You never truly know a person until you live with them.
This is a line we’ve all heard before, and probably should have taken more seriously.
Whether it’s rooming with your best friend or a complete stranger, it seems as if many of us cannot escape experiencing a least one roommate from hell.
Here are just a few ASU students who had no problem agreeing in sharing their horrific roommate experiences with their previous roommates.
Ashley Provenzano, ASU junior, Public Relations.
Ashley Provenzano, a junior majoring in Public Relations says she has had more than one horrible roommate experience.
“But the absolute worst roommate I have ever had was a random girl my roommate found to sublet her apartment room while she was gone for the summer.”
Constantly bringing obnoxious friends over at 2 a.m., smoking hookah and leaving burn marks in the carpet was only the beginning.
They would also steal huge quantities of food, at least $100 dollars worth from Provenzano alone.
“I would bring it up to her and ask if she knew anything about it and she would always act so surprised and embarrassed,” she says. “She said she wouldn’t have people over or have them spend the night anymore if that would make us feel better, but the very next day she had people over again and I found a random guy passed out on our couch.”
Food wasn’t the only thing that was constantly stolen, electricity money, around $60 was taken as well.
Provenzano says after that happened she ended up getting her evicted and filed a police report against her for the theft.
For those who are looking for a roommate, she advises them to room with someone who you already know and trust.
If that’s not an option, then take care of any serious problems right away. Don’t let it get any worse.
Nisha Patel, ASU senior, Global Studies, Religion & Conflict Studies
Nisha Patel, a senior majoring in Global Studies, Religion and Conflict Studies says her luck with roommates has been anything but great.
Just like Provenzano, Patel says her dorm roommate during her freshman was one of her first bad experiences, where her roommate drunk dialed her two months before classes started to introduce herself.
With her roommate not being from Arizona, Patel says she tried to be extremely accommodating and welcoming when she moved in so that she wouldn’t feel homesick or worry about things like appliances and food.
Needless to say, Patel says she felt as if her kindness was taken advantage of.
“She never cleaned the room, rarely did her laundry, slept during the daytime, took my jewelry without asking or returning it and watched TV the entire night while I tried to sleep. This happened on a daily basis,” she says. “Yet, I still managed to get over these little differences we had in lifestyles, even after making it clear that it was disturbing me.”
Patel says that her previous roommate ended up ignoring her requests.
She would show up drunk on weekdays, smoked pot next to her closet and even let some of her friend sleep in her bed when she was away.
One time Patel says she was locked outside of her room while her roommate was drunk.
Rooming with someone second time around, Patel said she went with someone who was an acquaintance of hers, where they shared a good amount of mutual friends.
She said things started out great, where they’d walk to classes together, hang out with friends and even host game nights.
“I have no idea what happened after that, whether a switch turned on or what but in my opinion, my apartment became the most dreaded place,” she says. “It got to the point where I would try to avoid going back or being at the apartment while my roommate was there.”
Having her roommate have her family come and stay in their tiny, two-bedroom apartment, for a significant period of time really turned Patel’s average college experience upside down.
It began to throw off her study schedule; she wasn’t allowed to have friends over because it was "too crowded."
Playing loud music was never allowed and neither was having study groups.
“Then came consumption of steroids,” she says. “They caused her to become extremely sensitive, so after 8 p.m., I wasn’t allowed to make a single sound. No watching TV, no baking cookies and no talking. I was suffocating in a twisted and furnished sort of prison.”
Patel says that there was one month where she paid rent, paid half the electricity bill while she lived with her parents, because even that was more liberating than living with her roommate.
Whenever Patel had friends over, they would whisper and try really hard not to disturb her.
“There were times where she would walk out and make extremely rude and inconsiderate remarks and stomp loudly back in her room,” she says. “I don’t know what caused all of this but when she started blatantly telling my friends they had to leave by a certain time, I decided that no matter how much trouble it was going to be I was going to move out.”
Patel said she would have really appreciated it if she knew about all these rules before agreeing to sign a lease with her.
Samir Patel, Recent ASU Graduate, Computer Science
Recent Computer Science graduate Samir Patel says he learned the hard way that it’s a bad idea to room with a good friend.
During his sophomore year is when he shared an apartment with a close friend, one that he got along great with and hung out with all the time.
It was only a while until Samir says he quickly learned that hanging out and living together were completely different experiences.
Even though they both enjoyed playing video games, watching sports and the usual stuff, he says that they had completely different views on the most important issue that exists between roommates: money.
“I was more willing to spend money on items that I thought were worthwhile, like plates and glasses, while my friend wanted to stick with cheap, disposable dinnerware,” Patel says. “My friend drank tap water while I filled up a five gallon jug and used a water dispenser. I opted to get digital cable whereas my friend wanted nothing to do with 'wasting money.’”
Patel says though things were able to remain amiable, the plan was for each person to spend money on the things they wanted for themselves and then to use those things exclusively. But things never actually worked that way for long.
He said that he would find one of his plates or glasses used and in the sink, not even thrown in the dishwasher. Other times he would notice him grab a drink of ice cold water from the 'unnecessary' water dispenser Patel bought with his own money.
“And how do you tell someone to not look in the direction of the TV when it's on?” Patel says. “Cable is expensive and scoffing at the price while enjoying the Suns in high definition does not fly with anyone. Though none of these acts are enough to warrant a massive argument, it still adds up and gets really annoying really fast.”
He said that this definitely made things awkward when a confrontation finally occurred and boundaries were established, possibly even ruining a friendship.
“Don’t room with your friends,” Patel says.
Patel says that since rooming with friends turned out to be a bad idea, he tried rooming with a complete stranger of the opposite sex during his junior year.
He met her at a scholarship dinner where he found out she needed a roommate through an adviser of the scholarship foundation.
First time meeting, she seemed like a normal person who was academically driven with a relaxed personality who claimed to love baking.
“About 10 minutes after signing the lease, things started going downhill,” Patel says. “Turns out my newly acquired, cool and smart Betty Crocker roommate was insane.”
Having his roommate just getting out of a long-term relationship was ready to drop a ton of unnecessary information about her life and troubles.
She would even carry around a stuffed animal that she claimed was their "child" during the relationship.
Patel says while he tried his best to be sympathetic and friendly he was already thinking of how he could possibly break his lease.
“My advice: get a job, make some money and live alone,” he says.
Contact the reporter at monica.vainauskas@asu.edu
