This video speaks to me on a deep level. New roommate situation is thankfully amazing and much better, but this situation (pictured below) has happened to me many times.
I’ve got another roommate story for you all today. I spent the greater part of yesterday at the library working on a paper that’s due on Friday. After putting a day’s worth of work and make a substantial dent in it I decide to call it quits and leave around 1:00 AM. I return home around 1:30 AM. I open the door to be greeted with squid jigging music! Full blast – coming from my roommate’s room. I eventually determine that she’s watching some sort of TV Show or movie that has jigging music as its main background music. She has gone from being a person who readily apologized when her bootycall woke me up at midnight on a weekday to being a person who does whatever she wants, whenever she wants without a care in the world as to how her actions affect anyone else around (except her boyfriend of course).
All this because I dared to question her and took issue with the fact that she had essentially invited her boyfriend to move in with us without asking. Sigh. I just don’t know anymore. The noise continued on until about 3:00 AM when it finally stopped and I was able to get some sleep. The odd thing is that this change where she stays up super late and is super noisy from 11:30 AM to 3:00 AM is a new development. It only started happening a couple of weeks ago.
This is the last week of the semester. With only a few weeks to go, when we’ve never had more to do, she’s decided that staying up to all hours of the morning and being extremely loud is now an okay thing to do. I don’t understand it. She has to be busy with course work, final assignments, and marking like the rest of us (in fact I know that she is because a friend of mine is in the same program) yet she somehow finds time to stay up, be loud, and annoy the crap out of me at all hours. How does she function like this? Why does she function like this? Why would you willingly work all day and then stay up all night? I’m doing it because I’ve got too much due, a tight schedule, and a roommate from hell. In other words I don’t have a choice. But she does. So why do it?
My roommate, whom we will call Jamie, has started randomly stealing the kleenex boxes from the bathroom. That I bought for communal use. I have no idea why she is doing this, but she appears to be escalating. The first one that disappeared a few weeks ago I was pretty sure was close to being done. So I replaced it with a new box from under the sink. And then today I get out of the shower and notice that this second box, which I replaced recently and as a result it is almost brand new and nowhere close to being finished, is gone. She’s stealing communal kleenex. Seriously? Who does that? Who’s that childish? Her apparently. I get that you need kleenex or maybe she’s doing it to be passive aggressive on purpose, but come on really?
And what’s more this situation starting escalating in the first place because SHE got started being really passive aggressive and accused me of stealing food items we’d agreed to share such as milk, bread, cheese, eggos etc. along with her granola bars which I’ve never eaten seeing as we a) did not agree to share them and b) I specialty order mine so I don’t want her granola bars anyway. Also her boyfriend drives me nuts. The sound of voice carries like you wouldn’t believe through this box we call an apartment (well suite technically). And that TV. She plays that thing so bloody loud I can barely hear myself think. And she plays it late into the evening too. I’m glad you have nothing else better to do that bother everyone around you Jamie but the rest of us (me specifically) would like to study, write, eat, and sleep in reasonable calm and quiet. Is that really too much to ask? For long time followers of this blog you know the answer to that one: the answer is yes. I have the worst luck with roommates I swear.
I lost a friend today. They haven’t died. They’ve just left. They’re transferring to a new university for a second time contrariety to what they said last time we spoke of it. They’re all excited. They think its grand. I’m dying inside.
“You never need something as quickly as when you’ve just packed it away.”
– The Mischief Mistress
I will soon be moving out of the house of horrors (YES)! As such I am packing up all of my belongings while studying for Mid Term Exams. Oh the joys of University. My new place is five minutes down the street and is much cleaner. I haven’t met all my new roommates yet, but when I went to go see the house for the first time one of them was cleaning the stove. I mean really cleaning it. Taking the coils out and wiping them down cleaning it. I never thought the sight of a twenty something brunette cleaning an electric stove would bring me so much joy. My new room is smaller and behind the kitchen and the laundry room is on the upstairs floor, but it will be worth it if helps me find a way to be happy again. This house and the people in it have sapped so much of the joy out of my once happy life. I know my situation could be much worse, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am currently receiving psychological counselling for depression as a result of my living situation. Course the fact that my school mandated I take a course overload this semester didn’t help either. What I’m truly looking for at this stage is simple: common courtesy, space to cook, a clean house to live in, the quiet to sleep soundly, and friendship with the people I live with. The last one is optional. At this point I’d take indifference. I hate being hated. It sucks.
