob out or clean the toilet with his toothbrush.

13

Thanks for the suggestions on all counts. I’ve drafted a letter, and will send it certified mail tomorrow to his place of employment (that way Mike can’t argue he never recieved it.) When he gets it, we’ll discuss all the new rules. As of now, the standing rules in my apartment are:

1: Rent and utilities must be in my hand no later than the second of each month. Any later, and you must leave by the 9th.
2: Food and drink that is brought into the apartment must be replaced immediately after consumption. If not, pay up the actual cost and I’ll replace it with the money (I get a better deal at the commisary than he does at Food Lion, so he’ll probably opt for this one.)
3: The apartment must be cleaned at least once a week. Duties will be split between the two of us and the assignments will be agreed upon.
4: Dishes must be washed within twelve hours of being dirtied.
5: Any guest may stay one night a week, without penalty. More than one night, they must pay $21/night for every night spent over. If you wake me up for anything that ain’t an emergency (such as through loud music or sex induced screeching) that triples. And I will barge into your room just so you know that you’ve done so.

In any case, thanks for the advice. It was sorely needed.

PS: Tripler, sir, 3P051. I’m getting out in four months, and am only one year from finishing my undergrad in chemistry. Hoping to come back as 32E1K. I love explosives.

14

Sounds good (if still pretty damned lenient) - but, like Dr. Phil would say, consistency is key here. No threats that you aren’t willing to take to the wall. He is acting like a child, so I guess you get to act like a parent.

15

I’m confused.
You didn’t mention what you say to him EVERYTIME you take dirty dishes out of his room.
You didn’t mention what you said to him when you confronted him about the beer, the noise, the mess…
He thinks your the “wife.” He’s a slob and a user, and you allow it.
Did you talk to the people that left him with a place he couldn’t afford? I bet he did the same thing to them.
Tell him exactly what bothers you. Make sure he’s looking ant you then tell he every time he fucks up. 3 strikes… he’s out. Maybe he’ll change.
He won’t though. Users never change they just move on and use up someone else.

16

Here’s a question though. Are you really up to enforcing all the rules and playing apartment judge, jury, and executioner for any rule violation? Do you really–as featherlou puts it–want to act like a parent? A parent to a grown man? Are you prepared for him to play teenager to your parent? i.e.“You don’t own me you goddam Nazi!!” It just seems like a lot of stress to me. Personally I’d give Mike notice and time to find a new place, but sever the roomate thing as painlessly as possible.

That’s just my advice, of course. YMMV and all that.

17

Your plan of action sounds good, but I’m with those who are voting for him to leave (or for you to leave). It’ll be so much better than trying to make him actually take responsiblity for himself. He’ll probably get defesive and people on the defensive can get nasty.

I had an interesting roomate once - I would find her clothing in a pile in my room in front of my full length mirror: socks - pants - underwear - shirt and the bra draped on top. Which means she was doing something naked in front of my mirror while I was gone! (She’s a doper now, but hopefully won’t read this.) :smiley: Not to mention the food I’d find in odd places in my room.

I started out gently, but eventually moved to hanging her bra and underwear in the tree in front of our house for her to find when she got home. Ah, good times. :smiley:

But for your problem, if you really want to keep living with him, I guess enforcing rules and being upfront of the way to go. Me? I’d probably hide my beer in my closet. I’d probably buy a mini fridge, such as the hello kitty one, because who would suspect beer in a hello kitty mini fridge?

Good luck!

18

The OP’s roommate sounds like a germaphobic choir-boy next to any roommate I’ve ever had. That’s not just one-upmanship, either. I’ve had some seriously fucked-up roommates.

My last “roommate” (he wasn’t even my roommate, but my roommate’s boyfriend), among other things:

[ul][li] set my porch on fire[/li][li] destroyed our kitchen sink[/li][li] tracked dirt and mud through the brand new carpet every day[/li][li] played music - LOUD - all night every night (even though he worked 7am-4pm, he generally went to sleep as soon as he got home and woke up around midnight)[/li][li] smoked pot in the living room every day, even though no one else in the apartment smoked it, and also occasionally huffed nitrous[/li][li] stayed perputually drunk and often fell down and spilled his drink on the carpet without ever cleaning it up[/li][li] invited friends over while I was out of town and got into a huge fight, splintering our coffee table and putting 4 big holes in the wall[/li][li] wore my clothes and “borrowed” (read: stole) my DVDs without asking[/li][li] threw a fit and threatened violence whenever he was called on any of his cro-magnon behavior by anybody[/li][li] cheated constantly and expected me to recite elaborate lies to cover for him, threw a fit and threatened violence if I refused or didn’t get every detail exactly right, even though he invariably ended up screwing himself by forgetting his own lies[/li][li] threatened to shoot me when I had had enough and moved out, even though I made arrangments for my actual roommate, gave plenty of notice, and left no one with any extra finacial burden[/li][li] never paid a dime in rent or bills[/li][li] exhibited all the standard crappy-roommate behavior like never cleaning, eating all the food even though he never bought any, drinking all the beer and liquor even though he never bought any, leaving dishes and dirty clothes everywhere, etc…[/ul][/li]
This was all in the span of 5 months. It stressed me out so bad I got shingles.

All this and I’m not even sure if he was my worst roommate ever…Yep, I’ve had some shitty ones…

19

Jeebus.

I’ll not complain about the one I had in college who scratched ALL my glasses (as in drinking–I collected them–everyone needs a hobby) with her diamond ENGAGEMENT ring. That word is capped, because wherever we went, she pointed IT out to everyone…

Or the one who wanted me to lie for her (to her mother) about her nocturnal habits. Once is no problem, but daily?

Or the one who used to do the NY Times crossword in PEN and do it incorrectly…

Guess my nightmares are small beer, here.

:wink:

as to the OP–fer Gawd’s sake–kick this one to the curb. Ugh. Who needs trash? Get on with your own life.

20

First off, in most states you just can’t kick some one out on a monents notice. You have to go to court and have him evicted. (or notice to vacate) if you’re lucky this can take three weeks. Usually it take 4 - 6 weeks before you can get a court date. Then after the court date he’ll have two weeks to vacate.

Second, Why is the GF a dirty slut? :dubious: I’m hopping you just typed that out of anger.

But yeah personally I’d be on my way to court first chance I got. Screw the whole talking bit. If some one doesn’t have the common sense to know these things in the first place, then I don’t want them living with me.