Things just build up, and like a bad marriage, I just get so angry at the tiniest little things. I have certain 'rules' about the way that I live and maintain my household, and while I don't expect everyone to adhere to them 24-7, 100% of the time, I do expect a base level of decency.
I feel like I told her my trigger issues when she moved in, but she still does them! Even with reminders! Can I just vent and list the things here and you can tell me if I'm being crazy?
- leaves dishes out for DAYS at a time. Days. I will wash a roommate's dishes once in a while to be nice, but not every day. My rule for myself is I wash them within 24 hours of dirtying, unless I have an extremely busy and/or forgetful day. Even with that rule, my dishes are usually washed within 2-3 hours of the meal. Exceptions are when I have a late night snack--I do those dishes the next morning. When I left my breakfast dishes in the sink the other day because I needed to get to work, I sent her a text to apologize for the mess and said I'd clean them when I got home. Courtesy.
- Likewise, doesn't wipe the counters after preparing a meal. No one is that clean.
- does not clear out the dryer lint. EVER. OMG, this is my #1 pet peeve!!! (How weird is that?) I came home from my 2 month trip, and the lint trap was choking. She clearly hadn't cleaned it in 2 months!!! When we got the dryer, I told her how important it was for fire hazard & energy efficiency reasons (and for my sanity) for her to clear it out every time. A few weeks ago, I showed her AGAIN how to do it and told her that it could catch fire. Did she start cleaning it? N.O.
- she is scared of the garbage disposal, yet uses it and in fact throws things down it that she knows cannot go down it. Again, this was made clear when she moved in: no citrus peels, it'll break it. Today I found a teaspoon in it. Now, I am totally frightened of the thing, having seen too many gory scary movies, but I don't let that stop me from fixing it. She also doesn't turn it on. EVER. It just fills up and stinks up the place all day. Grrr.
- I recently discovered that she turns on the shower and lets it run for 15 minutes before even getting in. WHY????? All it does is confuse me, because I think she's in the bathroom and that the bathroom is therefore unavailable, when in fact, it IS available. Not to mention the wasted hot water/electricity. The shower curtain gets mildewy because she crumples it up in one corner after showering, and she drops water all over the floor, so I can't wear socks in there. I get so grossed out by wet socks...(I know the last two sentences are totally nitpicky.)
- Likewise, when I get home, EVERY light in the entire apartment is on, regardless of the room she is sitting in. Kitchen, bathroom, entry way, balcony, living room, her room, doesn't matter--they are all on, sucking up energy and wasting our electricity. Particularly disturbing is that the living room lights are on the ceiling, which is 20 feet high and therefore completely inaccessible to either of us shorties. Once those lights go out, we aren't getting them replaced for months, until my landlord's fixit guy can come over, and one of us is home.
- lack of guest warning etiquette. Particularly when guys are over, I need to get a warning so I can not walk into the kitchen in my white tank and short pajama shorts with no bra on, like I did last week when two of her guy friends came in the apartment at 11:30 pm on a Wednesday. AWKWARD. And her boyfriend is always coming over at random times nowadays. I don't mind him now, but when they first started dating, there was zero warning that there was a guy in the apartment that I didn't know. ZERO. My roommate was in the shower one morning (I saw her enter the bathroom while going to the kitchen), and while preparing my breakfast, I hear a noise that is decidedly NOT coming from the bathroom and then a guy walks into my living room. Had never met him before, ever. And he's in my house at 6:30 am. NOT COOL.
- never takes out the garbage bins to the curb. never ever. when she does take out the trash, she puts it in other people's bins.
- I guess I shouldn't complain about this in the face of the other issues, but she has weird cleaning habits. Like, I have a face towel I use every. single. day. I get it wet every morning, and hang it on the hook to dry. Every day, it is back in the cabinet, and I have to take it out. Every. day. Why on earth is she wasting time folding it and putting it away when I obviously use it daily?!
- I swear she uses a third of the toilet paper roll every time she uses it. The roll is changed every other day. It ain't me using it all up! I use like two squares to pee! I don't want to be a total TP Nazi about it, but sheesh, I refuse to buy nice TP if it is wasted like that.
- She wads up TP & overflows the bathroom trash (a ha! the mystery is solved), why not put it in the toilet instead of on the floor?! And why not put a plastic bag in the bathroom trash to control the germs?
Oh man, there are so many more of these. I think that, as much as I love my apartment and sharing rent and utilities expenses, I need to seriously consider living on my own when she moves out. Given the situation with her boyfriend, I think it is only a matter of time before they move in together--I give it 6 months before this happens! Especially if she has similar complaints about me or my nagging to correct the above.
6 comments:
I'm an introvert (read: antisocial most of the time) so flatting was a MINEFIELD for me!
I've gone from doing dishes at night to first thing in the morning, but like you I can't stand having them lying around. BF never wipes the counter or stove, which bugs me but I've learned to live with it.
Waste disposal - don't know how big yours is, but ours was huge and teaspoons were constantly falling down there. Grr.
Lint...don't have a dryer, but I never knew you had to do that or where to find the trap. *shrug* My family never had a dryer. I plead ignorance!
And the rest....hmm.
Some people DO have weird habits and they're not going to change. but the lights thing is wasteful. and i HATE people who refuse to empty the bin!
It's really a balance between money and peace/sanity. When does your lease end?
No lease...month to month. But I LOVE my apartment (complete with furniture, down to vacuum bags) and my landlord and the whole setup, including being 10 min from work in the CBD but having a huge space to live in. It's quite a deal, so I'm loathe to give it up just because of a few bad habits of someone else's!
Honestly, I don't think I should live alone. I'm naturally very anti-social, so it would be BAD for me to not be forced into some human contact once in a while. And I'm too cheap not to split the utilities and get more space for the same amount of rent.
It isn't so much that she doesn't (or does) do these things, it's that I have repeated conversations with her about these things, and nothing changes, even though she agrees to different behavior. It's like she doesn't even TRY.
Devil's advocate for one second: Maybe she's just trying but it barely shows because it takes SO MUCH EFFORT for her....?
I don't know, I have friends who are such complete slobs that other friends have nearly lost their minds living with them. We still love them but if you wanted to stay friends, you just know never to live with them again. I swear, PiC actually nearly broke out in hives when he walked through slob friend's house to help move something once. He's a bit of a neat freak, and the sight of her house had him twitching.
Maybe you just have to seriously vet the next roomie?
Behavioral interview next time! "Describe to me your typical after meal habits. Show me how you would normally prepare and clear up. What do you consider a normal morning routine? What is normal laundry maintenance?"
[Yes, I'm a little crazy myself. I hate living with people who can't respect others.]
R--I'd totally buy that, but this started approximately 6 months ago. Which means that the first six months she lived here, she was NOT doing most of these things, and not doing them to the degree that she is now. I have no idea what happened. maybe she is mad at me and super passive aggressive about it??
Oh man. Do you live with my roommates?? They are driving me batty with the same type of things, those tiny habits that just grind on you day after day.
The thing mine do all the time, which drives me crazy, is leave leftover food in the sink after they wash their dishes. To me it's like "How can you not SEE that giant piece of whatever???" I have asked them to please clean the sink, and then it'll get better for a few days, then they'll stop trying. Nothing like cleaning up other people's food!
Maybe your roommate doesn't realize how much it bothers you? Still, so annoying.
hahahahaha I love R's idea! That would scare a lot of people off, hopefully leaving you with only the neatest of neat freaks.
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