Stupid Roommates

In the interest of reinvigorating this site a bit, Ken and I have decided to start adding stories from our past living situations. He's got some great ones from first year; mine are a bit spread out though.

To whet your appetite, let me give you a synopsis of a 4-month period I lived and worked in London. This should give you an idea about the types of stories that are forthcoming.

1. I move into basement suite with kitchen shared with landlady.
2. Landlady's boyfriend with three year old son moves in.
3. Much like the protagonist of Lady and the Tramp, chaos ensues as various terms of my lease are broken and my rights are infringed upon.
4. Landlady gets pregnant.
5. Landlady goes a little psychotic and #3 is multiplied.
6. Landlady breaks up with boyfriend. Landlady kicks out boyfriend. Boyfriend breaks back in. Cops are called. Turns out landlady was in the wrong due to a contract they signed, and I witnessed. Boyfriend and son move out. Landlady moves in with her parents.
7. I finally get some peace.

So, keep your eyes peeled and your RSS readers refreshing as more stories come through the pipe.

Well, it's been a while. It's not that my roommates got smarter, it's just that there was nothing new. Well, until today.

So, if you notice on a bag of fries, it'll give you oven instructionss. In these instructions, it probably mentions something about putting the fries on a pan before you put them in the oven. And then it'll likely say something about flipping them halfway through.

Well, one of my roommates (my money is on the same guy who put the bowl in the oven, see the archives for a refresher) doesn't have the intellectual capacity to do one or both of the above. When I was preheating the oven today, to do some of my own cooking, my girlfriend mentioned smelling something burning. I shrugged it off - burning is a fairly common thing with me.

Anyway, I opened up the oven. There was a good two cups of (burned) fries on the bottom of the oven, in and around the burner. So I'm not sure which of the two steps the idiot couldn't handle. I'm going to guess, though, that it's the first one, since there wasn't a dirty pan lying around. Which leads me to wonder why he would just put the fries on the oven rack. It would take a long time. I suppose they'd be nice and crispy though.

Anyway, wtf?

I'd just like to reinforce the previous stupidity of my roommates by saying I found more dishes when I rummaged through the old garbage.  Man that was gross.  That said, it wouldn't have been so bad had people not just tossed LOOSE garbage on top of that bag.  There are no words for these people...

According to the landlord, there should be four people living here.  Then why do I count five rooms being used?  That's right, one of them hasn't found a new place to live.  So he squats.  I love the morals of these people.  He doesn't ask us if we mind, he just stays.  Granted, it's not a major inconvience, but still, wtf?  Does he not have friends he can crash with?  He says he's moving out, and I believe him, but still, it would have been nice if he asked, don't you think?

So, we've had stupid roommates.  But none of them have stolen stuff.  Until now.  The floor of my house is a bit sketch right, so for the past few years, I've had a pair of sandles that I wear outside my room.  Now, one day they go missing.  I figure I just put em under something - I lose stuff often.  A couple weeks later (after I tear up my room twice looking), I find 'em.  On my roommate's feet.  Wtf?  Ok, so I ask him where he found them (they were just laying about, so he took them) and got them back.

Great, yes?  Just a misunderstanding?  No.  A week later, I leave my sandles by my shoes when I leave for class.  When I come back, they're gone.  I see them in the guy's room through a crack in the door, but he's sleeping, so I can't really steal em back.  The next day, I have to fly home.  When I come back, he's gone.  Sandles too.  I realize this isn't a big deal, they were worn out sandles that I got for free.  I just hope nothing else is missing.

So, remember K from the post about the potential threesome?  She's now getting mail delivered here.  Mastercard bills.  Lets have a vote: who thinks I should just write "Recipient Not Known" and toss it back in the post office box?  Reply in the comments!

OK, we've now seen the results of what happens when you leave doors open during the winter (other than high heating bills): rodents.  Thanks guys, I'm charging you for the traps and the bait.

