Picture it: You’ve just moved into a new housing situation. Most of your belongings are still in boxes as you figure out where everything should go.
Is it going to be an exciting year? Yeah, maybe. That is, as long as your roommate doesn’t turn out to be the absolute worst.
About that ... You don’t have to look too far to come across someone’s bad roommate horror story.
Luckily, advice for handling such a situation is readily available online. But sometimes roommates can turn out to be so shockingly awful, and you’re left completely off guard. The simple solution might be to keep your head down and avoid your roommate as much as possible, but that seems like an awful situation. You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in your own home.
After talking to Hans Goss, a friend of mine, about past roommate experiences one thing became clear: Always try to put yourself in a situation where you’re the one in control.
He always signed his own leases and would only allow people he already knew to move in.
This mostly worked for him until one guy decided to boil some eggs in the middle of the night, but passed out before the eggs finished.
“Do you know what happens to eggs if you boil them too long?” he said. “They explode.”
What’s more, in the morning the guy woke up and moved the pot — which was extremely hot from sitting on the stove all night — over to the kitchen counter before leaving for the day. And the counter melted.
Since my friend’s name was on the lease and the roommate’s name wasn’t, my buddy had the ability to kick that guy out. Although Auburn housing leases typically don’t offer this sort of freedom, you might try being the one to sign with your cable and Internet provider, thus giving you the option of taking their Wi-Fi away. That’s what I’d do, at least.
While this still forces you to live with that person and will likely cause an argument of some sort, it brings the bonus of forcing your terrible, terrible roommate to acknowledge the situation.
Actually, you should probably try to talk to your housemate about the issue as soon as possible.
Ideally, you’ll be able to come to some sort of understanding and sort everything out. It’s nowhere near as fun as punishing them, but maybe it’s the more mature choice.
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