Hellish housemates are just the worst.

I’d add to your points for anyone embarking on a house share- don’t go in for passive aggression. The post-it on the fridge won’t get the washing up done. You’ve got to be up front with each other. 

We used to mark food we weren’t going to eat with a “Free For All” on a post-it note.  It didn’t last long after that.

The worst was the milk (the dirtiest roommates all happened to be paper plate and plastic utensil types).  On many mornings I woke up and my milk was gone, sitting in the fridge and mocking me with its emptiness.  I was almost ready to put a mini-fridge in my room!

What’s worse than being left with no milk is being left with a pitiful amount- too little for a cup of coffee. SO frustrating!!

Mine was a college roommate, my freshman year.  I didn’t know anybody so I went in ‘blind’.  I stated on the application that I wanted someone reasonably neat.  The person I got was a complete slob.  Mess everywhere.  I finally asked him and he said, yeah I put that I wanted someone cleaner because I knew I wasn’t. 

Nice guy but we ended up switching roommates shortly thereafter.

Yep, Still nearly $1000 out of pocket thanks to an ex flatmate who was slack with bills, and filthy, and like a bull in a China shop, resulting in money being deducted from our bond beyond what he had paid in bond. Also, the state of his room…..I had to clean it when we moved out, and the horrors.

It’s been many, many years….but I shared roommates all through my college days. My last year, I was in a small room with 2 other guys. Girlfriends over all the time….it made it difficult to study. Plus, one of the roommates was a slob, which wasn’t good. At least the year was a lot of fun, I’ll have to say that much.

Was lucky enough to never have a roommate from hell.  One of the best things we ever did do was set up a separate bank account just for paying rent and bills.  Everyone would add their share each month, plus a little extra for food, drinks, party, whatever. Just make sure there are two cosigners on the account in case one decides to leave.

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I had a roommate once who burnt my tea kettle beyond repair and refused to replace it, broke a cherished salt shaker and refused to pay for it, and–even though she had a cat–told me that I brought fleas into the apartment!

[...] This week at TotallyMoney we’ve been reminiscing about our worst financial horror stories. From hellish housemates to mail scams to financial fears, we’ve all got our own ghoulish money mishap. Here’s [...]

I’ve been fairly lucky this year (despite the slightly odd one who woke us up at 4am to take her to the hospital because she’d “cut her sensitive lady area” which led to a very boring 8 hours sat in a waiting room as they transferred her from department to department and eventually to another hospital)..

Last year however.. I had the girl from hell! Never paid her bills on time, was inconsiderate constantly and a bully too. An absolute hypocrite – she could play music because she paid rent, but we couldn’t also because she paid rent. She could leave her washing up for a week (solid milk!) because she paid rent, but we couldn’t leave a glass for a day also because she paid rent, the list goes on.. Needless to say, we actually paid more rent than she did. I eventually got to the stage where I left for work at 6am and came home at 8pm to avoid her. Finally, I put my foot down when she decided to start smoking inside our house.

She destroyed half my belongings during the night and then waited outside my room and beat me up at 6am as I was leaving for work. I was left homeless and to add insult to literal injury, she refused to pay her share of the bills and purposely ran up a phone bill which nearly equalled my monthly wage. I was left with over £1000 in debt.

That’s absolutely terrible. She sounds awful. It’s hard to know how to act in these kinds of situations. I’m glad that you’re shot of her (despite the interesting hospital excursion).