You have moved away from the comforts of home, out from under the safety of mom and dads wings, and you have been forced to move to a completely new place with a perfect stranger that has been picked for you by some odd mystery process.
There have been certain behaviors by said stranger that have left you questioning your luck, but how can you be sure that you have in fact been dealt a bad hand and have a horrible roommate? Here are a few of the major red flags that should tell you that you need to take those necessary steps to ditch the dud roomie and get another.
Contents
- 1 They Eat Your Food
- 2 They Like to “Borrow” Your Things
- 3 They do Not Know the Meaning of Cleaning Up
- 4 Your Room is their Personal Closet
- 5 Your Home Feels like Grand Central Station
- 6 There is a Lack of Communication
- 7 They Have No Consideration for Extra Expenses
- About the author: George Gallagher is a writer and blogger about private student loans and other college related matters. When not writing he likes to help students with their financial obstacles.
1 They Eat Your Food
You spend the money and time filling the fridge with food so that when you need a snack during studying or don’t feel like eating in the cafeteria, you can eat in the comfort of your own room, but every time you go to grab a snack, you realize someone beat you to it. If you try labeling your food, or using separate sides of the fridge, and nothing seems to help your roommate stick to their food only, then chances are you have a bad seed.
Someone who will eat your food and not replace it, especially without asking permission first, has a lack of respect for others personal objects, and this lack of respect has the potential to show itself in other areas, which is quite simply more trouble.
2 They Like to “Borrow” Your Things
Another sign that your roommate has a lack of respect and could be more trouble than they are worth is if they are constantly “borrowing” your clothes and other personal items without asking permission. Imagine how frustrating an entire year of going to your closet to wear something particular, or going to grab a movie or book and realizing it is gone might be.
You can’t possibly live with someone who just takes your things and has no decency to even ask permission first. How will you ever know if you get everything back or not? There will be even bigger problems when they lose one of your things. This situation spells disaster.
3 They do Not Know the Meaning of Cleaning Up
If you find dishes in the sink every day, hairballs in the shower, and food lying around everywhere, you are being forced to live in an unfair situation. If your roommate is too busy or lazy to clean, you will be spending hours that you should be studying cleaning up the messes of others, or you will be sitting in a pile of clutter trying to concentrate. Either way, you are left in a bad situation where it appears that your roommate has a disregard for your personal space and time.
4 Your Room is their Personal Closet
A sure fire sign of a horrible roommate is walking into the room and finding it looking like the closet threw up all over the room. No one wants to live in a pig sty of a room with clothes everywhere. Not only does this just not look good, making it nearly impossible for you to feel comfortable to have guests, but the clutter is extremely bad for concentration and will make it difficult to study.
5 Your Home Feels like Grand Central Station
Perhaps your roommate is the social type, that is great for them, but if you feel like you never come home to peace and quiet and you can’t be home without constantly being interrupted by visitors, that is a problem. If you have a constant flow of people in and out of your room, you will never be able to relax or study in there, much less get a good night’s sleep. I don’t care how nice your roommate is, you have to be able to sleep and study in peace.
6 There is a Lack of Communication
Another indication of a bad living situation is a lack of communication. If you have issues or problems that need to be addressed with one another, but you have little or no communication, or even worse, a complete breakdown of effective communication, there is no way you can continue to live in the situation. You need to be able to affectively resolve problems with one another and create a positive energy between you in order to live in a healthy way that allows you to work and thrive as needed for school.
7 They Have No Consideration for Extra Expenses
Let’s face it, when you are in college, usually it is the first time away from home, and you are living on a budget. Another sign that you have a horrible roommate is that they show a complete disregard for extra expenses. Maybe they leave the lights on all the time, or use gobs of toilet paper every time they go to the bathroom, whatever it may be, if they are forcing you to live beyond your means, it could create serious problems. Money is no joke.