hannukah harry

so a couple hours ago my roommate and i had a bit of a fight. i actually thought he was gonna make it physical. it was because i came home from work at 2am and he woke up and hten wanted me to turn off my desk lamp but i refused, as i was up doing work. but that's super simplyfiying it. here's the back story...

so i just moved from my parents home to my college town, i was commuting and found a cheap sublet, but it was sharing a room with one person, 9 people in teh house total including me. so the day i moved in, my roommate's sitting in our room, barely acknowledges me, and doesn't offer to help me move my stuff in. not only that, he hasn't done anything to clean the room, there are couple dirty dishes on the floor, and it looks like it hasn't been vaccumed in years. and the previous roommate had left stuff in teh room, he didn't bother getting rid of it. so as i'm unpacking, i decide that i'd like to put my stuff in the closet, the only problem is, his clothes are taking up about 70% of the hanging area, underneath the hanging clothes he's got boxes from teh front of the closet to the back, and the shelf above is completely packed with his stuff. i asked him 2 times to move his stuff, and then finally i moved it to make room on the floor. he later cramped his clothes onto his side of the closet. there was no dresser for me. he didn't help me bring up one from downstairs, nor did he offer to help when he saw me bringing it up the stairs.

we have lofts. one ladder between the two. while i don't mind jumping down, he won't. but whenever i leave the ladder so he can get to it from bed without waking me, he puts it away so i have to jump.

our sleeping schdules are really different. i'm a day sleeper, he's a night sleeper. this is proabably our biggest problem. you see, i feel it's important to be curtious and considerate. he doesn't. right now, i'm sitting under my loft, a towel and my comforter hanging down from the loft so that i'm in my own little area. the light is blocked by the comforter and towel, i'm using head phones for the sound. only the sound of the comp. and typing are there. but he wakes up at the lightest sounds, like jsut walking in after work. then he complains about the light, without even trying to fall asleep. i've taken my laptop downstairs with a chord a few times, but now i've got my desktop back so i won't be doing that anymore. he told me the light was the big problem, so i even went out and bought him one of those travel blindfolds, although taht's kinda more to be an ass tahn anything.

when i'm sleeping in the early afternoon, he's sitting in the room watching tv, listening to mp3's on his computer, he even left yesterday afternoon adn didn't bother closing the door. he came back 2 hours later, i finally got up about 10 min after he left.

we have room in our parking lot for 8 cars, although it sometimes means moving cars to get people out. 3 times last week i couldn't park in the lot because he didn't park right, and even after asking him to move his car, he didn't, so when i got home at 2 am and everyone's asleep, i had to find street parking 15 minutes (walking) from my house.

so this weekend i rearranged my stuff, i switched my yaffa blocks with my dresser, and had to move the lazy boy a foot in order to put in right. now the cahir is "too close to the tv." and he wants me to move it back. instead of talking to me, he left me a note saying he was going ot move in wednesday if i hadn't by then.

i got home from work and he moved it a bit. so i moved it back. i diddn't care if it woke him, although i heard him wake up from my keys as always. then i pulled the covers down, turned the light on under the loft, he bitched. he even tried to come underneath a couple times to turn it off, i stopped him.

i'm not willing to walk around my room like i'm a guest. i was willing to be considerate and compromise, but my patience has worn to the point of being non-existence. since other than late at night i'm not home monday through friday, i left him a note saying the dresser wasn't moving, he'd have to learn to deal with the light, and i would continue trying to make as little noise as possible. if that was a problem he could move out or, i'd even move out if he bought me out of my sublet or found someone to do that.

i can't think of anything else to do. am i wrong? i've had 5 roommates before, and never had any problems based on my lifestyle differing from them.

any suggestions? words of advice? horror stories of your own?

nukeu666

thank god i have a single room in hostel

so i cant give u any experiences of mine

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Why did the Comp. Engineer get X-mas and Halloween mixed up?
Because Oct(31) == Dec(25)

kulrblind

Yikes... that's quite the story, hannukah harry
. Sounds to me like your roommate isn't exactly the open, welcoming type. What was the living arrangement (for him) before? I'd guess that if he had a roommate previously, that roomate was out for quite a while before you moved in - and he wasn't willing to go back to "sharing the space".

It seems you have a number of problems: general lack of respect for space, different sleeping patterns, and an ever-increasing level of animosity. Granted, it's tough to mesh day/night schedules in a house with people you like, let alone in the same room with people you may not like. That's going to be a difficult one to resolve, unless your roommate learns to sleep with a light on in the room (or, just in general, learns to respect your space and lifestyle). Were some mutual respect to grow between the two of you, you both may find it easier to co-exist (his lack of respect is obvious in the parking-space issue and the couch issue). Without that, I would probably try to seek alternative living quarters in the house either for you, or for him. He'll not likely be amenable to moving, but where you have less "seniority" in the room, you'd be the first choice for changing quarters.

