“Caught In The Act”: 30 Stories Of Roommates Being Weird When They Thought They Were Alone
In many places of the world, we are increasingly living with one another. In the United States, for example, 31.9% of households are "doubled up," meaning people share them with at least one adult who isn't a spouse, romantic partner, or college student (in 2004, the figure was 27.4%).
Sometimes, these arrangements cause all sorts of awkward situations. So when last week Reddit user EnchantedSophia asked others on the platform "What's the weirdest thing you've caught your roommate doing when they thought no one was watching?" many submitted their juicy stories.
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I woke up to find my room-mate at his drawing desk wearing boxer shorts on his head. I didn't broach the matter at first.
The landlord was due to arrive shortly for the cheques, and so I put it to him at last "Dave - you've got boxer shorts on your head."
To this day I still remember him languidly turning around, boxer shorts and all, asking what I'd just said. When I repeated myself he suddenly went "oh, s**t, s**t!" and tore them off his head, blushing.
When I asked why he'd been wearing them in the first place he said that since he'd started growing his hair out it had started to get into his eyes while he was drawing at his desk, and it was the only thing he had to hand right then to solve the problem.
Dave could be a pain in the a*s a lot of the time, but he had these moments that reminded me that - yes, he was human after all.
My roommate eats dinner in the dark. Scares the hell out of me when I go into the kitchen and flip the lights on and reveal someone already there.
We call it dark dinner.
This one makes me laugh; that's totally me. I'm sensitive to light, when it's dark. So if I enter a dark/dimly lit room; and don't intend to be there long, I don't turn the light on. I see VERY well in the dark. I have done this..... (Startle people in a dark room. Not "dark dinner")
Hit on my girlfriend. He thought I was out having a smoke, but I decided to grab a drink first and heard him say, “he’ll never know.”
Luckily I also heard her say, “yes, but I would, and I could not say I love him and do something like that.”
She then tried to find me to tell me something. I played dumb, and got to hear her say that she doesn’t like my room mate, and that he had hit on her when I left.
We started spending more time at her place after that.
One of my good buds roomed with me right before covid. I'm not an emotional roller-coaster, but when we lived together I was going through some relationship drama and I did cry with him a few times. He's one of the guys that feels that men shouldn't have feelings, especially express them. I got home a lot earlier than I usually do one night, and before I got to the door I heard him crying. I peeked in a window and he was holding a stuffed animal his mom gave him, just rocking back and forth crying. I never told him I saw him, I waited in my car for a half hour and came in and he was watching TV. It was nice to see he had a heart and needed to cry sometimes too.
One time I came home from work to find my roommates car parked diagonally, still running on the driveway. The front door was wide open (it's the dead of winter in canada) and his jacket laying there a few feet away from the door, his shoes kicked off, one a few feet from the jacket, and the other a few feet from the first. I called out to see if he was okay, and as it turned out, he had gone out for teppanyaki and had very narrowly avoided s******g his pants in the worst way. Very very funny moment.
I’d had something like this once - I was visiting friends who’d rented a house somewhere. Turned out to be a lot further than I’d thought, and I’d drunk a *lot* of coffee on the way, I had to phone them to go “I’ll be there in three minutes - I need you to open the front door and point me straight to the loo before we do literally anything else”
My first college roommate came back from the bathroom with a huge roll of toilet paper. Walks to the mini-fridge, gets a can of spray cheese. He breaks off like 4 squares of TP at a time, folding into a single square. Then sprays cheese into the middle, folds it like a pierogi and eats it in a single bite.
I really wish I was making this up. Dude was f*****g weird.
I walked in on my roommate sitting on my bed, taking pictures of my things. We later found out she had a blog about us (my other roommate and I). She gave us nicknames, made fun of us and posted pictures of our things. It was super mean and really weird.
Didn't happen to me but a friend of mine was renting the main floor of a two story house in college. There was an odd cat lady renting the upstairs floor who had a separate entrance. She must've had agoraphobia because he never saw her leave her place. Her odd behavior was actually hilarious. She would lower her cat inside of a basket out of her window to the ground in the back yard. The cat would sniff around the yard, go to the bathroom, then get back into the basket and she would reel it back up to the second floor. None of us believed him till we saw it ourselves. He just got used to it lol.
