What's the weirdest roommate experience you've ever had?

That's very creepy. I'd have raised the alarm sooner than that, though. If food was obviously missing and I heard footsteps...

My roommate/landlord had $200 stolen out of his wallet and he decided that my boyfriend was to blame. At the time my boyfriend had been coming over to that house for more than a year and made more money than my roommates. It was a real shit show. It opened my eyes to how money can turn people into disgusting snarling jackals, especially if they're low-class to begin with. I moved out at 11:55 PM on the 31st, didn't give any notice and I stiffed him on the $100 utility bill. Fuck you, Jason. I hope he's still living in that shitty house.

I shared a flat in London with two other guys. Two of us were nurses. The other guy worked in advertising and earned much more than us. He had a raging coke addiction, and became a bit of a nightmare when it came to paying bills, as he was always short of money. He would disappear for days at a time partying, and we would have to take calls from his family who couldn’t contact him. The worst incident was when he couldn’t pay the rent. We had to stump up the balance to avoid being evicted. That was the last straw for me.

“You’re really pretty, can I give you a hug?”

I lived in a shitty apartment in college with 2 roommates. We were all 3 barely able to pay bills at the time, and survived on typical cheap college food. One night 2 of us decided to prank the other. I don't even remember what we hoped to accomplish, but it involved moving his mattress. But, when we did, there was so much cash under his mattress - thousands of dollars. We already thought he was shifty, and we panicked and just gave up on the prank and moved the mattress back. He wasn't the kind of person you'd want to confront. We left it! We tried to hint or bring up money stuff numerous times, but he never took the bait. He didn't live with us much longer, and we did not stay in touch. We never saw drug use, and he barely drank, so we had no clue what the cash situation was.

I worked in a mid-sized office in Manhattan in the late 90’s. The company published children’s books, so there were a lot of kooky types that worked there. One woman in particular was always around. Whenever you’d come in early, she’d already be there. Mid-40’s or maybe 50. Large-figured and motherly, always smiling, friendly and sociable. Her whole life seemed to revolve around her job (managing the illustration department). I worked there about six months, and over time her attire got more and more shabby and people began to talk behind her back that she sometimes smelled.

I came into work late one morning and the police were there and something big was going down. The building’s owners or new tenants had discovered she’d been living in a room in the unused office downstairs (a whole floor), and called the police thinking it was a burglary. She’d been using the bathrooms, kitchen, and sleeping in a closet of the largest office. She had run of the whole floor at night. She apparently had kept things very hidden for a while (people were down there a lot in the daytime, and they were always trying to rent the space) but got more brazen the longer she got away with it. She’d been doing this for at least six months.

I caught a glimpse of her as the police were escorting her out. She was in tears. And the police were carrying her belongings in two large trash bags. Not everyone liked the way our boss (a crabby jerk) handled it. He fired her on the spot and she was just gone. Apparently the manager of the building threatened him with legal action. It was all very weird.

I never found out what happened to this woman!

R6 She was your roommate ?

Good for her, getting away with it for so long. I like to think that she's doing the same thing at another NYC office right now.

I had a roommate called Cheryl.

Well, you know the rest..

R6 This kind of thing happens all the time in NYC. I’d imagine these days it happens even more.

I'm dealing with the same situation R3 was dealing with right now.

R6 Weird story, thanks. I can see how people view her as an anti-hero. Especially with the housing situation in NYC.

But this is only one strain of how homelessness begins. People with otherwise normal lives find themselves suddenly evicted or let down, and lack enough funds to get back on their feet. They have jobs, maybe even a gym membership, know where to go to use bathrooms and how to get food, appear normal. “I’ll just squat here, then here, then here, for a while until I figure things out, no one will know.” Then soon it’s “Hey this isn’t so bad!” They get better and better at it and years go by, soon it’s all they know and at some point the bottom falls out and then they enter the next stage of homelessness…

....

I was the weird roommate lol.

Maybe having a dorm wing in offices is the future of commercial leases. For those who are willing to come into the office (rather than wanting to work from home).

I did have an office mate who was sleeping in the office basement, which was mainly used for storage. She was receiving personal mail at our work address. She kept tons of food in the freezer / fridge. Left toiletries in the bathroom. She did weird stuff like plug her phone into a charger in the hallway.

She probably could have gotten away with it if she hadn't been so in-your-face about it.

How can matters be so desperate when someone has a job? There something seriously wrong with the corporate and business setup.

It's grotesque that employment offers no room for human dignity.

Not a roommate.

We were staying at the Peninsula Hotel in NYC and I got up super early to get coffee. As I walked by the church entrance next door, a young (20ish) woman popped around the corner and startled me, she looked like she was on her way to a boot camp class with a smallish duffle and crisp, brightly colored new workout outfit, hair and skin bright.

The next morning exactly the same thing happened, and I realized she’d been sleeping on the stoop.

I had lived in NYC for 20 years before moving to Tampa and she was the most impeccable street person I’ve ever seen- and I realized this homeless situation is cutting deeper.

I've posted it before.

My lesbian roommate woke me up at 2 am saying, "I think I killed her. She's not moving."

I knew she liked rough sex and apparently had brought a gal home. She confirmed it.

So deal with it, I told her.

She said, "I'll keep you out of it. Just help me get the body down the back steps and into the trunk."

I told her to get out and I wasn't getting involved again. I went back to sleep. (Anyone who has had a certain type of lesbian as a roommate will understand.)

The next morning, a Sunday, she was sitting in the living room and looked like she had been up all night. "She left early. I just knocked her out."

I said nothing, but always wondered how the woman left when my roommate had given her a ride.

In my early 20s, was living with 3 roommates (4 total). One of the roommates, I'll call her "Cindy" had an ex-boyfriend who was getting released from prison or jail. Cindy said she wanted ex-BF to move into her room. The rest of us roommates protested. Cindy cried and said, "You guys won't even give him a chance."

Ex-BF showed up to the house, drunk, and did end up moving in. I basically had one valuable item, a unique piece of jewelry that I knew could not be replaced. I started wearing that piece of jewelry instead of storing it in the apartment.

Ex-BF did end up stealing from all of us roommates (except for my jewelry item).

That was my worst roommate experience.

I found an elderly woman and lived in a colossal 3 bedroom doorman building perched over Union Sq. While I lived there cheaply, I found out collecting the mail that she’d been collecting not only my rent, but unemployment, social security, and had half a dozen other scams going on- claiming she was low income. I always paid the rent on time but when I gave notice she wanted $6000 for “damages”. My husband threatened to out her to the authorities and I gave her $300 for some old china I had broken.