Tips To Get Rid of an Awful Roommate

Midterms are still weeks away, and already you can’t stand your roommate. Being forced to share such small quarters as a dorm room with another person can take its toll on one’s sanity. Perhaps you got a random roommate, and the two of you just never clicked, or maybe you chose to room with a friend, only to find that spending every waking moment with her is a nightmare. You want to do a housing swap, but you’re settled into your room. Problem is, so is she. The gauntlet has been thrown; how do you make her move out?

1.Leave Passive-Agressive Notes.

The PAN is a surefire way to irk any person who gets it. You know what I’m talking about: Post-It notes that are written in a polite tone of voice, yet irritate you more than your mom nagging you to clean your room in high school. In fact, often the PAN comes off as sounding like your mom. I’m getting annoyed just thinking about PANs! So, use this technique to get under the roommate’s skin.

If her stuff has flooded into your personal space, neatly stack it on her desk with a note that says, “Please clean up after yourself!” If she continually forgets to lock the door, or turn off the light, write, “Please don’t forget to turn off the lights and lock the door!” on your dry-erase board. The more she irritates you, the more PANs you will be inspired to write, and the cycle of pissing each other off will continue until her bags are packed.

2. Get Dirty.

She’s a neat-freak, you’re a slob. But for the first few weeks, you made an honest attempt to change your ways. Yet what was impeccably clean for you was still too dirty for her. That’s it – show her the definition of mess. Even if you aren’t the sloppy one, big messes in small dorm rooms can be unbearable.

Case in point? A friend of mine was sick of always cleaning up after her sloppy roommate. One night, she stumbled home from the bar, wasted, and tried to make a drunken snack. Turned out, she was so wasted that all she could make was a puddle of pasta sauce… all over the floor. Drunk, hungry, and annoyed, my friend left the mess and went to bed, vowing to get up early the next morning and clean up when she was sober. This instigated a PAN from her roommate, about how they were both adults and should be able to clean up after themselves, which, in turn, prompted my friend to leave a non-passive, VERY aggressive note that sounded something like, “This was a one-time thing, and I never asked you clean up after me, bitch!“

This happened in April. The two girls didn’t talk for the rest of the school year.

3. Move Her Stuff.

I’m not saying hide her stuff, or steal her stuff; I’m just saying move it. People are very possessive of their personal belongings, especially when they are at odds with someone who is invading their space. If she leaves her notes all over the floor, picking them up and leaving them on her desk, or on top of her messenger bag will surely rub her the wrong way.

I have had a lot of poor living situations, but I don’t think anything irritated me more than sharing an apartment with a girl who constantly moved my shit around. Once, she decided that my 30-rack of Miller Lite took up too much room in the refrigerator, so she moved the case of beer… to the top of the dryer. WTF? That doesn’t even make sense! She then proceeded to do laundry, and the dryer heated up my beer and skunked all thirty cans. I’m still bitter, can you tell?

4. Make Ridiculous Requests.

Again, this involves using a passive-aggressive tone of voice in order to be completely effective. I once shared a dorm with a girl who told me I typed too loudly, and asked me not to keep her up by using my computer past 11 o’clock.

As an English major with at least one paper due every week, typing was going to happen. And as a college student putting herself through school by waiting tables five nights a week, the typing was not going to get done before 11 o’clock. So, make your own ridiculous requests to make your roommate think a single room is the way to go. She’ll be tired of your anal, OCD attitude in no time.

5. Make the Situation A-W-K-W-A-R-D.

Typically, sex is the best way to achieve this task. Even if you’re aren’t screwing anyone, she doesn’t need to know that. I had a friend who shared a suite and hated her suitemate. Her grand plan? Invite her best guy friend over, be all over him in the common room, and then move to the bedroom, where they would proceed to moan and make other loud sex sounds. They never actually did anything, but her hated suitemate thought she was a total nympho, and was creeped out enough to start staying away from the room to avoid hearing what she thought was a sexfest. See how creative girls can be when they hate each other?

6. Just Move Out Yourself.

If you really can’t stand living with your roommate, maybe you will be happier if you just switch rooms yourself. That way, you don’t have to spend your study time thinking of ways to make her miserable, and you don’t have to reduce yourself to being a conniving, catty bitch. Do you really have that strong of an emotional attachment to the bunk bed you’ve only been sleeping on for a few weeks?

Besides, the best part about moving out first is that you can leave little “presents” behind that she might not find for weeks. I once moved out and “accidentally” forgot a tupperware container in the fridge which had already begun to grow mold. I don’t even want to know what was growing in there by the time my former roommate cleaned out the apartment and found that little gem.

[Photo courtesy of tuesday.com] 

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