Now onto happier things! I took a week between my mid term exams so I decided to go home and spend some time with my family. Which for me consists of my mom, dad, boyfriend, and recently reconnected with elementary school friend. We had a great time decorating the house, helping me study, eating deliciously bad for us food, baking up a storm, and watching Adam Sandler sing The Hanukkah Song. Seriously, you have not lived until you’ve seen Adam Sandler perform the original SNL version of that song. I will write my final exam on Wednesday after which I will move to my new place. From there the world is my oyster! My plans include sleeping, sleeping, sleeping some more, laughing, giggling, baking, smiling, hugging, gift giving, and merry making.
Another one of the house’s many mysteries was solved today by your’s truly, purely by accident. Today is my day to take out the trash and recycling. Since I’ve got homework lots of homework to do I was, naturally, procrastinating. Besides my garbage can needed emptying anyway. I embarked on a trash collecting mission and then realizing Monday was a recycling day too, proceeded to collect any recycling we had laying about the house. This was a bit more tricky because as I have mentioned previously my housemates are complete slobs.
My miraculous discovery occurred while cleaning the front hall. In the front hall there is a table with several drawers and cupboards. A previous tenant took a subscription to a local community newspaper which we continue to receive despite not paying a dime. There are oddly enough many occurrences like that in the house of horrors. Anyway, so I’m cleaning up the hall table. I scoop up the piles of newspapers and flyers and deposit them into the blue bin in the garage. I return to hall and stack the rarely used phone books and upright a tipped over can of weather proofing spray. As I’m about to leave I notice that most of the drawers and cupboards are ajar. I stare at the table for a minute before remembering that Nellie and Natalie having been tearing the house apart for the last few nights looking for Natalie’s missing iPod Touch.
I begin closing to doors when I notice that some of them have stuff crammed into them and since things are always going missing around this place I decide it might not be a bad idea to have a look. I notice that one of the drawers has a lot of stuff in it so I opened it. In it I find a bunch of receipts, a piece of white painted metal that looks like it was once a handle for something, a Starbucks card with a code for a free iTunes song on it, and a smoke detector that had been completely dismantled.
Now can anyone of you guess which one of these seemingly random and meaningless items is the jackpot? If you guessed the dismantled smoke detector you’d be right! Why is this relevant? Well I’ll tell you. Because the smoke detector in our wooden kitchen has been missing months.
It looked like someone had taken it apart on purpose to try to fix or tinker with it. A few things stood out to me about this. One, why would someone purposefully take a smoke detector out of the ceiling of a house they didn’t own? Two, why would that same person take it apart and then hide? Three, if there was something wrong with it why didn’t the person tell contact our landladies or the maintenance guy? Four, Nellie and Natalie turned the house upside down looking for her iPod Touch and they clearly looked through the front hall table drawers. Why didn’t they alert the landladies or the rest of us that they had found the smoke detector?
When I found it, I informed my roommate Emily because she was passing through the hallway on her way to do laundry. She remarked that it was weird the way things kept disapearing and then reappearing around here then she left to do her laundry. She seemed fairly nonplussed about the whole thing. I am the only person who thinks that finding out that someone in your house is dismantling and hiding your smoke detectors is cause for concern? Apparently so. I emailed my landladies about my discovery so it will be interesting to see what they make of it. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who cares about the house burning down. I feel like it doesn’t occur to any of them that the kitchen is made of wood, that leaving a gas burner unattended can have serious consequences, that there’s a room behind the kitchen, and that smoke detectors are necessary for a reason.
