Thursday, January 04, 2007

Some reaction on: I will try to keep the housemates that I have

This comment is on reaction on this post:
http://lifewithroommates.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-will-try-to-keep-housemates-that-i.html
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Wow, some seriously terrible roommate stories on this site. Mine can’t compare with tales of felons or smelly hippies, but my own brush with a terrible roommate was enough to make me cautious.

I took a job outside New York City. I had about three weeks to find an apartment, pack up, and make the move from Chicago, so things were a little hectic, especially since it was around the holidays. Anyway I searched on Craig’s List (you can see where this is going) and found a handful of apartments that seemed reasonable. I made plans and drove out to New York because I was smart enough to actually see the places I was considering and meeting the people who lived there. Long story short, I saw some decent places (own bedroom, nice living room), some not-so-nice places (“You wouldn’t have a bedroom per se, but a section of the living room, and if you could make yourself scarce on the weekends, that would be great because I’m a swinger and I like to host orgies”), but settled on a room in a three-bedroom with two other guys, both in their mid-20s like me. Now I pride myself on being fairly good at sensing people that are more trouble that they are worth. I also have a good olfactory sense when it comes to sniffing out bullshit. Both failed miserably when I met let’s call him L. L was English. I thought it was an interesting novelty, the same way I thought it might be interesting to live with someone who worked in a tattoo parlor or was a sex columnist. He was a soccer coach and, if you believed him, quite good at it making decent money. The other guy, J, was a good guy, although I didn’t have a chance to meet him. Their other roommate, A, moved out without giving them much notice and they were searching for a replacement ASAP. I guess L and A didn’t get along so it was best that she left anyway. A didn’t want to put up with L anymore and moved out. A was much smarter than I am, apparently.

I emailed with him after giving him my first month’s rent check and explained that I would be moving in on such-and-such day. Turns out he would be out of town that day but he assured me he would mail the key to me. I tried calling to confirm that when it didn’t show up in Chicago but couldn’t get in touch with him. I figured (wrongly) that he mailed it to the apartment in New York. I make the 14-hour drive out there, crash in a hotel for the night, and head to the apartment in the morning maneuvering the U-Haul down too-narrow streets. Check the mailbox. No key. Check under the doormat. No key. Check in the bushes. No key. Call L. No answer. Call the landlady. L had given me the wrong number. Finally I manage to convince the lady who lives downstairs that I am the new roommate and she gives me a spare key.

At first, things were fine. I was busy at work, usually going 9–7, plus running errands, exploring Manhattan, etc., and L worked later in the day so there were stretches where I might not see him for a few days at a time. I’m not antisocial and neither was he, but at least if we didn’t get along, we were not in the apartment at the same time. One of my first nights there, we went out to grab some dinner at a pub/bar in White Plains. L was treating, Awesome, I thought. This is working out great. Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I was taught that when someone else is buying you dinner, there is a certain protocol. First be gracious and say thank you. Perhaps offer to pick up the tip, if the mood is right. Second, say you’ll pick up the check the next time you’re out together to make things even. Third, if someone’s taking you out, refrain from going crazy and ordering seven or eight beers (especially when they are $7 a piece), appetizers, and dessert. In other words, don’t take advantage of someone’s hospitality. I didn’t. L did. And therein is the difference between us. A few weeks later we went out to eat at a similar place. I had a burger and a Guiness. He had a burger, a chocolate sunday, cheesestick appetizers, and six beers. When he was paying the bill came to about $25. When I paid, it was $75. Funny how that happens.

The next weekend, L was going out of town and had a 9 a.m. flight out of LaGuardia. A cab runs close a $100 each way. You can get there via the train into the city and then a bus, but that takes forever and can be more trouble than it’s worth. Or you can ask your roommate for a ride. I said sure, seeing as I thought it would be good to learn how to get to the airport and if I ever needed to fly out, he could drive me. It works out well if the sack of shit you’re driving to the airport actually is timely and doesn’t make you late for work your second week on the job. “So long as I’m at my desk by 9, no problem.” Doesn’t help when the guy doesn’t get out of bed until 8 and THEN decides it’s a good time to pack. So yeah, L makes me late for work. Had I not been able to sneak in unnoticed I would have been in serious trouble, not to mention setting a poor example so soon on the job. And on a personal level, I absolutely hate being late; I can tolerate it in others, but I have an almost-allergic reaction when I run late for something.

