#1

#2

He pays a set fee, doesn't eat any food, does his laundry at 3am (other side of the house, sound insulated laundry room so we can't hear anything). He doesn't drive (ubers to work) so thus doesn't have a car. Never asks us for a thing. Just comes and goes as he pleases, pays his rent on time, and is quiet.
Occasionally you hear him as he is playing an online game and talking to some people. He has never had a person over, though occasionally leaves for a week to go to a convention. He has no family, no relationships, etc. He has been in the same call center job for the past 6 years. I occasionally check his room for bodies and general hygiene (no food trans piling up and molding kinda stuff). He is just your quiet, nerdy guy who is our ghost. We invite him out to dinner sometimes, he doesn't say much.
In many cities, having a roommate has become a normal and practical way of living well into adulthood. It’s no longer just for college students.
Rent keeps going up, wages haven’t really kept up, grocery prices balloon to unaffordable highs, and housing costs remain bleak.
According to a recent survey, roughly 49% to 75% of American households cannot afford to buy a median-priced home. Around 87% of Gen Z and 62% of millennials said they find it difficult to afford a home.
Sharing space then becomes less of a choice and more like a workaround for many young adults.
#3
#4

Anyway, one night I was watching Lost when she came out of her bedroom and said she was going to the store to meet a guy. She was wearing jeans and a hoodie. I was watching TV and didn't think much about it. I just said be careful and let it go. I ended up going to bed around midnight and she hadn't returned home yet. I just assumed she had hooked up with that guy. Not her normal thing, but not unheard of. Just after I turned off the light there was a knock on my door. I got up thinking Kate had just lost her keys or something. I went downstairs in just my boxers and T-shirt and when I opened the door there were two uniformed police officers standing there. Then the questions started.
Cop: "Who are you" Me: " I am Astelan101. I own this place."
Cop: "Kate told us she owned this place and didn't live with anyone. Is that your cat?" Me: "Uh, I bought his place in 2006 and have owned that cat since 2004. What is going on?"
Cop: "Kate was attacked tonight and she is at the hospital." Me: "Omg! Is she okay?"
Cop: "Can we come in?" Me: " Uh, yeah. Come in." Now days, I probably wouldn't agree without a search warrant, but things were different around here back then.
They came in and asked where her bedroom was. I pointed it out and one of them when in while the other stayed in the living room with me. The first cop came out of her room and went into her bathroom and was poking around. After they had been there for about half an hour, they finally started telling me what was happening.
Kate told them that someone had attacked her and sliced open her stomach and then dumped her at the emergency room. After being questioned a bit, she had claimed her date attacked her and had dumped her at the door, but wouldn't tell them who.
At this point there were a total of 6 cops in my condo, going in and out of her room, and I was still in my boxers, I asked if I could go upstairs and put on some pants. They agreed but one of them had to go with me. While up there, he checked my tub, sink, towels, and dirty laundry to see if there was any blood.
After getting dressed and heading downstairs I realized I had acquired 2 more cops and a detective. She told me the story had changed and now Kate was claiming it was a med student from the local University that was trying to become a doctor. He was trying to remove a large scar that went the entire way across her stomach. He had hit something and then left her at the hospital. She talked to her partner and now it was she drove herself. The hospital was having fits because they thought a student was practicing surgery. Also at this point they are carrying stuff out of her room in paper bags.
Que 14 cops and 2 detectives in my condo. And then I finally get the whole story.
Kate had stolen scalpels, bandaging, packing materials, and meds to perform surgery on herself. She had injected herself with local anesthetics and had taken a handful or barbiturates. She had cut herself open starting just below her ribs on the left side. Decided she didn't like the angel so packed the wound and tried again a bit lower and more horizontal. She had apparently nicked something that shouldn't be cut and started bleeding. She got dressed and drove herself to the hospital that was about 3 minutes away. She had lied to the hospital staff and cops when they arrived.
The cops hauled out all the supplies she had used along with a ton of meds she had stolen. Nothing that would get you high, just stuff that would enable her to do the surgery. When they left they told me I would have to hire someone to clean up the blood.
