64 Toxic Roommates That Are The Reason Lease Agreements Should Come With A Personality Clause

I moved into a house in October with a bunch of people in their late 30s/40s.

The other day, I woke up to yet another one of my belongings destroyed by their dog, and decided it was time to leave. I booked a house sitting gig in a neighboring town, so I have somewhere to go until at least the 19th. I packed as much stuff as I could in the past two days, but I still have some furniture and plants there.

It’s important to note that these people have repeatedly told me to take their cat, as they have 6 pets, and she doesn’t like anybody but me. She lived with them for 7 years and only let them pet her once. She told me at Thanksgiving and again last week that when I leave, I should take her. She even models at work with me, I got her registered under my name, and she’s chipped with my information. So I did take her with me when I left, and she seems a lot less stressed now that she’s away from all their dogs.

At 8:01, I got a notification from my bedroom camera that they entered my room. Not only that, I have footage of them taking my TV off the wall and unplugging my camera. When I texted them to turn it back on, she said, “Bring the cat back and we might”.

So I called the cops and reported. The sheriff assured me that it’d be taken care of, and I’m in proper ownership of the cat.

She used 3/4 of the bottle, does she really think I am that dumb that I won’t notice? Hope she freaks out.

My roommate eats a lot of eggs, apparently. She never rinses her spatulas or any of her dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, so food ends up caked on like this. She uses them as is and doesn’t hand-wash them to clean off this gunk. There are currently ants all over them.

There's a very funky smell in our apartment, and I've been wondering what it is.

I finally lifted the lid off the bowl on my roommate's side of the counter to find these nasty, watery, moldy black beans. You bet I put some gloves on before touching the lid. This "stew" has been sitting there for weeks.

I never thought to check the bowl since it was covered by a plate. I honestly don't know what my roommate was trying to achieve by letting it sit for that long or what her original plans were. I've since thrown the entire thing out, bowl and plate included, and sent her a text. I finally got a response from her after over an hour. This is what she said: "My bad, I do not remember adding water to that, but yea ill throw it away, thanks."

Regardless of the water, beans should not be fermenting on the counter for weeks. You're also telling me that every time you went to pick up a spatula or make tea (that's where she keeps all her things), you never noticed? I'm not sure what her intent was with them originally, but this is disgusting, and it would have sat there for god knows how much longer if I didn't say anything.

One morning, we were woken up by loud knocks at the door. At 7 am. This is what greeted our eyes when we walked out the front door.

It was still smoking at the time, though it seemed as though someone had drenched it with water (the mysterious knocker, thank you!).

Our roommate decided to go out for a smoke at 1 am and used the planter as an ashtray. When there was one mere step away.

Just one of the many things this guy has done: Leaves stovetops on overnight. Turns off the AC in 30 degree celsius weather. Let my cat outside on numerous occasions. Never locks the door.

Those are the main ones. The landlord is involved now, but the roommate has decided to be a child and ignore anything we say.

By the same right, I shouldn't pay either, because I had to buy a car after an accident as well.

Most people will shake out the bag, smooth it, then put it back. Or, ya know, wait for the air to naturally go away if the bag is a little poofy in the can. Not my roommate, though, no sir. He doesn't have time for that.

Even when we directly ask them, they just go "oh, yeah, I'll do that" and then just never do. They'll leave stuff that they used sitting there for hours until one of us ends up cleaning it so that we can use it ourselves. They're not going to be our roommate for much longer anyway.

Said this a while ago, and then I bought her one of those door draft stoppers for under her door, as well as rubber foams that seal the space between the door and the frame. Then messages me last night that the rubber seal isn't a perfect solution. I have both of these for my room, and when the door is closed, there could be a storm in the living room, and I won't get much air inside.

I’m a college sophomore living with two other guys. I share a bathroom with one of them (I’ll call him Sean, a senior). He’s always been messy, but I’ve mostly ignored it. This pushed it way past that.

I came home around 1 am after work and walked into smashed pots, dirt everywhere, and broken glass and ceramic all over the floor of our shared living room. Nothing was cleaned up. Just left there for me to deal with. There was also what looked like puke on the window.