Hope you find a nonviolent, non passive/aggressive solution to your problems.

ratbastid

The thing I notice here is that "compromise" seems to be defined as "he should just get over it". I don't see you making any significant concessions to what he's asked you for.

It's all fine and good to complain about other people being disrespectful of your needs, but it doesn't work to be a hypocrite about it.

*Nikki*

I would keep up doing what you are doing and maybe the SOB will move out!

Strange Famous

I'd probably call him out if he pissed me off to that to degree.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

KellyC

YEAH..if you're bigger than him...kick his ass...then he'll know whos Boss!

I have to put up a lot of shit from my brother when we shared room too..thank the "purple invisible llama underneath my bed" that we move into a bigger house and we have seperate rooms..

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Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Kaos

One word....

lykwen

Maybe you upset him with a lack of punctuation, grammar and typos?

Seriously though, if you are paying for that room (or portion thereof) then you have rights as a tennant. If confronting him directly and presenting your views in a non-threatening or insulting way doesn't bring about a change in his behavior then you need to discuss it with whomever the landlord is.
You can request a room reassignment and let someone else deal with this guy, or maybe it's time for him to leave. At any rate, you are entitled to the space you have paid for and the ability to use it unmolested.

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I. Lykwen Gerlsartopolous

Johnny Rotten

Let me tell ya: I went to school in Santa Barbara, CA and lived in Isla Vista. Isla Vista is supposedly the most densely-packed square mile west of the Mississippi. The town was almost like Beijing during the day. Even with that--even with some huge, multi-million dollar homes on the beach--there was not a single residence that packed in nine people. That kind of shoulder-rubbing is practically a recipe for disaster, and I'd sincerely doubt the residence is even zoned for that many people. I'd strongly recommend getting someone to take over your sublet and moving out before things get truly ugly. I mean like people maliciously damaging your property and otherwise sabotaging your living experience. It happens, believe me.

See if you can't borrow some money from your folks to buy out the remainder of the contract.

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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

bparker805

move... move... move... is it really worth all the trouble? nine people in a house? it sounds like a chaotic situation. your roomie obviously sounds like he has found his own comfort zone and isn't ready to let go. sometimes in life you need to cut your losses short and just move on.

hannukah harry

i'm not being a hypocrite about anything. i am compromising. i'm not coming home afterwork and turing all the lights on in the room and turning the tv on. i'm turning on a desk light and putting down a barrier to block the light and wearing headphones. maybe there was no discussion about it, but i'd call that compromising. at least being considerate. i talked with the housemate that stopped in during our argument, and she started laughing when we talked about the amount of light leaking out from under my bed. there's more light coming from an unblocked computer monitor than was leaking out. if you don't think that's compromising, i'd say you and i have different definitions for it. oh, and he wrote me another letter yesterday while i was gone, telling me he didn't realize that having the tv on while i slept woke me up. it seems taht his point of view is that it's okay to make noise as long as i don't say anything, might as well disturb me until i say something, rather than just attempt not to. that's being a hypocrite.

and suprisingly, there's been no problems with 9 people in one hosue. it's eight bedrooms. 2 in the basement, 1 on the first floor, 3 on the second (with my double) and 2 upstairs. surprisingly, it's not chaotic, everyone pretty much gets along and has no problem.

i found out last night, and this is kinda funny, that no one's really sure if my roommate has even paid rent since moving in in augusut. appearantly it's a kinda screwed up situtation, where the rental company only allows 6 people on the main lease, the others are subletting. he was given the sublet sign, and as of when i moved in in the middle of january, he still hadn't signed and turned his in or paid any rent. but since i like the other people i live with, i dont' want to go to the rental company and get him kicked out, because then the main leasers will be responsible for his backowed rent.

i think i'm gonna be out as soon as summer starts, gonna find me a subletter.

thanks for the resposnes everyone!

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

lykwen

a) Beens, garlic, beef and broccoli.
b) Make up a strange religion which involvs animal bones (mostly skulls) and staring intently at the spot in the wall where "god insists on whispering."
c) "Accidentally" leave out printed articles with stories about people who take pictures of their cocks in their passed-out friends or roommates mouths, or spend the evening teabagging their cats.
d) Do not talk about Fight Club.

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I. Lykwen Gerlsartopolous

Fearless_Hyena

damn, he sounds like a dick. move out!!! it's not worth this bullshit. time to get your own room!!