Roomate's disgusting habit...can I say something? And how?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m a first year University student, so I’m living in halls. Most of you know what that is, but if you dont, they move you in a flat with four/five strangers who they think you will get along with.

For the most part, it’s been fine, but one of my roomates is a little odd. And annoying.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s midly autistic or has aspergers. He’s got very few social skills and doesn’t really engage in eye contact when you talk to him, his room is impeccably tidy, and he’s a mathemagician.

That doesn’t bother me. What does, however, is his habit of clearing his throat loudly every few minutes. For the past few months, when you’re sitting in the flat you can hear a hawking sound and then some spitting. It doesn’t sound like he’s got a cold, just like he loves letting us know about his chunky lung butter. All the fucking time.

I’ve quietly spoken to the other flatmates, and they hate it and think it disgusting, too. I’m worst off, though, because I share a wall with him and it’s horrible to be woken up by Coughy McHawking. It’s worse and just plain embarrassing if I’ve got friends in the flat, too.

So I want to say something to him, but despite how annoying and disgusting he is, I dont really want to hurt his feelings. I thought about leaving him an annoymous letter, but he’ll probably realise it was me because no-one else in my flat would bother to do that.

So can I just say it straight out to him? Next time we’re both in the kitchen, how to I bring it up (poor word choice)? Alternatively, I thought about doing annoying things until he calls me on one of them and then I can so “Yeah, I’ll stop playing the bagpipes if you…”.

It’s getting ridiculous…is it still murder if the victim is REALLY infuriating? Dopers…I need your help!

2

Is he by any chance ethnically Chinese? Such throat clearing is pretty common and cultural. If he is Chinese, post back and will try give a culturally sensitive heads up on how to broach the subject.

3

I’m afraid he’s not Chinese. He was born and bred here, so I dont think it’s a cultural thing, other than he isn’t aware what’s polite/acceptable in the one he lives in. I think.

4

The only thing I could think of is to wait until he’s doing it in another room while others are home and bellow, “Who’s doing that? God, it’s disgusting!” That way, he wouldn’t be fronted-out by a personal chastisement, but would know that the habit annoys others.

You could also conspire with another roomie-- have the roomie do it while the guy is in the room, and then bless him out for being so gross. The guy could then think, “Well, gee, I do that!”

5

Make a joke about it. My coworker in the cubicle next to me was a loud eater. Every morning he would get a muffin, pull back the paper wrapping, and proceed to pick it with just three fingers (Middle, poiny, and thumb). He wouldn’t close his mouth while he chewed it and you could hear him lip smaking and breathing hard. One day I got tired of it and just mentioned (somewhat loud voice), “Hey, you want a spoon with that muffin?”. I went over a reassured him I was just joking around and he never did it again.

6

There is a fairly flexible technique for addressing various annoying things people do.

DESCRIBE - the situation in neutral terms. “You clear your throat a lot”
EMOTE - describe how the situation affects you “It’s loud and hard for me to concentrate.”
SUGGEST - a solution. “Would you mind going to the health center to see if it’s something medical?” (note: it may not be a cold, but could be allergies or some kind of chronic sinus thing. IANAD, but I really doubt he’s doing this just to be annoying).
CONSEQUENCES - Positive - “If you could clear that up, I’d really appreciate it.” Negative “If you can’t clear it up, maybe you should go to the restroom when you have to cough.”

If you can master this technique, it will serve you well in life. Good luck.

7

Possibilities:

Gastric reflux can cause problems with frequent “tickle in the throat” or coughing.

Tourette’s syndrome - coughing and spitting is a common tic.

Why don’t you ask the guy if something is wrong because you are worried about his health, you read somewhere that if you cough more than 4 times a day you should get it checked out.

8

Past few months? Like, since February? If so, maybe he just needs to start taking allergy medication, or switch to a better one.

9

OK…thank you for all your help and suggestions, guys!

I think I’m going to build up the confidence to ask him if he’s 100% when he next does it around me, and then mention that I’m concerned because it sounds like he’s got a pretty nasty cough…and slip in that it’s a little distracting!

I’ll gauge his reaction and then either carry on with the concerned act, or just tell him to shut up.

10

I like Harriet’s suggestions best – all of those seem very reasonable, kind, and doable.

I had a roommate once who had terrible BO. Really bad. The other guys and I discussed it, but we could never think of how to tell him, so all we could do was try to keep the window open as often as possible. The guy would also bite his toenails instead of cutting them, which was a new and rather disgusting idea for me.

