Good Roommate Gone Bad

I'm sure we've all had bad or crazy roommate experiences, so I thought I'd share mine. Hearing all these stories are somewhat entertaining, right?So, this goes back to April 2016; I was twenty-two years old, and I had a friend who lived in Sheffield, and when I first went to visit him, I fell in love with the city. The architecture was beautiful, the weather was scorching all the time. But most of all, what I loved was that when you come out of the train station, there is a gigantic fountain wall!I went down early April with my best friend to see a concert for my birthday, and whilst we were there, I used Tinder to try and find someone that could potentially be looking for someone to live with, or know someone who is looking for someone to live with. I met this specific girl, and I told her my situation, and she said that she had a spare room, and she invited me down to check out the house that she was staying in. My first instinct was there was something off about her because you don't just ask someone you have just started talking to, on Tinder may I add, to come down and stay with you for a few days. I could have been a serial killer for all she knew. But it is a bit hypocritical of me to say, because I still went down, and she could have been a serial killer.I went back down at the end of April to meet this girl, and to check out the house. When I first meet her, she is very friendly, and we walked home together, and when we got to the house, she offered to cook for me, and nobody can say no to free food, right? She then spoke about her old roommate who moved out before I came down, and she said things with her didn't go well. At first, she told me that her roommate was a bit depressed, she kept having a go at my roommate, and eventually, they had a massive argument, and then the next day, she packed her bags and she didn't leave a note or say goodbye, and she was gone. Now, a word of advice to people who have never moved out of the home before, if you have just met someone off of "a dating app" and they say it's okay for you to move in with them, and they don't have a good story of how it went with their last roommate, that is a red flag. Because I didn't know her that well, and because I like to believe in people, I decided I would move in no matter what. But, throughout that weekend, where I had my trial one, she kept bringing this guy home that she met prior a week before I came down. It kind of made me feel uncomfortable, and in a way, I found it kind of rude. The impression I got of this guy was that he was no good; I was right!We went to this "rave club" every night whilst I was there. It was nice to meet all of her friends because they were lovely, and most of them were extremely funny. He was also there, and there was this specific girl, who had it in for my roommate, because she started seeing this guy, and this girl was his ex-girlfriend. I spent one of the nights, trying to make her feel better, because she was a bad bummed out by that girl, and the drama going on whilst we're trying to have fun. Then the next day, I find out, he came over at 6 am, after he finished working there. I was starting to get annoyed at how that weekend was supposed to be about her and I getting to know each other, but he was taking away most of her time. But I didn't have a say in any of it because it wasn't my house yet. He would often leave in the middle of the day, and then she and I would spend some time with her and her friends. On my last morning, I remember hearing them both moan slightly, and the bed downstairs squeaking. The problem being in the room above her room is I would have had to listen to them have sex; that was no fun at all. About ten minutes go by, and she comes up to my room and sits on my bed, and then says that he and she had sex, and I nod and reply: "yeah, I know- I heard." Her face went as red as a beetroot, and she face palmed herself and apologized, and told me if she's ever loud again, just stomp on the ground. We'll see how well that went down later. Just a disclaimer, I'm not against people having sex, it's the most natural thing ever, and if I hear someone have sex, I usually catch interest and I'm like, "Ooh la la!" But when it's somebody I don't know very well, who is in the room below me, and isn't even trying to be quiet or sly about it, it does make me feel slightly uncomfortable. However, a part of it may have been a hint of jealousy, because I wasn't getting laid at that time.After that, I went back to Scotland, and I thanked her for letting me stay there for a weekend, and I asked her if she wanted any money for me staying there, and she replied, "No, that's fine." I decided to move in with her at the start of June. I spent most of those two months hoping he would not be in her life. But sadly, we don't always get what we want.So I move all my stuff down to Sheffield, I pay her the rent (in cash) straight away, we have a takeaway, and her boyfriend is there too. She tells me how they are getting on, and that they started seeing each other. At first, it was fantastic, I got a job within two weeks of living down there, and the pay was great. However, you had to deal with a lot of shit from people. She involved me with her friends as much as possible, and then about a month into me staying down there, I was settling in, and a fact about me is that I'm a hardcore introvert; I was into playing games with people on the internet at the time, so I spent most of my free time doing that. I felt free for a long time, I didn't have my parents forcing me to go to bed, if I wanted to stay up until 5 am playing video games, I would! But work began to weigh on me; when I went for the interview, they did say I would have to work at least one Saturday a month there, and that wasn't a problem. But, I ended up working at least five Saturdays, and I was only there for two and a half months. I was working Monday to Friday 10 am until 8 pm, and then when I was working Saturdays, I'd be working 10 am until 4 pm. It was tiring. My roommate was somebody who worked from home, and when she did have to go to work, she was there for five hours tops. She hardly ever went to work, and when I came home, she was about to go out to the pub with her friends. But my point was, she stayed at home all day—she could have taken breaks whenever she wanted to. She also invited her friends around for dinner most nights, and she would never clean the dishes up after them. Whenever I cooked dinner for myself, I would clean my plate straight away, because that is how I was brought up. One night, she even got one of her friends to clean the dishes... what?