At that point it was 5 am and they left. I had been up since 6 am in the morning before. I drove to the hospital to see her cause I was still in panic mode. I was eventually allowed to see her and she held my hand but wouldn't say anything. They kicked me out around 7 so I went home and showered and came back. At 8 am I was told she didn't want to see me, but I stayed anyway. About an hour later I was told that they were committing her to a local mental hospital.
No knowing what to do I went into work. I was there about an hour before my nerves finally broke and I told my boss what had happened and he sent me home. I went to Wal-Mart and picked up some heavy duty gloves and a large plastic container and went home to do some clean up. I was lucky and almost everything was contained to her comforter. I gathered that up, her sheets, and her... lets call it stomach material in the box (for the record, I couldn't eat chicken for months). I took it to my parents place to burn.
Finally making it back home, I laid down on the couch to sleep around 1 pm. At this point I had been up for 31 hours and 13 of that under stress. Just as I dozed off I got a call from Kate. They were releasing her from the mental hospital and needed me to pick her up at 3. I wasn't happy but I did it. As we were driving home she told me that she had convinced the doctors she had a mental breakdown from body issues, no food, and too many diet pills so they let her go. Given that I had dinner with her that night.. a large one at that, it was obvious she had lied to them,
In the following days Kate mostly stayed on the couch since she had been fired from her job and didn't feel up to going anywhere. I finally kicked her out about three weeks later after she disappeared for two days. I didn't want to deal with it. She left her bed and owing me about $800 for back rent. I never talked to her again. I do still have a copy of the incident report.
A few months ago, someone that had know us both asked me about her and I decided to look her up. She didn't have a Facebook profile, but I could see where she was on her third last name. I should have stopped at this point, but curiosity.... The third last name led me to a website where I could see she was looking for a hookup while in prison. Her picture was attached to the ad so I knew it was her. She was in prison for credit card fraud, identity theft, resisting arrest, and about four other non-minor charges I can't think of right now.
TLDR: in less than 24 hours my roommate gutted herself, was questioned by the police, committed to mental hospital, and released. She was in prison several years later with a host of charges.
There’s also a bigger shift happening in how people live overall.
In the US, the median age at first marriage has climbed to around the early 30s in recent years.
This naturally stretches out the years people spend living alone or with non-romantic partners.
And even when people do get married, not everyone is quickly moving into the traditional setup. Some are choosing to share their house with a third person to manage the financial and mental load of running a household.
The share of older adults sharing homes has been rising too. Recent survey data shows almost four in 10 US roommates now live in multigenerational households, sometimes with age gaps of 20–30 years between housemates.
#5

We're taking a road trip to upstate NY (approximately 4 hour drive) and I notice that he has a CD-R titled "Conversations with John" on it. So I ask John what that is. He's hesitant but tells me it's a CD he listens to on long road trips. I pop it in and the 1st track starts.
(It's John himself)
"Howdy Cowboy! How's the road ahead?"
I turned it right off and we never spoke of it ever since.
#6

I might as well tell a bit more of the story. My roommate had left the shower on and gone merrily off to work, but that was my day off. I didn't know anything was amiss until I realized I had been hearing the shower running for several hours. I knocked, but of course, there was no answer. I panicked and tried to open the door. As far as I knew at that point, it was locked (it sure wouldn't open, in any case, and I didn't know it was swollen shut). So, naturally, I thought one of my roommates had locked themselves in there and, I dunno, passed away or something. I went completely hysterical, I called the housing office, they break down the door, and after that I was just confused until the roommate in question got home to explain. At that point, though, I was mostly just glad I hadn't found a body.
But then we got the bill for the door they had to replace, and the roommate in question tried to weasel their way out of paying for it. They fully intended to make all four of us split the cost, and there was NO WAY that was happening. They did eventually pay up, thank goodness. The end.
#7