That’s honestly what annoyed me the most. Not only did that stuff get broken, but he made zero effort to clean it or even make it safe. I’m literally walking around at night, and there’s glass all over the floor because he couldn’t be bothered.

He texted me the next day, saying he was really drunk and didn’t remember, asked what plants they were so he could replace them, and said he’d clean everything up. He also apologized in person later and seemed genuine.

I get that it probably wasn’t intentional, but being drunk doesn’t really excuse trashing someone else’s stuff and just leaving it like that.

I’m not even sad about it, just annoyed that I had to deal with it at all.

I live with 2 other roommates right now, and we have established that we take turns taking out the trash, but any trash that can't be thrown in the main trash and placed outside of the trash is our own responsibility (cardboard boxes, jugs, fast food bags, etc.). There hasn't been a trash bag in the main trash for a few weeks because they ignored my request to split the cost of trash bags, so everyone has just been filling up their own bags of trash and leaving them near the main trash. It's technically my turn to take out the trash, but there hasn't been trash to take out, and I never agreed to take out 7 brown paper bags of trash downstairs to the dump... I asked them to throw away any bags that were theirs, and I did as well, but this roommate said it's my turn to take it out, but I reminded her that any trash outside the main trash is our own responsibility, and she just let it pile up. I've told her twice to take her trash out, and the RA even emailed all of us after someone who fixed our sink told the RA about the amount of trash accumulating in the kitchen (concern for ants coming back). It's been three days since the RA sent that email, and she still hasn't thrown out the trash. If she won't listen to me or the RA, genuinely, what am I supposed to do?

My sister's identical pot of the same age is pictured for comparison.

I waited an hour before I called out my roommate for leaving USED Q-tips on the bathroom counter and asked him to throw them away. Note, I did not nag him; I asked 1 time after waiting for him to do it on his own.

His response was to go into my craft room and mix the smallest beads he could find. At least he had the decency to keep most of the reds away from the blues, I guess...

Now I have something to do for the next couple of days.

Common plastic bead for scale.

After about 6 months, she, with no communication or warning to me, completely freaked out about the dishes and how I was "poisoning" all of her kitchenware. She ended up locking everything literally up in big boxes that she then kept in the living room.

In the past month or so, she decided to start focusing on the air conditioning, because I asked to have it a little lower since it's been in the 90s, and my room gets blasted by the sun half the day. She didn't care at all, saying, "I pay for half the electricity, so I don't want it on", as if I don't ALSO pay for half of it. She was actually tearing the thermostat off the wall for a while and hiding it in her room.

She's also been freaking out if I ever leave an empty soda box by the garbage can. It's completely out of the way of foot traffic. She's been moving them and putting them in the sink, and outside my bedroom door.

Lately, she has been writing things like "GET OUT" and "You're not welcome here" on the side of the fridge and the cabinets. She has also been putting soap and wax on the kitchen chairs. She's also thrown my waffle maker on the counter and broken it, and put wax on my shoes. So shes damaging my belongings.

Any time I try to communicate with her, literally at all, she starts screaming. like top of her lungs yelling. I've actually reported a bunch of this to my leasing office, since it's gotten to the point she's breaking my things and yelling at me, and I feel properly unsafe.

I was moving the rest of my stuff in, and we were discussing our habits. She tells me that I cannot use her kitchen garbage can. I explained to her that I would not mind taking the trash out if it meant that I didn’t have to go out and purchase another garbage can. She agrees.

Mind you, her belongings take up the majority of our shared living space (empty boxes, bins, and clothing). It is to the point where it is blocking the bedroom door of another tenant. She also has 2 cats.

Fast forward to yesterday. I am getting ready to leave for a friend's birthday party, and I need to shower and use the bathroom. I check at 8:30, and the shower is on. I then go and do my thing for about an hour, and the shower is still on at 9:30. I knock on the door, and she opens it. She is not showering but has the tub faucet on for some reason. Eventually, she leaves, and I am able to do my thing. But she had been using the bathroom for well over an hour, which rubbed me the wrong way.

