My Roommate Situation

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Just get outta there.

You’re uncomfortable, or you wouldn’t have created this thread in the first place. Life’s hard enough without home being an unnerving and uncomfortable place to be.

You’ve got a lot of other things in your life to focus on, and you need to be able to focus on them, so find yourself a new place, some nicer roommates, and do it.

You shouldn’t even have to ask whether you’re in legal trouble from what your roommates do. Regardless of the answer, your need to post the question demonstrates they’re not good roommates.

22

Repeat, IANAL, but police will arrest everyone living in the house of a drug dealer. And the fact that you knew your roommate was dealing will work against you, especially if you did nothing about it. By default, you are condoning his actions, if not flat out helping him get away with his crime. Lawyer Dopers, does that sound righ?

I’m not trying to be condescending. No, I haven’t been in your situation but I still have a brain and I can tell when someone is in a danger. Yes, I am older than you and in this case I am wiser than you, as are a bunch of other people posting in this thread. And if calling you kid upsets you more than the fact you may be arrested and charged with drug dealing, then I can’t help you. I’m trying to draw attention to the fact that you are acting very naively about this situation, if not immaturely.

In other words, we’re trying to help you.

23

You don’t have to be

24

*#@^^%$ cat.

As I was posting before I was so rudely interupted by Cricket and the “paw of terror” - You don’t have to be using a drug to be in possession of it. Dealers out to make serious money don’t use their product.

25

Exactly. It sucks up their profit. You can’t make money in a candy store if you gobble all the chocolate.

26

I understand your need to equivocate their actions, you’re a college student not a narc.

It’s a natural time of life to be open and liberal in one’s thinking. Who wants to get all judgemental on their housemates.

So one’s a gay prostitute, he’s doing it in NYC, doesn’t really impact you.
The other’s a big pot head who dabbles in a little coke, maybe sold it once in a pinch.

But by your own admission one of them is already confidently deemed a fucktard.

The potential futures that lie within these few parameters are numerous. Yeah, it could just continue as it is, no biggie. Or, on a dime, it could turn into something truly wicked. Truth is you are in a pretty target rich environment for things to turn out badly, whether you can see it or not. And as a college student, you should be able to see it in my opinion.

I’m not going to play ‘what if’ with you, but if you were hearing what everyone here was trying to say, you’d move. We all see that this situation could go from annoying to far worse rapidly and you could find yourself caught up in circumstances not of your making. Too late for you to find the strength to acknowledge what you obviously sense.

You, my friend, are standing on the edge of a precipice. You strike me as an intelligent being, I believe you can see the potential for ill outcome that lies before you. If you ignore your own intuition on this, and the whole things goes south, rapidly and badly, you will have had a hard lesson in over riding your own intelligence to take the easier path.

I’m with the rest, leave like you’ve been shot out of a gun. It’s not even September yet.

27

Having housemate concerns always at the back of your head won’t help with your college work, and won’t help with your relaxation and enjoyment when you’re not busy working. Best get out somehow, really.
Best of luck with it all.
:slight_smile:

28

Frankly, r4nd0mNumb3rs I can think of a half-dozen crazier living situations without leaving my circle of good friends. And I’m a responsible professional.

I’m not too worried about occasional drug use among roommates, either. People like drugs, and if they’re smart they do it at home where they’re relatively safe. Most people who use drugs will occasionally sell some off to a friend, and it’s very rare that this gets busted, seeing as it’s too low-level for police to bother with. On the other hand, there is always the possiblity that some cop will gets aggressive one day and the apartment will get busted, so I would definiately keep an eye out for a better living situation. If you find out that this guy is selling to people he doesn’t know well, or if his use gets worse, accelerate your search. If things get seriously scary, don’t be afraid to abandon everything and run.

As for the guy moving to NYC to whore: good luck, dude. I know two men here who’ve tryed it, and there sure isn’t much money in it for men (as opposed to women) in New York. One barely kept his head above water for a few years, and most of the money came from his rare female clients. The other supplements his day-job income, but work is sporadic. There’s too much out there for free, and a constant stream of new boys moving into town. The prevelance of meth use in gay clubs also means that there are a lot of pretty young addicts willing to do most anything for $20 (and doped-up clubbers goin’ at it for free).

I do think your living situation is going to crash and burn eventually, since neither of these losers is going to be able to pay rent for long. So keep looking, but don’t panic. And do buy a lock for your door, that’s just common sense.

mischievous

29

That’s meaningless, amigo. When the cops run a warrant on that place, they will arrest anyone and everyone on the premises. And it will not matter one whit whether you are clean or not, you’re still going to jail. You’re still going to have to pay big bucks to bond out, get a lawyer, etc., etc. And it will hang over your head for the rest of your life.

To be very blunt - you were stupid to move in there knowing that someone was dealing drugs in that house. Don’t continue to be stupid. Wise up and get out of there before your ass gets fried in the fallout.

30

In my experience, people belong to two groups: People, and Potential Fucktards. The former group is much, much larger than the latter. Part of your success in life will come from being able to quickly and efficiently place people you meet into the proper group.

