# Worse roommate: random stranger or a ghost? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 8, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814 "2014-02-08T03:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/41 "2014-02-10T20:44:34Z")
Is it Phantom Dennis? Is he good with a loofah? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/42 "2014-02-10T20:56:33Z")
I voted ghost Humans you can reason with, they have understandable tics and motivators. I have no idea what a ghost would do nor what motivates it. I can move away from the stranger or get him arrested, I can’t do anything about a ghost ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/43 "2016-09-24T08:32:12Z")
If everything is equal, then you have to be more upset by the stranger. If it’s a ghost, then your consolation prize is that you just discovered ghosts are real! You can see a real ghost. And they’re no more dangerous than some stranger. Now, if we go more realistically, I’d still go with the stranger, since every version of a ghost that I’ve heard can’t really do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/44 "2016-09-24T21:12:43Z")
I won’t take the random stranger because I know that they do exist. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/45 "2016-09-24T21:47:41Z")
Zombie ghosts? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/46 "2016-09-24T21:58:15Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#): > > Zombie ghosts? …Betcha didn’t see That comin’… :smack: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/47 "2016-09-24T22:54:58Z")
Undead thread. Who ya gonna call? ---
**Author:** ![Bibs\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f0a364/32.png) [@Bibs\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibs_McGee)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/48 "2016-09-26T10:07:53Z")
I have to say ghost. I’ve had about 6 or 7 paranormal experiences and most of them scared me to death. 1- a female ghost with long straw blonde hair in tattered robes appeared in front of me and scurried up the wall into a corner like Spider-Man. 2- the elephant man appeared by my bed. i blinked and he vanished. 3- a chair partially levitated in front of me. 4- an empty cup started turning in a circle on a coffee table. 5- i saw an invisible man. 6- a towel by my bed suddenly moved one foot to the right. 7- etc. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/49 "2016-09-26T12:48:06Z")
5—? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/50 "2016-09-26T13:10:11Z")
The ghost has plausible deniability. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/51 "2016-09-26T14:15:29Z")
I actually have come to like our ghost; I can’t say that about most of the various strangers who have crossed my path. So I’ll go ghost. ---
**Author:** ![Bibs\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f0a364/32.png) [@Bibs\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibs_McGee)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/52 "2016-09-26T16:51:40Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > 5—? the invisible man i saw was only partially invisible. i saw his outline and his body was filled with faint “television static” in the shape of a clunky spacesuit. what he was doing in my pajamas, i’ll never know… :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814/53 "2016-09-27T18:53:49Z")
Either would bug me, but a real live breathing person in my house would really bug me. Even when I like my occasional tennants in our third bedroom I hate them in my kitchen. I hate them moving my food in the fridge to find theirs, I hate them using my dishes but the space their dishes take up also annoys me beyond reason. If I don’t wash my dishes that night I feet like a slob but I resent feeling I have to do them to set an example. I fee guilty if I don’t offer them to have some of the food I make then hate them for eating it. Its a horrible trait of mine. I adore our current tennant, but the kitchen issues make me snakey. And yet we just told him to please stay with us a while longer! So no “Stranger in my house” fucking with my kitchen stuff will be tolerated. Maybe I should take this to mini rants. Please continue with thread. PS. I have had experiences can be more plausibly explained by the ghosts than natural phenomenon.\*\*\* I do not believe in ghosts\*\*\* but I have seen a few weird things that investigation by myself or others has not explained. None of them have bothered or frightened me so if I called them ghosts and accepted these as a ghosts I would prefer them to a sentient living being in my house! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worse-roommate-random-stranger-or-a-ghost/680814.md?page=2)