13 Things People With Roommates Know All Too Well

By Nai

You might be lucky enough to have never lived in a shared house or apartment, but the majority of millennials know the struggle all too well.

Most of us have spent at least a short period of time living with friends or strangers during college and the years after graduation. As different as every group of roommates is, there are certain universal struggles we all know.

1. There's no such thing as the perfect roommate.

You can say goodbye to those hopes that everyone is going to be lovely and do their share of the housework.

No matter how happy-go-lucky you think you are, there will be roommates you just can't get along with.


2. There's always the culprit who leaves the toilet seat up.

If you've ever lived with boys, then you know exactly what I mean. How is such a simple task as putting the toilet seat back down impossible to remember?

Regardless of who you live with, the bathroom will never be as clean as it would be if you lived alone.

3. Things are going to smell.

Someone always manages to stink the entire house out with her mom's homemade curry recipe or her favorite tuna salad sandwich.

And don't even get me started on three or more people on the same work schedule sharing one bathroom.

4. Your mailbox will never have mail for you.


At least 20 letters come through the door every week addressed to previous tenants, and you can't help but get a little excited thinking they're for you, every time. You know full well that you're just not that popular.

And when there is a piece of mail for someone in the house, it never seems to be for you.

5. There is always a graveyard of empty bottles.

Theres a special place in the kitchen where empty liquor bottles are stacked high as a shrine to your drinking accomplishments. No one has time to run out to the recycling and no one even knows who the bottles belong to.

6. Your roommates will assume your food is communal.

Milk. All of the milk. People. Keep. Drinking. My. Milk.

On top of that, you need to pick what foods you're going to call your roommates out on. If you approached them for everything they used of yours, you'd be fighting every day.

7. Let's not even talk about where all the plates have gone.


Most are probably festering under your roommate's bed with leftovers. This means that you have to hike all the way to IKEA again to buy new ones.

It reaches the point where you don't even want to check under their bed because you know you'll be greeted by a terrible smell.

8. Nobody cares about communal areas.

Nobody cares about the cleanliness of the house beyond the realms of their own bedrooms. People love using the communal spaces (kitchen, living room or den), but nobody thinks it is their job to clean them.

The rest of your household resembles an army battlefield. Muddy sneakers in the hall from that festival you went to last year? Old-school television that somebody's parents gave them? Random bike no one uses in the hallway? And is that a golf club I see in the corner?

9. Your roommates have a talent for ignoring their own messes.


No one has bothered to clean the kitchen from that house party you had weeks ago. You're pretty sure the black bags full of red cups and regret are a fire hazard blocking the only doorway in the house. And every time one of you leaves, you're in too much of a hurry to toss it in the dumpster outside.

10. There's always that roommate who never leaves the bedroom.

There's always one person who just never comes out of their room. They emerge 28 days later, looking like a victim of the zombie apocalypse.

11. Your pet situation is to die for.


You have several house pets, all of which have names. These house pets are wood lice, spiders and snails living in the crevices of your doorways and corners of your kitchen.

And you know if your roommate doesn't clean out the dishes from the bedroom, you can expect to meet a rodent someday soon.

12. There's only one washing machine.

Seven people in one house equipped with one of everything. You do the math. Your clothes all end up in a heap of mismatched disarray.

And, ha, don't think you're gonna find your favorite sweater again because that's sitting on the floor of your roommate's Tinder date's apartment uptown.

13.You still love this place.

You know that someday you will eventually leave this cesspit and be living in a penthouse suite with the pink toilet paper you dream about.

But for now, you wouldn't trade this dump and these people for anything.