Found out after I moved out she never existed. Fake profile, fake name, fake pics...... He was talking to no one (except himself) on the phone. I have no idea why he'd go to such lengths for this lie but I felt really weird about the whole thing once I found out.
While the stories in this list focus on the chaotic side of shared living, it’s worth remembering that having a roommate actually comes with a bunch of practical upsides. The most obvious one is money. Splitting rent, electricity, Wi-Fi, even basic stuff like cleaning supplies just makes everything lighter on your wallet.
There’s also the social side of it. A roommate can sometimes make day-to-day life feel less isolating, especially if you’ve just moved to a new city or don’t know many people yet.
Roommates are also a blessing when it comes to splitting chores, or just handling boring adult tasks together — given that they are actually doing it. Like someone picking up parcels when you’re out, or helping deal with a landlord issue instead of you doing it alone.
#8

They ignored me 98% of the time, except for when they ate my food in the fridge before going downtown (which they did every week Thursday-Sunday), and when they locked themselves out (which happened Thursday-Sunday coming home from the bar). Also when they stood outside my door and loudly made fun of me or mocked my appearance.
So I’m a pretty chill person, I would hang out with other friends and just come home to sleep. Then another friend accidentally let it slip to one of the girls that I’m allergic to avocado. Now, it’s just when I eat it - I can be around avocado with no adverse effects.
The next day I open the fridge and they’ve cut all their avocados in half and piled them on and around my food in the fridge. They didn’t know that I only get sick when I eat avocado, so they just went and wasted time and money...in the hopes of what? Poisoning me? Making me sick? Giving me an allergic reaction? Come on.
It’s pretty mild in terms of terrible roommate stories, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.
#9

#10

He lived in a quad with 3 other dudes. All met through Facebook before moving in. Everyone was pretty normal until about a month in. The one guy would never leave his bed and would only eat pizza. He would leave the empty pizza boxes in his bed, and either sleep with them on top of or under him. He never threw them out.
The real nail in the coffin was when he apparently clogged the toilet. The plunger wasn't getting the job done, and after 15 minutes he panicked. He walked out of the bathroom, took a wire hanger out of his closet, fashioned it into a stick, and went back in. The toilet flushed. He came back out, fashioned the hanger back into a hanger shape, rinsed it off, and PUT HIS SHIRT BACK ON THE HANGER INTO THE CLOSET.
Edit: Any sensible person would THROW THE HANGER out. Don’t defend this.
Shared living also changes how people function at home.
Research shows that people adjust their behavior based on who they live with. Everything from routines to habits slowly gets shaped by the presence of another person in the same space.
You might become more organized because your roommate is strict about cleanliness, or more relaxed because your environment is laid-back.
#11
Only problem is our house was L-shaped, and his window was visible from the living room. So on numerous occasions we got to watch large women fall out of his window.
#12
We lived in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment. They would use my dishes and leave them in their room, unwashed, usually with food in them. They didn't want to buy a litter box for their cat so they took a plastic gallon tub and just dumped litter in it. Their cat constantly peed in their closet on their shoes and they'd just continue wearing them.
But the worst: When we moved out, I had to clean everything or I knew we wouldn't get our deposit back. They had cleaned out most of their things and I let them know I was going to clean their room. They said cool (they were never going to do it), so I go in, armed with gloves, a scarf covering my mouth, and a bottle of bleach. Boy was I unprepared.
I walk in and this stench just hits me. Their bedroom door was always closed and they always had incense burning so I never smelled it. They had a couple cardboard boxes filled with poo and toilet paper. I ran out of there so fast and called them, screaming and demanding to know what was going on. They said sometimes I would be in the bathroom and instead of knock or *hold their bladder*, they would poo in boxes. They tried to play it off as "we take it out once a week" like it was changing the litter box.
#13
So, it's the middle of winter, and I come in after classes and look in the mirror. My hair's a mess from all of the wind we had been getting. Spur of the moment, I decide that I'm sick of it. Haircuts cost money though, so I grab some scissors and start chopping 10-13 inches of my hair off. My roommate didn't come in until I had mostly finished and started to even it out. There was no good way for me to see the back of my head, so I loosely wrapped a belt around the top of my neck and tried to go off of that.
So, she walked in around then, with bits of my hair everywhere, a belt tied around my neck, and me squatting on a chair (weird mirror position) trying to cut the hair on the back of my head.
That was the first time I had ever heard her curse.
Once she cooled down, and finished telling me how stupid I was, and not to ever tie belts around my neck, she helped me even it out, and left me to clean up all of my hair. I had caught most of it in double-ended ponytails, so it was all of the small pieces from straightening it out that were the issue. They were on the floor, counter, and all over me.
So I clean up the bathroom, and decide to take off my shirt and vacuum it too. It works, for the most part, and I notice that there are bits of hair all over my back and chest. So I take off my bra, turn the (smallish) vacuum around and start vacuuming my chest. And she walks in again to see me topless and basically stabbing myself in the chest with a vacuum.
Tl;dr: I am not a hairdresser.
Living with someone creates interdependence as well. The shared space forces constant negotiation — about noise, cleanliness, privacy, and schedules.
This naturally pushes people to develop communication skills and learn how to set boundaries over time.
“Probably the most important skill set we will ever develop is our ability to communicate and interact successfully with other people. On some level, it’s holding up a mirror to yourself. You learn a lot about yourself by dealing with your roommate,” says Jim Smart, executive director of housing and residential life.
Studies show that regular interaction with someone from a different background can also reduce bias and increase empathy, simply through daily exposure and familiarity.
#14