Lived with this one girl who "communed with demons." Late one night I woke up outta no where & heard her outside my door speakng in a deep gutteral voice, scratching my door.
Just went back to sleep cause nah.
I caught my roommate serenading our houseplants with love ballads, convinced it would help them grow... but sadly, they're still leafing us hanging.
Not the super weirdest thing ever but weirdest I've seen in a share house. A housemate had just gotten his harnesses from working at heights training, so he was swinging back and forth out the back patio when I got home, he was having the best time. I laughed, grabbed some beers and gave him a few pushes.
Idk about walking in one someone else BUT,
I thought my Roomate was gone for the week on a trip since they left to the airport a couple hours before. I had a date that night with this really cute gal, and I was getting ready.
Got the point when I got out the shower, Give Me Everything by Pitbull and NeYo was playing (lol) and I was singing and dancing all over the house in my underwear.
With my brush in hand, pretending it was a microphone, I was shaking my hips like Shakira getting hot, and my Roomate walked in. He missed his flight and rescheduled for the next day, and I missed his calls since I had my phone faced down.
He told me he would pretend he didn’t see anything. Good guy lmao.
I once walked in the house after work to find my former roommate perched on the arm of the couch, screeching like a pterodactyl. He didn’t hear me come in so I hid in the kitchen and observed as he occasionally would hop from chair to chair, screeching. Eventually I couldn’t hold the laughter in. I guess he forgot to take his meds for a few days and had a flare up but we still laugh about that to this day.
That is a great bonding experience... glad he u derstood when you laughed , since he was on meds!
I caught my piece of s**t roommate trying to drag a girl into his room by her arm. It was around 3am and I was the only sober one. His cousin, the third roommate, was a cop and didn’t even try to stop it. She was yelling at him to stop and that’s what got me out of my room. I just separated them and walked her and her friend to the door.
Moved out quickly after that, and my old roommate emailed my dad talking s**t about me, called me a cockblock, and I got to explain to my 72 year old father what exactly that was.
I made cookies and had them out on a cooling rack. The kitchen area was completely open to the living room, where I was sitting on the couch. My roommate stacked about six of the cookies on her hand and then "hid them" behind her arm and casually walked past me. She could have just asked for cookies.
When people do shït like this it makes me wonder if it's cause they expect you to act like they would. In this case could the roommate be stealing the cookies cause she herself wouldn't share them and expects others to do the same?
He was listening to classical music very loudly and pretending to conduct the orchestra. I’m sure he would have been famous had it been a real orchestra! 😂.
Caught a roommate trying to sneak all her stuff out one gym bag at a time in order to move out and not pay all the back rent she owed. Her mom ended up paying after we threatened a court filing.
Her room which we hadn't seen the inside of for a year, was the most disgusting s**t I have ever seen in my life.
EDIT: Since I was asked for more details, the room was like a hoarders episode. All our missing dishes, cookware, and cutlery were found all over the room and under the bed with dried or moldy food. Used tampons were found in various places including stuck to the wall. Used condoms as well. Trash everywhere. Moldy coffee cups. Stains of all sorts, on the walls and carpet. The original colors of both were impossible to discern. Also tons of liquor bottles due to her drinking problem. Her desk and bed (she left all her furniture) were so covered in garbage in filth you couldn't even tell there was a bed or desk underneath. I'm pretty sure she was also wiping boogers on the wall beside her bed.
She would also have guys she met online come over for hookups which is insane to me. If some girl invited me in to a room like that I would be out the door so f*****g fast.
Game is game, but yeah, I'm jumping out the window if I see that.
I was the roommate in this case. I was living with my now ex and another guy at the time and my old roommate walked out of his room to go to work and found me in a black and red corset and pirate hat listening to sea shanties while I did the dishes. He said at first his reaction was just wtf but then he thought about it and was like damn I need to find a woman like that.
Peeing in the sink. He said it was because it’s quieter.
Walked in on my college roommate trying on my underwear.
