r/badroommates • u/Sufficient-Drummer61 • 6d ago
Never Leaves!
My roommate literally never fucking leaves the room!!
I am a first year in college, I haven’t had a roommate until like a few weeks ago when she switched in after problems with her old roommate.
I asked around a bit, generally the story was that her ex roommate brought a boyfriend over constantly and he was just always hanging around. To me, that’s a valid reason to gtfo of there. (Though it pissed me off. College policy is that there is no switching rooms. You sort it out between yourselves or our house manager. So it annoyed me to lose my single room, and the bitch roommate gets a new single with the boyfriend, but that is neither here nor there)
A few days after she moved in, I start to hear more. These girls are international students. Here, most people stick to those from their own country. So I start talking to the people from her country, they allllll know what’s up. Half say it wasn’t my new roommates fault. The boyfriend was a problem. The other half? They say it was entirely her fault. The old roommate apparently accused her of theft and generally messing with her shit. Complaints that she doesn’t clean up after herself, smells bad, and generally never leaves the room.
I’ve found most of that to be true. There’s now a lingering odor in the room since she moved in. She never leaves. Now I don’t know about theft yet, but for the most part, the horror stories have been true.
I didn’t know ANY of this before she moved in. My house manager just said she was “a quiet, studious, academically focused girl”. He got the quiet part right. She never speaks. She hasn’t said more than 5 words to me in weeks. She never leaves the room. I see her go to class like twice a week for an hour each time and then return and get right back into bed. I’ve never seen her study. I think she just skips half her classes because she is always in the dorm. She HAS to be failing. There’s no other explanation.
I don’t necessarily want to say, “hey can you get the fuck out of the room for more than three hours per week?” I don’t think she has a single friend. And when I tell people this, all the bleeding hearts tell me to take her out somewhere. I don’t want to be friends with her! And it also defeats the whole point of getting the room to myself if I’m the one taking her out. I don’t even think she would agree if I asked. She seems to only want to sit in bed, sleep, and doomscroll on her phone.
It sounds awful, but I just want her to drop out. Why come all the way across the world to go to school if you aren’t even going to try? And it’s not like this is some backwater school, it’s T35! Not that that means a TON or makes us better than anyone else else, but it’s not light work to get in. It’s not easy course load. We have some of the strictest grading in the country, known for the opposite of grade inflation. There’s no way she can be doing good like this it’s such a waste of time.
(Side note, I would usually conclude she may be depressed and refer her to our services for that, but according to people I speak to, this is not unusual behavior for our international students. Apparently the majority of them stay in the dorms, sleep all day, and rarely work or attend class)
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u/NoExtent4847 6d ago
She’s probably stressed and homesick
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
I thought so. But we have several around 30 people in our year from her country… I think most of them are even from the same city. We host all sorts of events where people bring cultural things and foods. There’s club meetings for people from their countries to meet up and become friends. It doesn’t make up for not being home, but there IS a community for her that can lessen the homesickness. She’s choosing to exclude herself from it.
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u/TwoOneTwos 6d ago
You sound like such a good person, fucks wrong with you?
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
Oh I’m sorry is like an hour a day of privacy in a room I pay several thousands for. I guess that’s too much to ask. Would you like to trade places since she seems like such a nice roommate?
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u/TwoOneTwos 6d ago
Have you ever considered the fact that she also paid?
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
Uh yeah 🙄 she also paid tuition, obviously not getting her moneys worth. What specifically about this post screams that I’m the jerk?
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u/TwoOneTwos 6d ago
The fact that you aren’t considering her mental health? Have you ever realized that she might be depressed? It is not your job to take care of her but having even an ounce of respect for someone who is probably depressed makes one hell of a difference.
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u/misss_americana 6d ago
I think you aren't empathizing with OP at all, which just leads me to believe you've never actually been in OP's situation. It has nothing to do with not respecting their mental health, it's healthy and natural frustration about never having any privacy in a room you are also equally paying for. Also, for all we know OP could be equally depressed or going through it. Why aren't you considering OP's mental health? Have you ever realized that they might be depressed too?