Fast forward to this morning. I was coming in from staying the night at my friend's, and I saw my dishes on the counter. I assumed that she had run the dishwasher while I was out and had left it out for me to put away. This was not the case. She went out of her way to empty everything that was not hers from the dishwasher and just washed her own dishes. She comes out of her room. And my dirty dishes had just been sitting on the counter overnight.

30 minutes go by, and I see a note on the trash can. “I know I told you I was comfortable with you using my trash can, but now I am not. Can you please buy yourself a new one?”

And now I’m here trying to figure out what to do. I feel as though she acts this way to try to get people to move out.

I live with my sister, and a few months ago she decided to move her remote workspace to the living room so that she could only use her room for resting. I was totally fine with it at first, but it’s been causing so many issues. I work in service, so I mainly get weekdays off and work weekends, so whenever I’ve tried to do simple things like heat up food in the microwave (NOT cook), bring in groceries, etc., while she’s in meetings, she complains that it’s too loud or noisy… Today I went to the gym, and when I got back, she was on a Zoom interview (which I was UNAWARE OF before I got home). When I got in and heard her on the phone, I quickly took out my bathroom trash, grabbed some cleaning supplies I needed for my bathroom, and then just went to my room to shower and was just gonna chill in my room till she finished. Then she sends me this? I will admit my response was kind of rude, but I’m just SO frustrated because yes, I get that I’m off on days that normal M-F 9-5 people are working, but it feels like I can never do anything before 5 pm.

I live with three other people in college, and one of them takes up the entire freezer with her frozen meals every week. It’s getting to the point where the freezer almost doesn’t shut without being taped. Another roommate and I asked her nicely last week to get fewer frozen items so that we can also have some freezer space, and she agreed, but this week the same thing happened. I marked her food with pink dots, mine with green, and my other roommate’s with blue. My fourth roommate didn’t have anything in the freezer. I know what belongs to who bc blue roommate and I go grocery shopping together every week. Part of the issue is that "pink" doesn’t eat all of her food every week, so it just builds up, taking up space without getting used.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, I’m just tired of not being able to get the groceries I would prefer.

This was at the end of arguing constantly for almost two weeks about money, so it was probably that he didn’t want to get into it again.

He moved in, and due to something that happened even before he moved in, I knew he was an idiot; I just wasn't aware of the extent. Anyway, I told him to sign the lease, and he said that he was only staying until April (this was back in October). He said he didn't want to sign it and be tied to the lease after he leaves. I said that he could leave, I would just get another roommate anyway, and he would take his place. He was skeptical, but I gave him the information to get him put on the lease. Well, I never got papers to sign from the landlord, and so I know he just decided not to sign the lease. I was going to push it further, then decided not to. If I ever needed to kick him out, I could have that in my back pocket and have an out if it ever came to that.

She is not the owner. She is just subletting, just like me, but has seniority. She pays 10% more rent coz she has a bigger room and an attached bathroom. The red part is hers, and the yellow part is mine. Yeah, "shared space".

We bought a box of 10 tapes, and they all look this bad 10 minutes after putting them up.

She does this every night. Goes into our shared shower/bathroom, runs the shower at max temperature, then closes the door to "create a sauna". Her own words.

She started running it at around 8. I had to use the bathroom at 10:15 and saw her in the bed, so I thought she had finished her shower (I couldn't hear the water running through the door).

I open the door and get hit with a massive cloud of hot steam. She had it running on max temperature FOR TWO HOURS.

Cherry on top is that she didn't take her shower during any of that time. Just left it running to create steam.

Yes, I've asked her not to do this, she says she likes the steam and just forgets about leaving it running for so long since you can't hear it through the door.

We don't pay "bills"; we pay a fixed sum at the end of every semester, since this is a dorm building. That's why there's no worry about driving up a water or power bill.