11

You get a flat? As in a living room and maybe a kitchen? And a bathroom that you share with a maximum of five other people? And you have your own bedroom? And they assign people that they think will get along?

Cry me a river.

I’m going to go be grumpy alone now.

12

I was just going to say this.

Unfortunately, if you have crap in your throat, it’s a pretty uncontrollable urge to clear it. If he needs to do so with gusto, there’s not much you can do about it.

Be happy he doesn’t deposit the loogies on the top of a nearly full garbage can…so when you go to push the garbage down to get a couple more items in, you get slimed. In case you’re wondering…the answer is yes. I have first “hand” experience with this. I’ll take an audible offense any day of the week.

13

I’m really trying to be understanding to him, but my point is, he’s not really coughing. Actually just hawking, the way that you do if you wanna spit a massive loogie.

So I’m pretty confident that it’s just a habit and not anything serious. He doesn’t really cough so I think it’s just somehting he does.

However, I’ve just seen him in the kitchen, and I didn’t have the heart to bring it up. Guess I’ll have to go with putting up with it…

14

I had a housemate in college who would spend about twenty minutes hawking in the shower every morning. Since my room was right next to bathroom, I was the prime beneficiary of this lovely sound. Turns out, he had some pretty serious sinus problems that were causing it. He had some surgery several years later that apparently took care of it.

15

I sat next to a guy in the movie thearter just last night with this exact issue. Every two fucking minutes, without an ounce of exageration, the guy would snork his snot at the back of his throat. Really loudly.

I was in a foul mood last night too so I just about hauled off the hit the bastard. It was all I could do to resist the urge. He was there with his S.O. so it’s not like he’s completely antisocial and unaware of the problem.

I almost said something but I was in such a bad mood that I couldn’t trust myself to keep it civil and not have it escalate. I just bit my lip and chalked it up to a character building experience.

16

ugh, good luck with this. if my current roommate were renewing her lease, I’d have to figure out a way to bring up this same thing, so I definitely sympathize. my issue is, every single time she brushes her teeth, when she goes to spit (three-four times per session), she hawks. EVERY time. 4 am teeth-brushing in a shared bathroom is annoying enough, but when it’s accompanied by snot-hawking loud enough to wake the dead, it’s just this side of infuriating.

17

I knew someone who had a similar irritating habit, sniffing every 3-4 seconds. I approached her gently about it. She’s a Spec Ed teacher and once had her nose broken by one of her students. :eek: So just approach cautiously.

18

You need to start making fun of him. Make it a big joke among your roommates, and remind him of it constantly. Eventually, he’ll stop.

19

Eh.

Living with people is naturally infuriating. If it’s not hawking that bugs you, it’ll be bad music, or not washing the dishes, yelling on the phone, pacing, or smelly feet, or leaving the toilet seat up. Everyone has some annoying habits.

Get a white noise maker on your computer and whenever he hawks, try to think of how Buddha would have you react. If you focus on it, getting madder and madder as it goes on, you are just going to work yourself up and never be able to ignore it. But humans have an amazing capacity to learn to ignore background noise once they stop making it a big issue for themselves and getting all righous and indignent. It can be done, and if you are going to live with other people long, it should be done. I bet in ten years you are going to look back on this (perhaps from a loud messy house full of kids and pets and whatever) and say “Geez, I really was kind of uptight back then”. I know I do when I look back on the days when I was grumpy and pissed off at all my roommates, who at the time seemed like horrible inconsiderate beasts, but who I know recognize as being decent normal people just trying to live their lives.

Chances are all talking is going to do is make it stop for at the most a day. People can’t be an guard 24/7, and frankly people have a right to have some bad habits in the privacy of their room. The years almost over and next year you can live wherever you want (I highly recommend getting your own place somewhere. I was miserable in school until I got an apartment that I could keep how I wanted it).

20

I started to tense up just reading this one. I hate people who chew with their mouths open. I need to let my eye stop twitching.

I would joke about it and hope he gets the hint. It could be worse. A friend of mine had a roommate in her freshman year who was psycho. Like killing birds in their room psycho. No one believed her (apparently this girl was the master of deception), not even her own mother. “You just don’t like her. Try being really nice to her”. What the hell was she supposed to do? Join in on the bird slaughters.

A year after they parted ways, my friend ran into psycho’s sister. Yep, she had been committed to a psych hospital. Friend had fun calling her mother that day. Geez.

She had us all dead silent and not chewing at dinner that night.