Rant: Don’t lie to your roommates.

…Because we’re not stupid.

Roommate problems. Everyone (I assume) in college has had at least one roommate that they could just live without. Instead of ranting for a few paragraphs, I’m going to write a letter to mine. If she sees it, good. It’s info she needs to know. If not, well, then at least some of you can relate.

Dear inconsiderate roommate,

If you were ever here, I could talk about this with you personally. Unfortunately, you are always at your boyfriend’s, friend’s or parent’s house; this makes communicating with you difficult from the beginning. In fact, you may have stayed here three times in the past three weeks (I’m not exaggerating… this is true.) And during those times, you have managed to microwave your nasty frozen sausage/bacon/hamburger patty and stunk-up the apartment, stolen my boyfriend’s beer (this is an accusation, not yet proven) and have not cleaned up your mess.

At first, I thought you were a crappy roommate only because it was your first college apartment and you didn’t know any better. Now, I realize that you really are just an inconsiderate/overly dramatic/irrational person.

In order to fully understand everything you do wrong, I’m going to make a list.

1. Honestly, my boyfriend does more to clean up the apartment than you do, and that’s practically nothing. I can count on two fingers the number of times you’ve taken out the trash. I can count on my thumbs the number of times you’ve done the dishes (once resulting in a broken dishwasher, btw). I have never seen you vacuum, straighten-up, throw any of your trash in the garbage can or do anything related to these tasks. I am not your mother. I will not clean up after you. You are an adult. Start acting like one.

2. You eat our food and don’t buy anything we would ever want to eat. You drank an entire case of my bottled water and only bought me a new case because I called you out on it (which you denied later, after you had already admitted fault.) You drink the last of my coffee and my coffee creamer (neither of which you’ve bought all year). You buy gross frozen meat, blocks of nasty cheese and other foods that you know we will never eat. Why? Because you enjoy eating our food and wasting our money, but don’t want us to do the same.

3. You are lazy. If I didn’t have classes three days a week, I could surely get more done than watching 1000 shows OnDemand and messing up an apartment that I don’t help clean. I don’t know what “errands” you speak of when you say you spend your days running errands, because the other two roommates have all of the bills in their name. You have gone grocery shopping less than five times during the entire semester. You have no job. You have no responsibilities, actually. So, what are these “errands”? I don’t believe they exist. Adding to the lack of anything to do, I’m almost positive you should’ve been kicked out of the University for the number of classes you’ve missed this year (for reasons that don’t exist.) Because you only have classes two days/ week, it shouldn’t be difficult to make at least one. But, no. Not easy for you. Too hard. Also, any club that you’re in, you constantly complain about meetings and responsibilities. You donate less of your time to anything productive than I thought possible. It’s very irritating to someone who works 20 hours/week and still makes it to every class and meeting.

4. You lie. Constantly. And we know. We’re not dumb. When you say that you’re “sick,” we don’t believe you. We also don’t believe that you have life-threatening injuries from a fender-bender in a parking lot. You lie to your boyfriend about going out to frat parties, and you lie to us about what you do instead of clean, buy groceries or do anything productive.

5. You constantly talk about how “rich” you are in front of two girls that work hard to support themselves. Then, when asked to pay bills, suddenly you have no money. Also, the only two things we asked you to supply at the apartment were: a coffee maker and an ironing board. The coffee maker you bought (for $10) is probably the worst coffee maker I’ve ever encountered. Homeless people expect better from their coffee pots. You have yet to buy an ironing board because $20 is just too much money for you to spend. Never mind the washer, dryer, dining table, couch and kitchen utensils that she supplied. Or the chair, TV, surround sound, DVD player, tables, pictures, and kitchen utensils that I brought. Nope, moving/purchasing those items didn’t cost us anything (to be read with sarcasm).

6. You run-up our power bills because you leave the air too low and the lights always on. You have no concept of money and don’t understand that an outrageous power bill for me means I don’t get to go grocery shopping until the next paycheck. You’re very inconsiderate.

7. All of these combined make me dislike you as a roommate and as a friend. We used to be fine. Then, I lived with you. When I mention these things, you act terribly offended and get defensive. At first, I was just warning you that these things could become a problem. Well, they have because you haven’t fixed anything. You’ve only become more inconsiderate.



Some of this sounds harsh. I agree. I’m a very blunt person and I can be taken the wrong way by someone who is hyper-sensitive. I’m just tired of living with someone who has no responsibility, no self-awareness, no consideration for others and no conscience. (Note: these statements are my opinion and my frustration. my other roommate may not necessarily feel this way...although i'm sure she agrees on some points.)

That’s my rant. That being said, I am only living with the good roommate next year. No matter what.