Once upon a time I had a housemate who used to practise his clarinet at 3AM. He played Oh When The Saints... over and over again. That was annoying.
My friend's housemate once announced that she didn't use loo roll and so would not be buying any. She never stipulated what she used instead but it was almost certainly the loo roll purchased by the rest of the disgruntled house. That was also, very annoying.
My brother's friend once found his housemate plotting to pour bleach in her houmous to prevent others from tucking in. That was, erm, terrifying.
Even with all of these housemate horror stories I've amassed over the years (and we're sure you've got a fair old few too), I was still not prepared for the answers to a question the blew up on /AskReddit yesterday about the most awful housemates Redditors have ever had.
Read on for the (very) grim results.
1. The pet murderer
'Killed my rabbit and used his bones to form some sort of makeshift Satanic summoning ritual thing on her bed.
I wish I was making this up.
I didn't even confront her, the next night when I knew she was working late at McDonald's I got a friend with a truck and got all of my shit out of there.
Probably the most stressful time of my college years.'
2. The confused 'drug' user
'He drank my contact lens solution because he thought it was drugs. The whole bottle. A big bottle. Not only did he not figure it out while not being remotely high halfway through a fucking pint of lens solution, if it had been drugs, he would've died a lot.
Bonus idiocy: Also claimed he invented lettuce wraps.'*
3. The cry wanker
'She'd weep for some period of time while using a vibrator (it was a studio apartment with 4 of us living there).'
4. The Real Slim Shady
'His class schedule starts much earlier than mine and when he showers in the morning he plays Lose Yourself on full volume. Every. Damn. Day.'
5. The deluded dater
'One of my friends had a housemate with a rather interesting routine... and he had (as far as I know) absolutely no idea that anyone else was aware of it.
His first step - at least from what I could hear - would be to close his door and address some imaginary woman who had apparently sneaked inside when he wasn't looking.
"Well, what are you doing here?" he'd say, his voice audible through the wall. "Uh huh. Oh, really? Well, I guess I'd better take my pants off, then."
A few seconds would pass, after which he would speak again. "So, how about you get naked, too? I'll just lay here and wait for you to be ready. Oh, you're ready now? Well, go ahead and climb on top of me, then."
It would be several minutes before anything else would become audible... but then the next part of his routine would begin. Anyone within earshot would hear the guy's bedroom door open and then slam, after which he'd sprint down the hallway to the bathroom and slam that door. He'd be in there for a few minutes, the toilet would flush, and then we'd all be treated to a second performance of him slamming the door, running down the hall, and locking himself in his bedroom.
So, in short order, his routine went like this:
Click
"Oh, look, a sneaky woman!"
"Now we're both naked!"
Silence...
SLAM
Rapid footsteps
SLAM
Silence...
Toilet flushing.
SLAM
More rapid footsteps
SLAM
From what I've heard, he'd do this every night. At one point, someone suggested that he might have been talking to a webcam model or something, so they "accidentally" reset the router after hearing the guy's door close... but he went right through the same routine, talking to someone who wasn't there before beating a hasty retreat to the bathroom.'
6. The actual criminal
'Ran an illegal ebay theft and resale ring out of my apartment. I flew home to Texas to go to a family funeral and two days in to the trip had FBI Special Agents calling my phone, and telling me they had confiscated all the computers in my house.
I was cleared of all wrong doing, the FBI agents said it was clear I had no idea what was going on...but lesson learned. If your roommate is cagey with you about how they pay rent, it's probably not good.'
7. The pervert
'He used to masturbate while I was in the room. Awake. Sitting three feet from him.'
8. The dog abuser
'She punched my dog in a fit of drunken douchebaggery.'
9. The free bleeder
'Oh boy, where do I even start? I'll just make a list.
I shared a 12x12 dorm room with her, for reference.
She would free bleed and leave trails of her period blood from our room to the bathroom and not clean it up.
She would leave crusty underwear on the floor on my side of the room, next to my bed, while at the same time she insisted we divide the room with tape, and freaked out if anything of mine crossed that border for 2 seconds.
She was 18 and had a creepy 31 year old fiance she had been with for six years (you can do the math) that stayed over every weekend, and watched her asleep over Skype every week night, with me in view of the camera.
She smelled so bad that other students in our hall started making complaints about the stench coming from our room.
The first thing she said to me when I met her was, "I'm bi, but you need to know that I don't find you attractive." As if I was going to be disappointed by that news.'
10. The erstwhile defacator
'He shit. In the mother. Fucking. Kettle.
Fuck you, John.'
**Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Playing Gross Pranks On Flatmates Can Land You In Court – In America, At Least
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.