I would always empty the bin if I saw it overflowing. Whenever the bins needed taking out, I would do it, because she seemed to go out on nights where the bins are supposed to be out, ready for the next day. I moped the floors, and low and behold we never had a hoover. Of course, I would always clean my room too.

One day, I came home from work; I came home early because I wasn't feeling too good— and I started cooking lunch for myself. She came downstairs, and she just snapped at me, "you need to help me with chores!" The only thing I will give her credit for, as I could have helped out in the bathroom more. We never really used the living room, well I didn't. But she and her friends did, and one day I did clean up after all four of them. I was completely shocked that she said that. The way I saw it, if you make the mess, you clean it up, but it's something I should have discussed with her. I was a little insecure, and I didn't stick up for myself, because I still didn't know her that well, and she was quite a strong character. I just let it pass, but it got worse. It then got to late July, and she asked if I wanted to move out, because there were a lot of things wrong with that house: the fridge didn't work, the hoover didn't work, my door didn't close properly, and we had to hand £600 a month to the landlord in cash. I said yes, and we went to a few viewings together, but there was nowhere we liked, and we had until the 7th of September to find a place before we would have to have left the property.

There was a week where the landlord was going to come for an inspection, and because I wasn't on the lease, the landlord was not supposed to know I was there, so my roommate planned the inspection for when I was at work, and then I'd have to hide all my stuff in the cupboards, or wherever. Another disclaimer, this was the first I moved away from home, so I was unaware of the laws of leases and tenants, and if I knew what my roommate was doing in the first place, I never would have agreed to move there in the first place. Looking back on it now, I just realized how dodgy everything was, like giving the landlord £600 in cash... If I would have had my way, I would have been living with a friend that lived there, however, his mum was really overprotective, and he didn't have a job, plus we just became friends again after this massive misunderstanding between us, but that's a story for another day.

She texts me when I was at work, one day and told me to keep on top of the cleaning all week. I took what she said on board, and then I ended up having to work that Saturday, so I would have had to do it on Sunday. It was also the day I got my first pay from my work, and my friends from work decided to go out, and I thought to myself: "Why not? I worked hard!" I come back from work around 4:30 pm and my roommate was all dressed up herself, ready to go out, and asked me if I could start cleaning... I told her that I'm going out with my friends from work, and she gave me the dirtiest look ever. Then glared at me and was like, "So when are you going to do some cleaning?" And I told her that I would do it tomorrow. She didn't say anything and went back into her room. That really got me in a bad mood, because I was thinking: "The bloody cheek she has, to think she can go out most nights, be out of the house every second night, not do any cleaning herself when she works from home!" I hadn't had one night out since I moved to Sheffield, and I thought I bloody deserved to have a night out. Even if the president was coming to visit, and the house looked awful I would still go out.