Eeewww, i would never borrow or try on someone elses underwear. No matter the sex.
It's me. I'm the roommate. I thought I was at the house by myself. That key and peele skit "east vs west bowl" had just come out and the names were hilariously catchy. Davoin Showerhandle was stuck in my head, I couldn't get it out, and I just started shouting it out loudly again and again and again. That was until I heard my roommate burst out laughing in the living room. He had been quietly reading a book for like two hours. Thought I was alone...... **DAVOIN SHOWERHANDLE**.
In freshman year I had a suite situation where me and my roommate shared a bathroom with another room next door. One of the guys in that room was this dude who just had the most questionable hygiene practices. He’d dye his hair black every other day, seemingly never took showers, and was usually just a menace with other people’s things.
One day though, me and my other roommates noticed that all our toilet paper was going missing, which was odd since it was being provided in frankly ridiculous amounts by my super generous roommate, like more toilet paper than 4 people could conceivably use over the course of one year was just gone.
Eventually, we figured out this dude was going into the bathroom, soaping up, and toilet papering himself till he was dry. A set of circumstances we only figured out due to a number of unfortunate walk-ins mid act.
Dude also stored a jar of white liquid in the freezer next to food, that he only described as ‘human juices’.
My housemate at university woke up one morning and our other housemate was watching him sleep through the crack between the door and doorframe on the hinge side. The guy watching just said "alright" and walked away.
My college room mates gf was in our room waiting for him. She was sitting on his bed snacking on something. I just ignored her for the most part. Eventually we had some interaction and she got up and I saw what she was snacking on, a giant jar of fruit flavored TUMS. She'd eaten all of them.
I asked if she had and she denied it then admitted it. I said you know that's going to mess up your stomach right? She looked confused. I said that's not candy it's for stomach issues.....dull stare...."I know...but they're good."
Ok. Enjoy s******g out that calcium brick in a few days.
I had an aunt with a notorious sweet tooth. She is in her late 80ties. Doctor told her to buy a multivitamin. She buys a large bottle of multivitamin gummies. I drop buy and she she eating the entire bottle. Says they taste so good she can't stop. WTF. I tell her they are supplements not candy and she can do herself harm. Refused to believe me. I snitched on her to one of her kids.
I had a roommate who would wake up at 5 am everyday and go to the bathroom for at least an hour, which was connected to my room.
He would blow his nose, hack, and flush the toilet about 500 times while in there. One day I went into the bathroom and the toilet was FULL of toilet paper. Wtf was he doing?! We never had any left, so I started hiding it.
Whenever I had guys over they were like who tf is this dude. Lol.
You can pretty much tell the status of household relationships by how much toilet paper is available.
Once had a roommate who saved every dirty utensil that she’d used for her food, in a plastic baggie under her bed.
The rest of us discovered this months after switching to plastic utensils as we were sure the original utensils would show up somehow. Oh, they showed up…and that’s a whole story too.
It wasn’t uncommon for my roommate and I to walk into each others rooms unannounced (as long as we didn’t have a guest over, etc) but one day, middle of the afternoon I walked in on him laying on the floor, in the “happy baby” pose sunning his b-hole.
I’ve been an adamant knocker ever since.
My first roommate in college rolled out of the top bunk, opened the small fridge we had, and pissed directly into it. Then went back to bed. Fearing I might be next I walked out and slept in the lounge. The next day was…awkward.
Not my roommate, but my friend’s. We found boxes and boxes of used tampons in the bathroom cupboard. It was pretty stinky and pretty disturbing. Still not sure why but, yeah. That’s it.
Straining a pot of boiled noodles just straight on to the kitchen floor and then sopping up the water with the hot pad. He was on crutches at the time. He was also a major idiot.
I don't have a roommate but i have parents. I heard my mom in the kitchen like she was a cooking show. "You want to dice the onion fine and throw that in for 350 for about 25 minutes or the temperature reaches 165".
Not recording anything. Not talking to anybody. Just cooking. She looked up when saw me and said "what?" like it was normal. Um, nothing...
Chores are tiresome and dull. Spicing them up with a play of pretend makes them more tolerable, sometimes even fun.