Just to update you all on the situation because I know you are all on the edge of your seats. At 8:30 P.M. this evening, Nellie called a house meeting. She texted all of the housemates saying that Natalie was really upset about her missing iPod Touch and that she wanted to call a house meeting to discuss it. I told that was fine by me as long as the meeting took place before 11:30 P.M. The meeting was called at 11:00 P.M. At the meeting were myself, Nellie, Natalie, Emily, and Fannie. Zelda and my other Aleera were out of town. Natalie explained the situation because Fannie had been absent when the incident took place. She cried and begged for its return. It was kind of heart breaking actually. Nellie said that they didn’t care who did it, they just wanted the device back. They said that whoever stole it would put it back they wouldn’t say anything. Natalie offered fifty bucks for its safe return. We discussed the possibilities and the speed dating event Fannie went too then the meeting broke up.
A few minutes later someone knocked on my door. I opened it to find Natalie standing there once again. She asked if she could use my flash light. That’s right her own friend, my housemate, is so useless and ill-equipped that she has to ask me for supplies. I wonder what they will all do when I move out? I said yes and went and got my flashlight from my bag. She thanked me for coming to the meeting and I offered my condolences. I told her she could search my room again if it would make her feel better. She shook her head vigorously in response and replies that, “No, no I don’t need to. Can I come in for a second?” I said yes and let her in. She confided in me that she didn’t think it was any of the roommates because it would be obvious if someone else say them using it. I told her I agreed, that the other girls already had that stuff. She responded with, “Yeah and I mean you’re clearly not that tech savvy.” Which I took to be rather insulting. Just because I don’t have a smart phone doesn’t make me an idiot with electronics. But since she had decided I wasn’t the culprit I decided to let it go. She told me that she’s convinced it’s Emily’s boyfriend since he was the only other one there that night. She said that’s why she asked Emily to ask him about it at the meeting, but that she doesn’t think she will because no one wants to think their boyfriend is a thief. Ah, the drama of communal living! I wonder what adventures await me at my new house? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
So last night my housemates decided to have some friends over at 11:30 P.M. Oh joy! Since my room is right by the door I had the pleasure of listening to them enter the house as loud as possible, shriek and laugh all the way to the kitchen where they carried on the night’s festivities.
They spent the next few minutes giggling, laughing, talking, and yelling during which I decided to stay up and finish my Critical Annotations Assignment since I wouldn’t be getting any sleep any way. Then they started dropping things. Heavy things, loudly. At which point I snapped. I got up out of my chair, yanked my bedroom open, and stormed into the kitchen. I found my housemates, their friends, and boyfriends standing around the kitchen looking as stupid as ever. “What are you doing?” I demanded. I was met with shocked silence. After about a minute Emily’s loser boyfriend spoke up. “She fell,” he said. I didn’t even bother to produce a response. I just turned and headed back to my room, locked the door and went back to work.
They quieted down substantially after that. I guess they just needed reminding of what complete idiots they all are and that (shocker) there are other people besides them living in the house! A while later I heard them leave. But they were back soon enough and soon there was a knock at my bedroom door. An unsurprisingly rare occurrence around these parts. It’s a friend of Nellie’s who I’ve met before. I’ll call her Natalie. She asked me if I had seen an iPod Touch around any where. I told her that I hadn’t. She said she left it on the front hall table. Which is odd to begin to with. I mean, she doesn’t live here. What the hell was she doing leaving her expensive new iPod Touch on the front hall table of someone else’s house and then walking away from it into another room?
I told her the truth. Last time I had past through the hallway there had been nothing on the front hall table which was now covered in newspaper and flyers. She thanked me and I wished her luck. About a half hour later I hear another knock at my door. I’m starting to get a little frustrated. I open it to see Nellie, who looks worried, and Natalie, who looks like she’s been crying. They ask me again if I’ve seen her iPod Touch. Again, I tell them no and repeat what I told Natalie earlier. They thank me and leave.