We split rent 50/50, buy our own food, and share the kitchen. This morning, I made eggs in what I thought was just… a frying pan. She sent me this text while I was at work. This isn’t the first time she’s "fined" me for using something. She made me pay $5 once for "overusing the vacuum." Am I crazy for thinking this is ridiculous?

I’ll start by saying I don’t hate her, but boy, is it a pet peeve of mine. It almost seems like clockwork sometimes when I step foot into the kitchen. I hear the click of her bedroom door, and I know 5 seconds later she’s about to spawn in like an NPC.

Logistics-wise, it’s a bit of a nightmare. The kitchen is super small. Not like NYC small, but also not like- cook your breakfast while I’m actively making mine- small.

For example, the trash can and utensils are under the main and only counter space, and the sink is adjacent to it. Pretty frustrating to have to stop and wait, or consciously monitor where she is, so I don’t have to bump into her. I apologize - I’m not rude, but like I’m in a funky flow, my dude. Like, for example, I might forget seasoning and have to run over to the pantry, which is above the sink. But if she’s right there, then I have to stop, and then my food is burning, it’s just frustrating, dog.

It’s low-key just exhausting. Like I said, can I just have my space? She’s vegetarian, so I’m contemplating just making meat and sausages, and bacon for breakfast, and maybe she’ll wait. I’m mostly joking, but hey, girl? Can we be courteous?

I approached the guy many times, but he blatantly refused to buy his own milk.

To answer some questions. He would say he doesn’t use much, and there’s no point in buying his own, as it would go bad before it was all used. But he’d have a coffee and a bowl of cereal every morning and at night have a hot chocolate. Easily using 500ml+ each day.

He got up before me too, so sometimes there wouldn’t be enough milk for me to have a coffee, which was/is the sole reason I buy milk.

My roommate expressed feelings for me, and I turned them down (literally, in a committed relationship), and so they decided that I needed to move out. Luckily for me, they haven't even talked to our apartment yet, and I work with apartments and renting, also crazy that I'm the problem.

I know for a fact she’s lost it because every time I use it, I put it back in the box it came in. I also never remove the straps, so I’m not sure if she lost it or if she’s done something with it.

When I told him my move-out date, I couldn’t finish everything in one trip since I was moving alone. I left two bags of clothes outside my door to grab later. He then emailed me (we only communicated through email) saying he hired a “cleaner” and that the bags were trash, so he’d throw them out. I told him to leave them alone, came back, put my stuff in my room, locked it, and left again.

The next day, I returned to find a chair wedged against my door to block me. When I finally got inside, I saw he had tried to break into my room using a knife and multiple tools, which is in the picture. They were all stuck so deep he couldn’t pull them out, even with pliers. He tried to laugh it off and make jokes, but I just stared blankly, not giving him a reaction. Internally, I was in disbelief, but I refused to show it.

I reported everything to the property manager, but she didn’t care at all. When I called the manager, I asked why she shared a private conversation with him - especially knowing the danger I was in. Even when I sent her a photo of the door damage, her response was, “I’ll call him and tell him to let you move out.” Like… seriously? No sense of safety awareness. She still hasn’t given me any higher contact info despite me following up multiple times.

Again, I’m safe now. Other than that, my new roommate is kind and respectful, and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted.

I stay in an apartment just outside my college campus. In the fall 2025 semester, and 2 of the other girls moved out, and the only roommate left was my 50-year-old roommate.

Now this woman has never spoken to me, and over the year we've lived here, the only communication we've had is whenever I have to engage in basic things like asking when the kitchen is free, and she's always rude about it. So this came out of nowhere because she's never explicitly cursed me out.

2 days ago, she sat outside my room all night, and I saw her shadow walking back and forth by my door. She talks loudly about me right outside my door while she's in the kitchen on the phone. And I can't leave my room since she always comes out after I leave and tries to argue with me. She put bike locks on the cabinets, and luckily, I don't use the kitchen much and only have 1 cabinet that I use. I'm afraid that she will do something beyond just this provoking and bullying, to something more destructive.