Didnt “catch” him doing it cuz he openly did it, but my one of my roommates in college used to eat onions like an apple. Just take whole a*s bites out of it skin and all. Sometimes he’d put ketchup on it.
Me and my best bud lived together for a year, basically spending the whole year stoned. One night I come home and the place reeks of all the weed and the lights are all turned off.
I see his door is closed but orange flickering lights were coming from under the door. I knock and slowly open the door to reveal a hundred tiny lit candles all over his huge desk arranged in a long rectangle. He’s standing above them holding a video camera.
“The f**k are you doing?”
“I’m making art! This is gonna be the best short film ever!”
“…what’s it called?”
“CANDLES!”.
My boyfriend and I let one of his friends stay at our house because he got kicked out of his previous roommate situation and we felt bad. One morning, while my boyfriend was getting ready for work, he went out to start his car and saw something out of the corner of his eye in the backyard. He turns to see his friend squatting in the grass where the dogs go potty. He was taking a dump in our yard.
Hmmm, did they ever find out why he was kicked out from his previous place before they took him in? 🤔
Screaming at my guinea pig for whining for food. He didn't know I was home. I promptly fed the feller and told my roommate to f**k off.
Once saw a housemate stick his finger into the butter and swirl it around, then dip the butter-covered finger into a bag of sugar and eat it like an ice cream.
When i was a kid i used to slice cheese, roll it up and dip it into sugar and eat it. What a crime against cheese, would never do it now lol.
Same female roommate, same scenario, twice. She didn't know I was home and in my bedroom.
1) she started talking to the dog. Normally meh, cause who doesn't. But. "Hello Mr Dog!" *Dog barks* "Bark bark bark!" *Dog barks* "Bark bark Bark." Back and forth like this for a solid 10 minutes.
2) she started talking to the salt and pepper, a full convo. "Oh Hello Mr Pepper, how are you today?"..."Wonderful that is good to hear! I hope to say the same."..."Ah yes, that is right Mr Pepper. And how is your wife, Mrs Salt Shaker"...
Serenading the refrigerator.
Not really, though that is what it looked like. He played the guitar a lot. He'd wander around the house playing his guitar. If he got hungry he go open the fridge door, and then stand back and play to it while he decided what to eat.
I was the only girl in a house of boys. A guy I lived with (imagine every single worst stereotype of a larper, including the smell) didn't know I was home. He went out to the couch and put in a DVD. I got up to start my day, and I noticed it was a cartoon. I asked what he was watching, and he said "anime." I had already seen the big anime boobs. He was going to fap on our shared couch!
So, I grabbed my cereal, sat next to him, said "I've never seen an anime! What is this one about?" He mumbled something, took the DVD out, and went back to his room.
My roommate just finished building the Lego Technic Ford GT. He then proceeded to move it back and forth on the table making vroom vroom skiirrrt skiirrrt noises. He's 28. I got it on video.
I had a roommate when I was in my early 20s who got deep in to a pyramid scheme, he was convinced that he was going to be a millionaire from it and he just needed to sell the s****y energy drinks and protein shakes etc that the "company" was having him buy bulk of.
Anyways, one day I come home on break and he doesn't know I'm there, I hear talking coming from his bedroom. He is lifting weights in the mirror staring at himself basically shouting "I AM NOT A LOSER, I WILL SELL THESE PRODUCTS, I WILL BE RICH, I WILL SUCCEED" and so forth. He was so in the zone that he did not see me standing there, and I never brought it up to him. He basically lost all his friends and money for years due to that stupid cult pyramid scheme. He eventually got out when the guy who brought him in started f*****g his girlfriend. He's still kind of weird.
I caught my roommate playing giga chad music and pretending he was a badass - I mean it was pretty cool ngl.
Caught my roommate talking to a potted plant for 20 minutes while watering it, calling it "Mr. Greens.".
He was smelling his farts. Basically, when he felt like he needed to fart, he puts his hands on his butt and smell it. That day, i think he was so absorbed in his head he didn’t even notice me in front of his bedroom’s door.