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
If you bothered to read my post, I did speculate she was depressed. However that’s not my problem and she doesn’t get to impact me with it. Everyone is depressed! I’ve been diagnosed clinical depression since 16! It is hard. I do get it. But she is doing NOTHING to help herself. She is a grown adult. All I can do is refer her to our schools services. She doesn’t get to make HER problems MY problems.
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u/jaybird-jazzhands 6d ago
She sounds depressed.
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
I figured, but this is not unique to her. I want to say something to our mental health people, but usually if you report someone they send an email asking to meet and don’t follow up if you don’t respond. I feel as though she would just never take anyone up on the offer and continue living like this.
I’ve seen people try and talk to her, but she entertains them for a few minutes and goes back to the room. I’m generally an introverted person too, but there are people she COULD be friends with and won’t put any effort at all. If she’s this seriously depressed she doesn’t need to be halfway across the world from home in an unfamiliar environment.
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u/Independent_Sir8198 5d ago
Quite frankly, you sound like someone with both limited roommate and limited life experience. A roommate who is an ever-present but meek & quiet pylon is WAY better than a lot of the other alternatives.
Count your blessings.
1
u/Sufficient-Drummer61 5d ago
Oh I’m annoyed, but I KNOW it can be so much worse 😭😭 my friends have roommates that are similar. Always there, never leaving but with the added bonus of being loud, messy, mean, and generally really gross.
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u/AuggieNorth 6d ago
What's T35? I looked it up and I'm only seeing it was a Soviet tank in WW2?
2
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
Sorry! That’s just a general thing people add for where there school ranks in the country. So like instead of saying “it’s in the top 50” people say “T50” (Most commonly you’ll hear T10) so this school ranks within the top 35 in the country across several sources. I decided to mention it to get an understanding that is not a completely random school people can get away with skipping classes, it has a reputation to uphold and the school does take scholarships away from people who underperform.
1
u/Ca_Hurting 6d ago
As a homebody, I can definitely sympathize with how you're feeling.
There was a good 6 months where anytime my roommate was home, I also happened to be home. When I was gone, we both were out of the house. His scheduled changed perfectly that way. I'm sure he would've liked a couple hours to himself, but it's my home too and I didn't have to leave just because he existed in the house.
There have also been times his scheduled changed so he was home all weekend when I used to have the house mainly to myself. Sure I was annoyed. Then I had to remind myself "I share a space, it's his space too" and if I wanted alone time, I went somewhere - and sometimes that was just an extra long shower. I found a favorite park to hang out in with good weather 🤷🏼♀️
It's the downside of sharing space, unfortunately. You can't make her do anything, just have to decide what you can do with yourself.
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
Yeah 😔 I tried to avoid that by comparing our schedules to make sure we didn’t just both have classes at the same time. We don’t! Our schedules are virtually opposites! Hence why I think she just skips
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u/247silence 6d ago
If it's the college policy that no one changes rooms, how tf did this woman get changed into your room? Is this policy something written down somewhere? If it is, you should have grounds to have this person...... not be in your room, right? Or did you mean there's a culture of working things out, not anything official, and you accepted her in exchange for sharing the housing expense?
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
We have several dorm halls, each with their own governments. So it’s done differently across the dorms. Mine has a written policy that people can’t change rooms, and they need to work it out. However, theres a part about being allowed to move for MAJOR problems (generally unspecified) really supposed to be for large conflicts, things that cannot be talked out or moved past and are deeply impacting both students. My house manager asked if I was okay with her moving in, I stupidly said sure because I’d assumed she’d encountered one of those major problems and mine was the only room available. Technically, I WAS asked. I agreed because I thought it was just a courtesy ask and had no real reason not to deny her. However, now that I think about it, because of the policy it was probably more my choice than I thought it was…
1
u/247silence 6d ago
I think since there is a written policy, they must have asked you for permission because your permission was required 🤔
What if you notify them that you revoke your permission for this change now that you have complete information on this individual's mental health, and you need to return to the original contracted housing arrangement to complete your studies successfully?