Suffice to say I moved out the next month.
#15

#16

But, of course, as these stories show… living with someone isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
The biggest downside is that privacy takes a hit.
Even if you stay in your room, you’re still sharing walls, kitchen space, and sometimes bathroom routines.
For some people, this lack of personal space can get pretty annoying if their lifestyle doesn’t match their roommate’s.
However, a lot of the time, the tension comes from constant micro-adjusting. Like deciding when you can cook without interrupting someone, or how loud is too loud, or how many guests can visit you at a time.
#17

Next day he would have no memory of eating it all, presume it was me who had done it then get cross.
I would be awoken by the sounds of things hitting my bedroom door, bumps, bonks, splats etc....
It was him throwing the mess at my door, would often wake up to food leftovers splattered all over the place,
Baked Bean, Yogurts, all sorts of random stuff.
Before I moved in, he had also covered up vomit with his Sofa instead of cleaning it up, which I later found out about.
Lived with him a year before I escaped, he was a nasty vile man.
#18

#19

He had some weight issues, smoked cigarettes, and never seemed to shower. The roommate in my bedroom literally saw him with poo on the back of his pants one day, as he sat all over the common area couches. The smell was so bad that we were unable to use the common area and literally held our breaths from the bedroom to the hallway. We always had to keep our bedroom door closed and douse it with Febreeze every couple days or so. It was hell.
It’s not always possible or realistic to analyze lifestyle preferences when choosing a new roommate. You cannot figure out from a single meeting or a quick chat what their cleanliness or sleep habits are like, or how they like to socialize.
Basically, you end up sharing space with someone who is technically a stranger.
Research shows that when you can’t predict someone’s behavior in your own home, your brain stays slightly alert. Even if nothing bad is happening, the unpredictability itself can make the environment feel stressful over time.
Reduced control over space can also make people feel more tense and irritable.
A study found that conflict with roommates was consistently ranked among the top five reasons students drop out of college.
#20

He wouldn't reply to us unless we referred to him as Captain Jack Sparrow. I found out later that day he binged the franchise the night before. I didn't mind too much I love that song and was happy to hear it lol