Here's a simple one.  If there's mail, drop it in front of the person's door.  Not the kitchen table that's usually full of random stuff.  That way, oh, I don't know, bills will get paid on time.  Useful, no?  Honestly, it's just common sense and common courtesy.  And they can't say that they've never heard of the concept before.  Because I have done it for all of them (with one possible exception - but he's actually somewhat rational).

When this saying came into popularity a few decades back, the idea of sharing bathwater was not necessarily novel, but made for some great jokes.  What they didn't intend, however, is how my roommate is sharing the water from his shower with me.  No, no, sorry, nothing kinky.  It's on the floor.  Every day.  Puddles of it.  Puddles deep enough that ripples form when you walk by.  Honestly man, you took down the old, heavy shower curtain that kept the water in the stall and replaced it with your light flowery waste-of-money curtain that might as well not be there.  At least have the courtesy to mop up the water you leave because of it.

P.S.  Never mind the curtain does work, because the only water left on the floor when I leave is from dripping while I towel off and from condensation.  So maybe he should learn to close the curtain.  WTF?

We've been having internet troubles all term. Flakey wireless connection, router going up and down like a demented yoyo, cable modem seeming like it needs viagra... the whole works. The stupidity of at least one housemate has been causing this, over and over, despite our attempts to remedy it:

1. We swap routers, the net starts working. Then, someone comes and swaps it back. It stops working. Bright one.
2. We daisy chain the routers, the net starts working. We did this because we found out that someone's computer is a nest of malware, and spends its days trying to bring our network, and the rest of the net, down. Anyway, the net starts working again, somewhat. It's flakey, but better than before. Anyway, of course, someone comes and swaps it around again, making the net stop working.
3. I fix it and put it back to working order. Next day, I find it changed again. Except this time, one of the routers is connected TO ITSELF. There's three people connected to the LAN jacks, and the WAN port is connected directly by patch cable to the fourth LAN jack. No wonder the net was down. *sigh*
4. I finally connect enough logs about what's happening to the router to pinpoint precisely which machine is doing it. (I know it shouldn't have taken this long, but I've only taken one networking class, so sue me.) I send out an email telling everyone this. Then, I turn on MAC filtering for everybody who's on the router, except for that guy. BAM the internet starts working, and pretty much hasn't stopped yet. I also put a note on the router saying to contact me if their net isn't working, not to screw around with it. (This doesn't work, someone does mess with it, but only minorly)

Sounds great, no? Our saga is almost complete. Turns out I accidentally blocked two people from the net, not just the one. The guy who lives next door is a CS major. He comes to me, a few days later, looking morose, asking how to fix it, telling me that he doesn't know how to get viruses off, and is ready to format his computer. After some quick checking, his girlfriend and I find out that his computer wasn't actually the one killing things, so I apologize, and put them back into the filtering scheme.

As for the other guy? Ken has told me he came down that night, and tried to mess with the routers again. Ken found him, asked if his net had been working (which it hadn't), thus confirming who it caused all the problems. He was instructed to contact me (by email, by note, and by Ken) to get things resolved.

He still hasn't. Weird.

This might be one of the worst things one of the roommates has done. About a month ago one of our stupid roommates, not sure who, wrote a note saying if people don't wash their dirty dishes he will throw them out. Now the problem with this is that the people that left dirty dishes on the counter may not be the same people that own the dishes, so it is unfair to throw them out. Leander then writes a note saying that if you throw out dishes you will have to replace them.

Fast forward about 2 weeks later, I am taking out the garbage in the middle of the night and notice a clanking sound. I realize there are dishes in the freaking garbage bag! I rip open the bottom of the bag and pulled out about 6 plates. I am absolutely livid at this point. I write a profanity laced note on the kitchen counter saying if anyone has a problem respecting property of others to come talk to me. No one comes to talk to me, so I ask everyone that lives here if they threw out the dishes. The culprit, being a little bitch and all, lied and said he didn't do it. So now we are left with a ripped bag of garbage on the front porch that may or may not still have dishes in it. It is completely unfair for anyone else to clean this up. I am not sure if there are any more dishes left in the bag even.