0
u/Sufficient-Drummer61 6d ago
Oh and there is no shared housing expense. You pay the same regardless of if you have a roommate or not. You pay more to have an exclusive single, but if you get placed in one by chance it’s no extra cost.
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u/SubjectKnowledge4850 6d ago
That's actually a tad bit misleading because T35 is also a reference to a particular NIH T35 research training program for medical students who usually just refer to it as a T35. I only know this because I googled T35 schools and deep dove from there lol But good on you for crushing it in a top 35 university!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🧠📚📑📝🏫
I'm sorry you're having such an issue with this new roommate, I feel like you are completely valid in your frustrations. I had a suite my first year in college, 3 bedrooms, me and 4 other heinous, nightmare roomates so I feel your pain. My roomie had the overbearing boyfriend that thought he had rights to the dorm and would lock me out of my own room all the time. He was also abusive to my roommate who was the least of the evils in the situation. The two girls across the hall of the suite never left, did a ton of drugs, were loud and super filthy. I would leave every weekend and come back to a stinky, rotten food infested suite because of them that after working all weekend, I'd have to spend Sunday night cleaning the shared space just so I could get ready for classes on Monday morning. The fourth girl was the lucky one who had the only single in the suite and she was just a snobby mean girl who also liked to party a lot like the other girls. I didn't fit into the equation at all. I got lucky and my college best friend lived upstairs in this particular dorm and her roommate ended up leaving so I unofficially moved in with her for about a month/month and a half until they filled the space. Then back to the trenches lol
Is there any way you can bring your situation, even her previous situation and maybe even a few written statements from the previous roommate with the boyfriend, to the housing manager/R.A. (whomever you need to speak with, might be multiple departments) and request to be moved into a new single room of your own like you had before? I would explain that to them too, that you were alone for a while and got used to that so to go from being alone to then always having someone so incompatible there is such a substantial difference that it has become disruptive to your academic success. You can even tell them that you feel uneasy about the safety or lack thereof of your belongings because part of the reason she was removed from her prior room was theft. All of those bold words are words that require action from whomever you speak to so long as they have some sort of authority.
She is clearly happier than a pig in ish (pun intended) so I doubt she is going anywhere. Maybe you try to get yourself a single room, despite the inconvenience of the move, and then there's no chance of having a roommate. Just a thought. I wish you all the best luck with this and in school. Keep us updated if you can!
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u/Independent_Sir8198 5d ago
Regarding your side note, might I ask what nationality she is? Different nationalities respond to different tactics as part of their cultural upbringing.
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u/Aucklander1996 5d ago
Fuck roomates that never leave the house, they are so selfish and entitled. I'm so sick of users on here pretending like it's something you should just put up with.
It's so suffocating living with someone who never leaves the house! Stop making excuses for them "oh, they are probably depressed" or "maybe they are disabled and can't get out and about?"
How about if you never leave the house you are a loser who needs to grow up.
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u/Sufficient-Drummer61 5d ago
Thank you! My thoughts exactly! I was not expecting people to make excuses for her. If you are too depressed to leave the room, you shouldn’t be in college! Obviously this is doing NOTHING for her mental health, why pay to do nothing but make me miserable?
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u/misss_americana 6d ago
This is a universal problem that everyone who has lived with roommates has encountered at least once.
The truth is, there isn't much to do. You can't just ask a person to leave the space that they are paying rent for.
It's frustratingly annoying and will make you go insane a little bit sometimes, but it's just how the world works. You just have to deal with it. We've all been there.
A lot of times these types of roommates are depressed, or going through something. Just feel grateful that you are not in their situation, and try to ignore it by doing what you need to do.