We found this two bedroom house, and I gave her £140 for a deposit on the house, because it was £280. Before work a few days later, she called me and said that we can't live in that area, because it's not a nice area, and the house looked nothing like what we saw online. I felt shit, because I just gave her £140.

Then fast forward to another situation, where one evening, she was out, yet again, and asked me if I could take the bins out and take her shopping in between 7am and 9 am tomorrow. I forgot I had to be at work early the next day, so I just said yes. The next day, I go to work, and I have 3 missed calls from her, and she called me when I was at work, and she was furious with me. Blaming me, for her spending £30 for nothing, (yet she was spending £1,000 each month on drugs) and that if I couldn't take it in, I could have let her known. I am stressed out, and crying at work for the rest of the day because of her shouting at me. I was even scared to go home that night because of her. I asked my colleague if I could stay over at her house that night, and because of her living situation, I couldn't. But it turns out, she didn't come home that night anyway. The next day, when I'm at work, she text me saying that she thinks we should be looking for one bedroom houses because she couldn't find any two bedroom houses in areas she felt safe to live in. I laughed at the text message and was like "yeah, she's clearly trying to say in the slyest way possible that she doesn't want to live with me." But I was relieved because I didn't want to live with her either.

So fast forward to my last week in that house—I got my boyfriend to come over and stay with me, and I quit my job. We both helped her tidy the house, before I was going to move out, she was going to stay an extra day, but I decided to just go back to Scotland the next day. It was my last day, and after tidying, and gutting most of the place, her, me and my boyfriend all went up to my room, and we listened to music together, and she explained to me why her roommate before me really moved out. It wasn't just, "she disappeared," it was a lot more than that. I knew something was not right from that story, someone just suddenly disappears. What had happened was her and her old roommate had a massive argument, I won't go into too much detail of what happened, but she kicked her out of the house, because she did drugs in front of her younger sisters. Just the fact that she hadn't had a good reputation with roommates before should have been a red flag for me, but I chose to ignore it. She also told me and Lorenzo that the reason she doesn't have friends anymore is because of her boyfriend. I wasn't at all surprised by this, because she was a naive teenager, who had a self-esteem boost from a guy who is six years older than her date her, and she gave him attention every night, since they met. Also, because of his reputation, his friends didn't want to talk to her, because it would have meant they would have had to deal with him too.On my last day, she asked me if she could get some money for, "bills" but I know exactly what she wanted to spend her money on. I asked her before I moved in, if she would like any bills for the electricity or wi-fi, and she said no, just rent is fine; on my last day, she asks me for £100 for electricity on its own and halved between us. No way, darling. There is no way the electricity bill would have been £200. We didn't have a washing machine and never had the heating on. Her boyfriend, however, did run baths every night. But for some reason, I had to pay for them having sexy bath time together? I agreed to it, but when I left, I never spoke to her or left any money, because I knew something wasn't genuine. On my way home, she messaged me and then asked for £150... I was clearly like, "this girl is clearly trying to rip me off." If she wants money for drugs, she can go to work and earn it like a normal person. I then block her number, and her Facebook, and her friends, because I don't want to speak to her ever again.This was awkward for me, because I was applying for jobs in Aberdeen. About two weeks go by, and I get a very horrible, lengthy message on Facebook from her boyfriend—he was basically saying that she was kind to let me live there—I will give her that she was—and whilst she was three years younger then me, I always ate her food, didn't do any cleaning, and after being patient with my ineptitude she asked for a SMALL amount of money towards bills, and you didn't pay a penny, and that if you don't pay a penny she will call the police. At this point, I had private numbers blocked on my phone, and he was leaving me nasty voicemails on my phone, and she was using other people's phones to call my phone, so in the end, I ended up changing my number. I could not believe he messaged me, especially seeing as he wasn't living with us, so he only knew what she told him. After I changed my number, I hadn't heard from her or him since.