Shacking up with your boyfriend? Don't tell me you'll be my roommate!

The BBQ Pit
1

I know, when we both said “screw the dorms, I need a roommate and a flat!” at the end of last school year, we thought it was perfect to move in together.

I know, when I went up to Portland for the summer and you stayed in Ashland, you probably even thought it would happen.

I bet you even looked at a few houses and apartments, just like you promised. I bet that although you were living with your boyfriend, you really believed it was just for the summer. “I’m not ready for that level of commitment!” you thought to yourself as you fell into the daily routine with him: feeding his cat, helping him do dishes, paying half the utility bill…

But for the MOTHERFUCKING LOVE OF GOD, the next time you decide you want to keep living in sin with Sketchy Too-Old-For-You Small-Town Newspaper “Editor” Guy, TELL ME SOONER THAN THREE WEEKS BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS.

Three weeks! Three weeks to find an apartment, or crazy housemates, or buy a tent and camp in the park! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? Aside from “Boy pretty! Kitty nice!” If you had fucking TOLD ME, I could have started looking for a place to live a lot earlier (like you said you were doing, you lying whore), and not be stuck scrambling around for whatever scummy, dirty, mile-away-from-campus rooms are open.

FUCK YOU, YOUR BOYFRIEND, AND YOUR STUPID CAT, TOO.

2

3 weeks? Plenty o’ time. I once had a roommate bail with 12 hours’ notice.

3

Good luck.

4

Hell, one time I got home three days after rent was due to find that my roommate moved out while I was at work - and he hadn’t paid his half.

5

What happened to that guy who was willing to perform acts of heroism for movie tickets? Surely he operates a small craft of some sort manned by an eclectic and witty gang of renegades which would have room for you…

6

I once signed a lease with two other young ladies for a four bedroom apartment. The ink was hardly dry before the parents of Girl A persuaded her to move into a different apartment. Girl B and I (who hardly knew each other, having been introduced by Girl A who wanted to live with both of us) advertised for roommates, and filled the other rooms for the fall semester. Girl C actually lived there from August to May- moving out when there wasn’t enough time left on the lease to bother replacing her. Girl D moved out in December (but we knew she was going to when she moved in). Girl B moved out in February. Girl F moved in in February and brought her boyfriend(though not all the time) and two cats. (Did I mention Girl B had a cat- acquired when we moved in to the apartment and Girl C had two cats?) And because Girl E ( me) was an idiot, Girl F and I had no phone for the last six weeks I lived there. I lived there from August to July. I left grad school abruptly in July. I do not think this was caused by my living arrangments, but it sure wasn’t helped.

My experiences were such that when I decided to go back to graduate school, I decided it was worth it to pay 3 times the rent to have a nice one bedroom apartment all to myself.

So, I’ve been in your shoes. Or at least, I’ve come closer than any smart person would want to. Not to suggest that your situation is entirely your fault, or anything. But in retrospect- I think I’d have been wiser to not agree to live with Girl A since I knew she was flakey to begin with.

Not that anyone cares, but yes, I did have to scroll back up and make sure I was labeling Girl A correctly in my final paragraph. I labeled them “chronologically” rather than by their actual initials–I’m not sure I could tell you all their actual initials, and if that isn’t sad, I don’t know what is. But living with that assortment sold me on the usefullness of caller-ID in some situations. Since we didn’t know each other or each others friends, we could usually tell who had called us while we were out by checking the caller-ID. (Some of my friends lived together so I might not know who and why exactly, but I could at least tell whether I should listen to the messages on the answering machine. Although once I did have to explain to boyfriend of Girl C that no, a certain phone call had not come from someone trying to track him down. One of my friends worked in the same department he did. They kind of knew each other’s names and faces, but they weren’t working together.)

Umm, I’ll shut up now and back away from the keyboard . . . I seem to be trying to avoid real life by focusing on the past.

7

If it makes you feel better, I am in a similar situation; I had about a week and a half to figure out where I was going to live this Sept, and today wrote a check for a room in an ok place with a doesn’t-seem-like-she’ll-kill-me-in-my-sleep roommate.

There can be a light at the end of the tunnel! :slight_smile:

8

I LIKE it! We’ll fly around fighting crime and helping the helpless while I try to complete all my classes correspondence style. :wink:

My university has a message board for people who are looking for roommates/have space to rent, and I’ve fired off emails to four hopefuls. I’m not terribly worried about my future living situation, but I’m STEAMING MAD about the way Would-Have-Been-Roomie acted.