A new roommate moved in yesterday, and the 50-year-old started to loudly bad-talk me outside my door to her, and when I confronted her, she said she knew I was in there and did it on purpose. The new roomie tried to mediate, and apparently, the 50-year-old is mad because the other roommates left a mess before they moved out, and she's taking it out on me because I'm the only one here.

This whole situation is childish. I've tried to talk to the leasing office, but they're very busy at this time.

I wish I were joking. This guy would throw toddler-level temper tantrums and threaten everyone around him in drunken rage if politely asked to turn down the pounding techno music that he had playing at all hours of the day. No surprise he got us all evicted.

I recently moved in with my roommate a couple of months ago. We aren’t very close, however, things have been mostly smooth, and we haven’t had many problems. I understand he has side hustles; however, I believe this one has crossed the line. 2 days ago, he had 400 nitrous oxide tanks delivered to the apartment, and they have been sitting in a messy pile, taking up the entire living room and entrance way ever since. I have asked him multiple times to move them. He keeps on telling me he’ll do it later, but it’s been two days, and honestly, I don't know what to do.

Perfume, a plate my grandmother had gotten me for jewellery and stuff, a plant & a decoration I had were all smashed on the ground.

I’m really sorry if the screenshots are confusing; they’re texts with my two roommates, so I was trying to make them as non-confusing as possible.

But I’m genuinely just really worked up about this whole thing? I know not that much stuff broke, but I’m honestly just really angry about it.

Update. Roommate tried saying parents are out of the country and could not pay her portion. Then, minutes later, she paid her portion. How bad to use her parents like that to get away with not paying the electric bills.

When I moved in, I had at least three of these. I put them in the kitchen, and would share these, people put other things in the container too, but mostly widely as different recognizable things, black soup spoons/ things out of metal...

Anyways, she took one out of the box and put it into her shelf space to keep and use herself, since she is adamant about one of them being hers. When I put it back, she threatened me with the police, so I gave it up since I don't have a picture/ proof of me owning/ buying this set before moving in.

I am doubting reality now, though. But there were definitely more than two in there when I moved in...

All three of them are the same size/ width and are made of the same material.

Even if true, why put her thing in there, when it could easily be misinterpreted as belonging to the (my) set?

I even looked in all the drawers to search for her wooden spoon thing, but couldn't find any that looked like mine.

I rent out a room in my house to this guy, and I’ve been noticing he’s been seriously slacking on cleaning up after himself. Dishes are piling up, the bathroom looks like it’s never seen a sponge, and his laundry? Everywhere. I finally texted him to address it, and this was his response.

Am I overreacting here, or is this actually insane? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask someone to clean up after themselves in their own living space. I’m not their maid, and I’m not asking for perfection - just basic hygiene.

Problems started almost immediately after he moved in. One of the main issues was that he arrived with a significant amount of shared-space items that he had never mentioned before. Not only did they not fit in the apartment, but he also began rearranging things and moving my items and furniture without asking... He started directing where things in the apartment should go and placing decorative objects in areas of practical spaces.

This upset him quite a lot and led to a series of increasingly intense conversations about fairness, "gracefulness," communication, and our relationship as roommates. During one of these discussions, he asked if I would be willing to go to therapy with him.

This probing made me come to the slow and scary realization about him. He is a person of extreme intensity who constantly analyzes, calculates, questions, and interrogates every interaction. He would ask me similar questions to measure my intentions and morals, but frame them as "just trying to understand what you meant/ understand you better, why would you think the worst of me?" I would always feel probed and examined under a microscope, as you can see above. It was exhausting. This was also a source of our tensions as I look back on it.

Then Halloween weekend came around, and a friend asked if they could come over to stay with me. I compromised by telling him that she would stay exclusively in my bedroom, which has its own bathroom, so he wouldn’t be bothered by her presence. He still found a problem with it, claiming that I had control issues and that there was no point in asking him anything if I was going to do whatever I wanted.

I never really truly understood his nature, as I had to distance myself from him.

They also said the germs from the toilet would go straight into the bushes on the ceiling.

I thought I was doing something nice by making our guest bathroom like a cool downtown restaurant or something.