Left to go snowboarding. Got about 20 min down the road and realized I left my pass in my other jacket. Went back to my condo and my room mate was in front of the TV on the floor in just his boxers and a pair of goggles. He was using a Dremel tool to strip the paint off his bicycle. Paint flakes everywhere. I was like WTF???? He said “ gonna repaint my bike.” I don’t think he ever finished that project.
I lived in a s****y rental house where each room was rented out and there were like six rooms. It was full of shady characters, including us if we're being honest.
So this older guy (probably 40s or 50s but I don't know. I was 17 at the time) was apparently addicted to opiates. This was back in 2000ish when meth was all the rage so I didn't know what I was looking at.
Anyway! Our kitchen had a big interior window thing so people in the living room could see whoever was standing at the stove. He was falling asleep while cooking food. Like he was standing with a spatula over a pan and his body would slowly drop and sag then her kinda jerk half awake. This went on for what felt like a long time. Eventually there were four of us all staring at him from only a few feet away and he never noticed us. Just kept nodding off over the stove.
***Bobby, you still scare me.*** 30 years ago, I opened the door to the bathroom, and Bobby was leaned over, staring into the mirror, mad-dogging himself, shaking his fists, and growling threats of the a*s whooping he was about to put on someone. For context, he had been getting bullied mercilessly at work for no reason. He kept to himself and was very kind. Many of his coworkers were late teens, early 20s. They made sport of him every chance they got. This is how school shootings happen. Anyway, I pushed the door quietly back and never mentioned it.
We weren't roommates exactly, but it was four bedrooms that's shared a bathroom and kitchen. We had this sponge scrubber with a chamber for dish soap, caught Idaho using it to clean the toilet. Also found out Idaho would use the bathroom hand towel to dry his body after showering. Idaho was trash. I started keeping all my stuff in my room after that.
Not a huge thing, but...
I got up in the middle of teh night to take a leak, and I caught her at 3AM drinking the brine out of my jar of pickles.
Pickle juice is an almost instant cure for persistent leg cramps (which my boyfriend gets regularly....because reasons...). I always have at least one jar of pickle juice in the fridge at all times, specifically for this purpose.
At uni, my best friend lived in a house share with all uni students except one man in his 60's. He was friendly enough but pretty gross. He would come home from work, break raw eggs into his plaster covered hands (he was a plasterer) one by one and lap and slurp up the egg from them for his dinner when he thought he had the kitchen to himself. One day we got back from lectures and he said there was rabbit in the fridge if we wanted some. We opened the fridge and found 2 foul smelling, unprepared rabbits that were covered in fleas.
My college dorm was connected to another room with a bathroom in the middle. Two people per room so the 4 of us shared a bathroom.
The two guys in the other room weren't computer savvy and my roommate was so my roommate helped them set up their computers to connect to the internet (this was was before everything was plug and play). I knew just enough to do it myself. Afterward, my super innocent-seeming roommate who had probably never done anything mean ever looks at me and says, "I set it so I could access their computers any time. Just in case we want to prank them or something." I was shocked. But as a prankster myself, very impressed.
One of the guys had a girlfriend. When they were alone in his room, my roommate would send gay porn to his printer. Then we'd hear him trying to explain what happened to his GF. But that's besides the point.
The other guy was pretty weird. Really antisocial. Went home every weekend. I asked him why he goes home every weekend and he told me his mom tapes Dragon Ball Z for him so he goes home to watch that. At one point my roommate decided that he wanted to see what that guy had been looking at on the internet. Big mistake. I'm not normally one to kink shame but this guy was into cartoon porn. Like lots of it. And his routine was to fire it up right when his roommate left for class.
Also, one day I walked into our shared bathroom and there was a turd just hanging out in the middle of the bath mat. I flipped my s**t because that's just gross. I know it wasn't mine. I doubt it was my roommate because it was his bath mat. The guy with the GF was out of town at the time. That left cartoon guy. He quietly went to the bathroom and cleaned it up. I still don't understand what happened.
I mean, if you look up internet history you'd better be prepared for what you'll find. People can be sick when hiding behind a keyboard.
Caught my roommate talking to their pet rock.
