rat

Here at university, I have a single room in a dorm style that has two bathrooms per floor, and a single roommate. Living on the end of the floor where the last two rooms on each side are bigger is nice--we get 50+ more square feet to our room. However, living with my roommate is not fun. The guy has absolutely no fucking respect for our personal space, and his crap literally fills up 80% of our room. If we were in a normal sized room, there would be nowhere to walk. As it is, I have my computer in one corner, with five feet on each side of it as my "space" that is inhabited by the things I own. That and my closet are the only parts of the room that have any of my clothes/books/shoes/DVDs and other non-toiletry items.

I'm sick and tired of walking through the fucking door and tripping over his dirty clothes, his fucking shoes, empty food containers, trash, and so on. This wasn't such a big deal when I was drinking every day last semester and just came home to pass out. However, now that I actually spend time in the room, I abhor it. I've been the only one to clean our room since we've back in January, and the longest it's stayed free of his shit was 22 hours--and yes, I counted. Now, I'm not saying that I'm anywhere near the cleanest person on this earth, I just keep my mess contained to my closet and occasionally my corner--it never spreads more than two feet from my desk, and it never covers any pieces of furniture, the table or the walking area.

On top of all of that, one night I had a young lady over that I'm pursuing and we were eating dinner. He came home, and proceeded to drop his crap in the middle of the floor, throw trash down physically right in front of her, and then proceeded to impinge on the time I had to spend with her (told him she would be there a couple days in advance and hoped he'd respect the fact that she was there by staying away--as I do for him any time he has a girl over). Everyone I hang out with in the dorm knows I'm sick of this shit, but they all tell me "Man, be nice. He's 5'7 365lbs, he's not used to having girls over all the time." So because he's a morbidly obese virgin chemistry nerd with no social skills he's physical un-fucking-capable of picking up his shit and cleaning up after himself? That gives him the wherewithal to blatantly disrespect the company I have over? Since when does anyone's weight excuse them from acting like a decent human being and showing some simple courtesy to the person that they live with?

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Glory's Sun

Have you talked to him about it? I mean really sat down with him and told him that he needs to clean his shit? Some people don't realize it's a mess. Make a schedule of sorts that he cleans one week and you the next; or alternate chores or whatever until he gets into the routine. Other than that..all I can say is to beat some sense into him but that won't really help.

Gilda

You can:

1. Talk to him about keeping things cleaner. Don't yell or lecture, discuss. It may not work, but it's the first step.

2. Divide the room and try to help him keep his things in his part of the room.

3. After you've tried to resolve the problem with him, go to your RA or whatever he's called there, and report the problem. See if he can convince your roommate to be more considerate.

4. Request a new room. If you've done all of the above, spell it out in detail that you've made a reasonable attempt to resolve the situatiion and it cannot be resolved. Being reasonable here will get much better results than ranting.

abaya

Hmm, talking to him may sound intimidating. I always recommend the "I feel ______ when you _______" approach to defuse any possible tension/defensiveness (though i am not always good at it!). E.g. "I feel stressed and frustrated with you when it seems you don't make any efforts to keep our room clean, or at least your half of it."

The other issue is that you didn't care in the past, as you said that you used to come home drunk every day and not notice the mess. If I were him, I'd wonder what had gotten into you lately since you were so cool with everything in the past. You might communicate with him why you've changed your opinion of the mess and politely ask him if he could adapt to your new expectations. I don't know if he's necessarily being inconsiderate if you changed your view of the room without telling him.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Suave

One day just pile all of his shit onto the bed, take a big red marker, and draw a nice line down the floor. Tell him if any of his posessions cross that line and stay there for more than 5 minutes, you will punch him in the throat. When/if he has any girls over, make a point of staying in your room, and just starting at them the whole time they're over.

Or just ask him to be neater.

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"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

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lindseylatch

Ha, a lot of the people here are a TAD passive aggressive...
If you've never told him how you feel, and he has no problem with the mess, then how would he know that it bugs you?
Best to just come out and tell him that you're bothered by the mess...And don't say "your mess," cause then he'll probably get defensive.

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guy44

You have to broach the subject with him. I've been lucky, and all my roommates have been pretty good with mess. I'm usually the messy one.

But you aren't going to get anywhere staying silent and angry. I think that you should inform him of the way the mess annoys you, and about the incident with the girl. Let him know you don't want to ruin your friendship over some damn trash, but that you'd appreciate it if he would clean up and throw his garbage in the trash.

Sometimes just telling the person works wonders.

Good luck!

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guthmund

Just fucking talk to him.

You can be nice about, you can be an ass about it, but you will actually have to talk to him.

Talk to him. You might solve the problem. Bitching about him to everybody else and their mother isn't going to fix it and only makes you look like an ass.