You’re young yet (and I’m not trying to be condescending, just truthful, and blunt, while I’m at it, because I think you need that) and life experience will teach you this after a while, but learn from this situation. Persons who use drugs usually have the propensity to be Fucktards. IME, they have little regard for their own welfare, and by extension, very little regard for others.

Additionally, you are protecting them. “It’s not really as bad as it seems” ?? I understand that an amazing number of people smoke marijuana. But relatively, I think, cocaine users are a significantly smaller group of people.* I was raised that all drugs are bad, that pot use leads to coke use leads to heroin use, yadda yadda yadda. But as an adult, I see that people using pot as a recreational drug may not be all that bad, as long as they do so responsibly. I’ve known many people that other than their drug use, I’ve thought of as upstanding, fine people. Therefore, over the years, I’ve modified my stance on pot use.

But I (personally) put coke and heroin (anything illegal other than pot) in a much different class.

Just my advice: get out before you get into legal trouble. It’s just not worth it.

  • (Fellow Dopers [heh] help me out here – am I out of touch with reality? Is cocaine use much smaller than pot use? Do I need to get out more?)
31
  1. I didn’t know when I moved in that my roommate was doing hard drugs regularly.
  2. He’s not a dealer. I’ve emphasized this before. And if you’re thinking there’s hardly a difference between a casual drug user and drug dealer you are remarkably naive about the world of drugs. Or to be very blunt - try reading the OP before you insultingly reply to a thread.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet but I’ll definitely take the responses from this thread into consideration.

32

Well, you know now.

I don’t think we’re saying there’s no difference between a drug user (I don’t personally believe in casual cocaine use - it is extremely addictive, you know) and a drug dealer; I wouldn’t live with either.

We are really, truly, honestly not trying to attack you here, r4nd0m. We are really, truly, honestly afraid for your safety in this situation.

To get more perspective on the situation, why are you considering staying with these two?

33

r4nd0m, may I make a suggestion?

Forget the drug issue. I happen to believe it’s more than enough reason to skip the joint, but you’re not sure.

Let’s forget the prostitution, too.

Look at the other facts you’ve mentioned:

They have started to let living conditions go to crap over the summer.

        Do you want to end up being their houseboy, on top of trying to keep up in classes?

You are concerned about the sorts of people they’re letting into the apartment. Enough so you’re no longer sure that your stuff is safe.

        Do you believe that this concern is going to lessen as time goes on, or will it get worse?  Personally, I'm going to bet that it's only going to get worse.  Given that prediction - you shouldn't find yourself stressing when you get close to your rooms.  You'll have enough other stress in your life, as it is.

Either of the reasons I’ve just mentioned are, in my opinion, more than enough reason for you to want to get the Hell out of there, ASAP. Add in the drug use, and even casual dealing - and you’re facing a liability issue that you don’t need, on top of it.

Please, get out.

34

If he’s not dealing then you probably don’t have that much to worry about in terms of the cops knocking at your door. In answer to answer your question: If the drugs are in the house everyone in the house gets busted. You might or might not be able to convince anyone that you didn’t take part. Also, your roommate might or might not lie and implicate you to get cop some kind of deal for himself.

If this situation happened you’d be questioned seperately. He’s saying the drugs are yours, you’re saying they’re his. It’s your word against his. The police don’t know who to believe so you both go down.

I know, he wouldn’t do that. He’s not a bad person, right? You’d be surprised what a person will do to save their ass when they’re scared.

Enough of my soapbox. Sounds like you’ve got plenty of food for thought and I’ll second what OtakuLoki said. Good luck.

35

Just to be a voice in the wilderness … and a devil’s advocate:

I lived with a (gasp!) cocaine user. His girlfriend was also a cocaine user and she spent a lot of time at our place.

I know they were heavy users, but I don’t know any more details (how often, where they got it, etc).

They were perfectly delightful to live with. They didn’t steal stuff, they didn’t fill the place with their sketchy friends, they didn’t get arrested. Neither ever gave me a thing to complain about (except when he drank my ice wine, but that wasn’t a coke-related thing and he was very, very sorry - especially when he found out how much it cost!). He was a fantastic roommate and I’d live with him (or his girlfriend) again in a minute, much sooner than I’d live with most of my non-coke-addict former roommates.

Of course, and this is key: he was a considerate and thoughtful roommate who respected my (private) space and our (shared) space. That’s where Dave loses (ie leaving crap all over your new room), in my book.

It’s not the drug use, it’s the associated behaviours that you should be judging his suitability on. Has he stolen anything, or let in people who did? Does he clean up after himself? Pay his bills on time? Does he spend his life sitting on the couch smoking cigarettes (or otherwise making your shared space uninhabitable for you)? If those aren’t a problem, then the only worry would be that the house will get busted and you will be thrown in jail. This seems to me to be unlikely. Of course, I live in Canada where our drug laws are much saner so I’m not in a position to judge.

If he’s good enough, then get a lock on your door (if it will make you feel safe), make sure you have a deposit for any shared bills in their name, and hang in there.