9

Time for one-upmanship?

When I moved to Los Angeles after college, my future roommate said I could sleep on her dad’s couch until we found a place together. I got to LA, sick with strep throat, and found out the day before my parents planned to leave for home that her dad said I couldn’t stay there. I called everyone I knew (which was, thankfully, many people) and found a bed for a week. We found an apartment on the fourth day and moved in just before I was to be kicked out of the bed I was in.

10

If he’s a sky-pirate, he’s a keeper!

11

When I was getting ready to move out of my last place, me and Mary still hadn’t signed the lease a week before the beginning of the month. For that matter, she only found us the place a few days before we signed (and don’t get me started on the hassles of moving day. I so owe Dad for that one). So, depending on the housing situation there, it can be done.

Me, I decided to move back into residence this year. Much less stressful. (And I got to pick my room :D)

12

I’ve just spoken with a very nice woman who rents her house to students during the school year – she’s got a room to fill, and I’m going down Labor Day weekend to take a look.

I think I’m also going to guilt Ditchy McDitcherson into being our Neil Gaiman Signing Field Trip driver.

13

Hell I just discovered that my current roommates had set electric fence up in the backyard and didn’t tell me. I was just about to touch it when, “what’s that crackling noise? Oh shit, it’s electrified.” Fucked if I know why you need an electric fence for in suburbia.

14

Well, at least you didn’t find out by getting drunk and pissing on it!

15

To keep the wombats out?

16

'Cause when you get hungry, you just go pick up some squirrels.

17

My first apartment, me and one of my dorm roommates wanted an apartment. We went to a private school that had some crazy rules and we wanted more freedom. At the time, I had no car and we worked together in a god-awful telemarketing company. We had this unspoken contract that I did all the housework if she would shuttle me around. This girl was a total slob by-the-way, she left dirty feminine products laying around and it was nothing to her to let mold grow on food. Yeah, gross I know, but I dealt with it because she was helping me.

So about 3 months into our lease, I landed my first job in my career and it was literraly two blocks from our telemarketing job. I told her I would work out my schedule to where she could drop me off and pick me up according to her schedule. During the same time, I had something tragic happen and I was going through a hard time. She decided she didn’t want to carpool with me because she was upset that I was leaving her alone in that job. I offered to pay half the car payment, half the insurance, and half the gas in the car. What do you want me to do? My career is more important than you feeling “alone”.

So I was forced to make a hard decision. She knew my situation and refused to help me, so I moved out. We battled with the leasing office, I wanted to break the lease, she didn’t. She wanted to punish me. So I kept paying my half of the rent.

About a month or so later, I went back to the apartment (since I was paying rent, I kept my key) to get the remainder of my personal belongings. Some other girl was sleeping in my bed, using my stuff. I had my mother with me and we both went into my room and woke the girl up. I told her I was taking my stuff. I asked her what was going on and why she was there. She told me my ex-roommate had moved her and another girl in. I asked if they were paying rent and utilities. She said no. I went through the roof. I told her “do you know I’m paying for you to live here?”.

I headed straight down to the leasing office and told them my ex-roommate had illegally moved someone in and I was refusing to pay another dime in rent. She got evicted, and although it ended up on both our credit reports, I didn’t care at the time and knowing she got punished for it made it all worth it.

Another one of my roommates, I loved to death. She had her 3 year old living with us and I helped her take care of him. We went through most of the year fine, until she met her (now) husband. He hated me for some unknown reason and made sure he drove a wedge between us, and she let him walk all over me. It went from I was the maid of honor in their weddding to he doesn’t even want me there. He tried to ruin my life and I will never forgive my old friend for letting him do that to me. She still tries to contact me, but I have no use for her.

Moral of the story: women don’t make good roommates. Except for my childhood best friend (who is more like my sister anyways), I have always walked away from leases hating my roommate. I hate living with women.

Good luck, I hope you get this resolved soon.

18

If wombats were 1 metre tall, this would work.

19

Ah, then these must be the 1950s Killer Mutated Wombats of Death.

20

pink marabou --now see, I lived with my best friend from childhood and it was that summer that started our slow slide into non-friendship.

Then again, I moved into a 3 bedroom apartment with a nursing school acquaitance and met her current roomie. Nursing school person went home for a weekend in October and new roomie and I discovered that we liked each other a great deal, but neither could stand nursing school person. I still keep in contact with the roomie–20 years later.
I say it’s complete luck of the draw. And I second living alone. If it’s at all doable–do it!