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Dostoevsky

Well, the way I see it, you have a few options that will all have different results.

If you really want him to straighten his shit up then you should address the issue head on. Next time you're both in the room have a sincere conversation with him about the distress his living habits are causing you. Tell him that you'd appreciate him making an effort to keep his shit picked up.

Or, you could rant and rave like a madman and threaten to do something crazy if he doesn't change the way he lives. This may scare the shit out of him if he thinks you're capable of doing something terrible. Maybe he'll even try to move out.

If plans A and B don't work, or you don't have the balls to speak with him about it, you could travel a little further down this passive-aggressive trail you're on. I would suggest taking little things of his that he will miss and hiding them in his piles of shit. It will make you feel good to see him crawling around in distress looking for shit and may also facilitate him cleaning up some. It will be funny at the very least.

Hope this helps,

Dost

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Grasshopper Green

I had a similar situation when I was in college. I was very anti-confrontational, so I just kept it in until one day everything exploded and I nearly lost a good friend because of it. In fact, our relationship has never been the same. Talk to him about it. Keeping it to yourself just makes things worse. Just my 2 cents.

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amonkie

As a former RA - miscommunication is usually half the problem, I have found. It IS hard to make changes halfway through the year, as people have established habits. It's a lot harder to be soft and then toughen up than it is to go the other way around. If you feel that talking with him will accomplish nothing, have both of you meet with your RA, and nobody leaves until you've worked something out. It could be a signed contract between the two of you that you will respect each other's space (with the definition of space agreed upon by both of you), of a provision that if someone has someone coming over, you'll both give the other 2 hours or something of alone time, if there is a certain length of notice given. Just some ideas to help you get moving.

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rat

have spoken with him about keeping the room clean for company more than once. the way i used to do it was to clean the room, neatly stacking all his things off to one side near his desk. that way, nothing was broken or misplaced if we had company over. and every time i clean, he's like "thanks for cleaning man. i knew you had company coming over but [insert lame excuse and/or blatant falsehood here]." i then state "well, I really like to keep our room clean, especially because we keep having people over." he replies almost verbatim every single time "yeah, me too. i'll help out keeping it clean" ... this has happened almost a dozen times in two months. same conversation with few semmantical variations. i clearly state i want our room clean due to the amount of people we have over, he agrees, and then trashes the place within hour(s).

about a month and a half ago i was waking up in the morning and heard him talking to his old roommate in our room about how the room was never clean like it was last year, then proceeds to say that i never help out. what. the. fuck. i'm the only one that picks up after myself in this room, and it's my fault? guess it is, since i don't treat him like a five year old and pick up his mess for him.

last night, he had some corn-pone white trash friend of his from back home come by. i've met her before, as she's stayed with us previously, and i've made it abundantly clear that i do not like her and she is not welcome in our room. come back to the room from downstairs, and guess who's over? on top of that, i get stuck listening to 3 hours of backwoods small town gossip about events from 5-8 years ago. but the richest part is the fact that he apologized for "our" mess and the fact that "our" stuff was spread out over the room. mind you i have every single one of my possessions with the exception of my couch in a 25 sq ft area (roughly 2 and a half square meters). you walk through the door and trip on his dirty laundry. you go to the sink and trip on his clean laundry. you trip on his shoes any time you take more than two steps in any direction. you see the empty pizza boxes from his 1am binge eating (though he's "on a diet' to "lose weight"). but it's "our" mess because "our" things are everywhere. i almost lost it right thern and there, damn near threw her out of the room and filed trespassing charges (as she's been told straight-up she is not welcome in our room). but i calmed down, bit my tongue and left the room for a couple of hours.

it's at the point i'm about to file a grievance with our hall director. and as far as moving out of the room, it's one of the larger rooms in the dorm as it's on the end where the hall director's apartment is (quite a bit larger, close to 15% overall), and he's moving out in May, which means I'm guaranteed this room next year, and have selected my roommate already (guy from upstairs that is far more effective and keeping "spreading" in check).

If the mess persists past tomorrow, I'm going with the pile-and-sign approach. Just gonna take his crap, pile it up with a "kindly clean up after yourself, or things strewn about will be thrown away or turned into lost and found"

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avernus

Does he know the mess really antagonises you? Does he know your feelings towards him as a consequence?

My flatmate is in most respects great but he does tend to leave his stuff around and not finish the washing up etc. One day I got cross and said a few harsh words and he was totally mortified - he had not idea I was getting so angry. He just hadn't seen things the way I had.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that getting cross, but not losing it completly, is a good way to emphasise where you lay the blame for the state of the room. You don't seem to have come out and directly blamed him for it?

As for the girl - you have to respect that he has a right to invite friends around.

TBH I would never be able to share a room with anyone - it never happens at UK universities as we get a small room each, sometimes *very* small!