A while later someone rings the doorbell. I have long ago given up answering the door for people other than the landlady, so I ignore the ringing and go back to my work. But, the doorbell keeps ringing. After three more rings I decide to get up and answer the door out of sheer irritation. The ringer turns out to be Natalie. She thanks me for opening the door and informs me that she was outside checking the house number. I ask her why and she tells me that in a stroke of brilliance she has called the police to report her iPod Touch stolen and she needed to confirm the house number. That’s right she called the police. Who in this situation have the power and authority to do just about nothing. Though why she didn’t ask one of us what our house number was I cannot fathom.
I return to my room and continue working. About a half hour later I hear yet another knock on my door. By this point I`m down right pissed. It`s about one in the morning and I`m still up working on my assignment because my housemates keep pestering me. It`s Nellie and Natalie again. They ask if they can search my room because that`s what the Police suggested they do. I stare at them dumbfounded for a seconds then move back to let them in. The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. I could fight them on it, but why bother? They’d just say I stole it. So the two of them search my room. They open cupboards and drawers, look under my bed, and search my shoe rack. Bemoaning all the while about how they have no idea where to even look. In the end they find nothing, Quelle surprise! The apologize and leave the room and I am finally able to finish my Critical Annotations Assignment at 1:30 in the morning.
This post’s title was inspired by my love of Nancy Drew detectives stories and game series.
Additionally there is a new Nancy Drew game called Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device which is excellent.
Nancy Drew Games Website: http://www.herinteractive.com/index.php
I awoke at 8:30 this morning and was treated to an appearance from The Giggler. I grabbed my bathroom caddy and proceeded to the bathroom off the kitchen that I usually use. I found it in use. An odd occurrence due to my other housemate’s schedules, but not unheard of. A few minutes later I heard what I thought might be the bathroom door opening so I went out to check. Sure enough as I proceeded to the bathroom, I was greeted with the corporeal form of The Giggler. She didn’t even have the decency to say hello. She gave me something that in another context might be perceived as a smile and returned to the Monster’s lair.
Upon entering the bathroom in question, I was greeted by a pungent aroma that the fan could have taken care of if she had been smart enough to use it. I then discovered that she had left her long black hair all over the place. Yeah that’s right they all have long black hair, even their friends. She’s left it on the toilet seat, sink, counter, and floor. She keeps me up at night and makes me clean her hair off the toilet and she’s not even paying rent.
A few days I told you all of the affair my roommates appear to be having with my possessions. Tonight, feeling reckless, I decided to say something. I asked the messiest of them all, Fannie, if she or any of the other girls where M.A.C. Lipstick. She replied that yes, both she and Nellie do. She asked me why I wanted to know. I told her of the M.A.C. Lipstick I had discovered in my utensil drawer. She asked what colour it was. I told her it was bright red. She asked where it was now and could she see it. I went to retrieve from the safe haven that is my room, returned to the kitchen, and handed it to her. She told me that it was hers, but that she wasn’t sure how it had got in my utensil drawer and that “someone else” must have put it there. Somehow, I don’t believe her.
I choose to be the bigger person and not turn the conversation into a screaming match as she would have done had the situation been reversed. I responded with an, “Okay” and a shrug and asked politely that if she was using utensils that I would rather she stop and that I did not want other people using my cutlery. I stirred my too-hot-to-eat pasta, picked it up with a napkin, and retreated to my lair of safety.
Another one of the house’s many mysteries was solved today by your’s truly, purely by accident. Today is my day to take out the trash and recycling. Since I’ve got homework lots of homework to do I was, naturally, procrastinating. Besides my garbage can needed emptying anyway. I embarked on a trash collecting mission and then realizing Monday was a recycling day too, proceeded to collect any recycling we had laying about the house. This was a bit more tricky because as I have mentioned previously my housemates are complete slobs.
Thoughts of a Mischief Mistress 