THE 9 WORST ROOMMATES WILL EVER YOU HAVE

A good roommate can be a great way to keep you company and help split the cost of rent. A bad roommate, on the other hand, is like a case of AIDS. He or she can take away your freedom, independence and ultimately, your will to live, until you are a shell of the person you once were. Here are the nine worst.
 

The Deadbeat

 

 
The first of every month this guy is like a broken record, "Hey man...yeah, so, like, my company...they, like, forgot to pay me. So I don't, like, have any money for, ya know, rent." And he says the same thing when the electric bill, cable bill, or any other bill needs paying. But somehow his total lack of cash doesn't stop him from going out four nights a week, while you're stuck eating Ramen noodles and dryer lint just to make ends meet. And whenever you try to explain to him that you can't always pay for his share, he gets offended, takes a communist stance, and says that if you were in the same position, he would totally help you out. But, unfortunately, Arby's doesn't plan to double his $13,000 salary anytime soon.
 

The Food Stealer 
 

 
We’ve all taken food that didn’t belong to us at some point, but the Food Stealer is on an entirely different level. It’s as if they spent years in an early twentieth century orphanage, learning grifting and slight of hand techniques. If you ever happen to leave any of your food in a common area like “the fridge,” they’ll immediately eat all of it, and then when you ask them about it, they’ll act like a drug dealer being questioned by the cops about a murder.
 
YOU: So, did you see the Cheez-its that were in the cabinet?
 
THEM: Cheez-its?
 
YOU: Yeah, cheez-its, cheesy snacks, look kind of like wheat thins. You know what they are.
 
THEM: OH. Cheez-its. Nah, don’t know what happened to them.
 
YOU: But they were here earlier, and now they’re gone.
 
THEM: That’s unfortunate. Maybe they’re just missin’. (stare down between you and them)
 
YOU: Gah! I know you did it you son of a bitch!
 

The Party Guy
 

 
Every night this guy comes home at five in the morning, with a group of people that all look like the fourth picture in a twelve picture “Faces Of Meth” montage. If the sound of the music blasting doesn’t wake you up, the drunk woman stumbling in to your room and attempting to f*&k her boyfriend on the bed you’re sleeping on does. Inevitably you have to walk out into the living room, and turn down the music, and everyone looks at you like they’re a group of graduate students and you just told them you “don’t really care for Arrested Development.” You tell your roommate you have to be up in two hours, and they’re like “Oh, no way, okay, totally sorry. We’ll turn this down.” Then you head back to your room, and you clearly hear through the wall, your roommate saying “just wait like two minutes and then we’ll pump that shit up again.”
 

The Borrower
 

 
They borrow everything from you, and either lose it or use it for something it wasn’t supposed to be used for, leaving you saying things like “It’s cool you borrowed my copy of Shawshank Redemption, but I’d rather you didn’t use it to hold up your dresser. It’s not really a load bearing DVD.” You don’t want to look like an asshole, but before you know it, you’re gingerly asking them to BORROW BACK the things you lent them. “Hey man, I was wondering if I could grab that toothpaste back from you, just cause I ran out of mine. As soon as I buy new toothpaste, I’ll bring it right back.” “Hmmm, I kind of need it tonight and there’s not much left.” “Okay, cool, no worries.”
 

The Gamer
 

 
Everyone likes to kick back and blow off some steam and playing video games. But nothing is more annyoing than sharing an apartment's only television with someone who's surgically attached to his Xbox and/or PS3. Because the only thing lamer than always playing video games, is having to watch someone always play video games. The problem is, hardcore gamers don't sleep, or seem to have regular jobs. Which means you're getting woken up by him screaming into a headset at a seven-year-old in Poland about how his Warlock totally annihilated by his cleric. Or when you get home from work and you just want to watch some mindless TV, but he's playing Madden by himself so he can "practice running up the middle. Or when you just want to watch the Super Bowl and he "Needs to get to this one last level of Call of Duty so I can save it. Can you listen to the first half on the radio? I'm sure it's online somewhere."
 
 

Couch Potato 
 

 
Remember how you used to like sitting on your couch? Remember how it used to not smell like rotten guacamole? Remember when it wasn’t covered in what looks like various dried bodily fluids and sweat stains? Well those days are over, now that you’re living with a Couch Potato. The Couch Potato roommate is usually a combo roommate, meaning that the Couch Potato will most likely also be The Gamer, The Dead Beat, or (worst of all) The Guy Who’s Girlfriend is Always Over. Either way, this couch is his new home, and there’s no moving him once he’s established it as his territory. Your best plan of action now is to position a garbage can nearby, get a fresh bottle of Febreeze, and learn to like Law & Order (all of them), because he who controls the couch controls the television, and that SVU shit is like Couch Potato heroin.
 

The Guy Whose Girlfriend Is Always Over 
 

 
When you're roommate is in a relationship, it's like you're in a relationship, too. Except you only get the shit parts of having a girlfriend. You're always hanging out with her, she's eating your food and she's taking up your spot on the couch, but you don't get to have sex with her. And somehow, you end up watching Grey's Anatomy because she wants to because you're roommate wants to watch it because he wants to keep having sex with her.
 

The Slob
 

 
After the slob is done cooking, your kitchen looks like someone raped a barbecue chicken sandwich. Every time you walk past their bathroom, it smells like a baby shit on top of a copy of the New York times, then died. Every time you ask them to clean up, they respond with picking up something and moving it somewhere else, then look at you to see what your response will be like they’re playing chess for the first time and want to make sure they moved the knight correctly. The apartment gets messier and messier, until the only way the apartment could get any dirtier, is if it f*&ked strangers for money. That’s when you realize you’ve lost the battle, and start laughing when your roommate blows his nose on a pair of basketball shorts he found stuffed inside your silverware drawer.
 


Mr. Anal Retentive
 

 
Maybe this person was raised in a strict household. Maybe at some point they were thrown into the back of a garbage truck, and they’ve been freaked out by messiness ever since. Freud would say that at some point in their childhood they had to hold in a huge dump, and that magically turned into obsessive-compulsive disorder. Whatever the reasoning, there are some people who are anal retentive neat-freaks, and this can translate into a roommate nightmare. To compound the issue, most anal-retentive people are passive aggressive, so they won’t express frustration and resentment over having to wash your two dirty dishes in the sink to satisfy their twisted psychological disorder. After about 7 though, all of their frustration will build into a repressed volcano of bitter rage, and eventually they will go ballistic over something completely inane, leaving you to calm the situation down by saying something like “Dude. Sorry, I didn’t know we had separate sponges for the dishes and the counter.” Unfortunately, you’ll still have five months left on your one-year lease. Good luck with that.