Next week goes by without incident. I am supposed to pick him up the next Sunday afternoon. I am literally putting my jacket on to pick him up when he calls to tell me that his flight’s delayed. I said, okay and checked it out online. Sure enough: delayed. A few hours go by the website says it has taken off and will land soon. Another phone call. L missed his actual flight. Apparently he decided to make the most of being stuck in an airport and hit the bar. Drinking heavily he missed his actual flight. He wouldn’t be on the next one either because it was full. Or the one after that. Basically instead of getting in at 3, he would now be getting in at 11, and I was a real mate for picking him up. Finally I head to the airport and pick him up, and what’s this? He wants to give a friend a ride home. I made two assumptions when he wanted to give this woman a ride home. I assumed he knew her before the flight and I assumed she lived somewhere on the way home because, you know, what kind of asshole would ask a person to drive a complete stranger they just met someplace completely out of the way at fucking midnight on a Sunday. L was that asshole. I’m not wild about driving in Manhattan as it is, but the fact that she lived in fucking Tribeca and not Queens of Westchester was really the icing on the cake. (For those of you not familiar with the layout of New York, Tribeca is nowhere close to where we were going.) So I drop this woman off and breathe a sigh of relief because unlike him, I actually have to be at work by a certain time in the morning.

But it gets better. He wants to stop at a bar and see his mates. Some shit bar in Alphabet City. I say okay. I just don’t want to argue…too tired. Not so much a stop to say hello, but a stop to having a few drinks and snort coke out back. Yeah, nice surprise when your asshole roommate is a junkie to boot, isn’t it? We finally got home at about 4. To this day I think he thinks he did me a favor. In some twisted logic he thinks that that experience was “good” for me.

In short order the next six months went much the same way until I just started saying no to him. Seriously I think I should have taken a rape prevention class before living with this guy.

I stopped doing him favors of any kind the time he went on one of his many benders with his friends and needed a ride from the city at 3 a.m. I mean, who calls a person at that hour looking for a ride? And being rather insistent that you give him one? Being a complete idiot and letting my manners get the best of me, I rolled out of bed, threw on some shoes, printed out directions from MapQuest, and headed out. Oh and it was February. Sitting on the backed-up FDR (the expressway that runs along the east side of Manhattan) I had to wonder why I didn’t take being locked out of the apartment as being some divine intervention. When he complained that it took me too long, I was about as close to murdering someone as I have ever been.

He had all the typical habits of being a shitty roommate: messy, didn’t do the dishes, didn’t pay bills on time, ate my food, never cleaned the bathroom, would eat my leftovers, would dominate the TV in the living room (even though he had one in his bedroom), etc. My personal favorite was the going to the bathroom with the door open, walking naked from his bedroom to the bathroom to take a shower, and the weird pride he would take in stinking up the bathroom and then leaving the door open so the whole apartment would smell. Then he got a girlfriend and despite the fact that we agreed that this would be a smoke-free apartment, he let her smoke in his room, ash in a pop can, and then throw it out in the kitchen garbage can so the rest of the apartment smelled like cigarettes too. This guy was a real peach.

Oh, then there was the one-upmanship and outright lies. L had, according to him: dated Mandy Moore, fucked Julia Stiles, chatted with David Beckham every week and attended his wedding, made $200,000 a year (for coaching 8-year-old-girl soccer), had a scholarship to Cambridge, shagged at least 300 different girls, survived cancer, was diabetic, played professional soccer, had lunch with Keira Knightly, wrote a column for Men’s Health (being a writer/editor trying to break into the industry myself, this was specifically designed to piss me off), etc. You name it, he had done it, only a thousand times better.

Then we found out he was overcharging us for rent and utilities.

L might not have been the worst roommate in the world but he definitely was an asshole.

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