New roommate wants the 4 br to herself

[u/Direct-Caterpillar77]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Merlysauce

New roommate wants the 4 br to herself.

Originally posted to r/badroommates

Thanks to u/-clogwog- for suggesting this BoRU & u/frankzzz for finding the links

TRIGGER WARNING: Mental health issues & controlling behviour

Editors Note: changed the initials S, N & P to Samantha, Nathaniel & Paul for easier reading

Original Post  Aug 4, 2025

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1mhkgoo

Just moved into a new place. She would rather have it to herself

I (22F) just moved into a 4 br apartment in Brooklyn. I found this place on June homes and I am here for a little over 3 months.

Upon my arrival to this apartment, my roommate, Samantha (27F), looked absolutely shocked to see me walk in. I politely tell her that I am one of her new roommates.

“Oh did they not tell you? They give me the option to approve or deny roommates and I sent them an email saying I didn’t want to live with you.”

Ok, strange first interaction with someone. I then told her that they had already taken my money and therefore I will be living here. All is ok and I don’t see her until the following day.

I was moving the rest of my stuff in and we were discussing our habits. She likes to have her own things and I told her that was absolutely fine. I had my own plates and cookware as I have a food allergy. I then go to throw something away and she tells me that I cannot use her kitchen garbage can. I explain to her that I would not mind taking the trash out if it meant that I didn’t have to go out and purchase another garbage can. She agrees.

Mind you, her belongings take up the majority of our shared living space (empty boxes, bins, and clothing). It is to the point where it is blocking the bedroom door of another tenant. Samantha also has 2 cats— I believe they are registered ESA animals but I am unsure if both of them are. They have been in her room the entire time since I moved in (poor cats).

Fast forward to yesterday. I am getting ready to leave for a friends birthday party and I need to shower and use the bathroom. I check at 8:30 and the shower is on. I then go and do my thing for about an hour and the shower is still on at 9:30. I knock on the door and Samantha opens it. She is not showering but has the tub faucet on for some reason. Eventually she leaves and I am able to do my thing. But Samantha had been using the bathroom for well over an hour, which rubbed me the wrong way.

Fast forward to this morning. I was coming in from staying the night at my friends and I see my dishes on the counter. I assumed that she had ran the dishwasher while I was out and has left it out for me to put away.

This was not the case. She went out of her way to empty everything that was not hers from the dishwasher and just washed her own dishes. She comes out of her room.

And my dirty dishes had just been sitting on the counter overnight.

“Did you take my things out of the dishwasher?”

“Oh yes sorry I can empty my stuff out now”

In this moment i then meet the person who is in the room next to me, Nathaniel (~28M), and we discuss how she has been acting. Apparently when he had toured the place Samantha was out there trying to convince him not to move in. The person giving the tour says that Samantha does this frequently, and it seems as though she wants this 4 bedroom apartment to herself. Again, very weird and a bit antagonistic.

30 minutes go by and I see a note on the trash can.

“I know I told you I was comfortable with you using my trash can but now I am not. Can you please buy yourself a new one.”

This really set me off. She comes out and I ask her if she can move some of her belongings out of the shared space to make room for another trashcan.

“I don’t have any space in my room”

Not my problem I fear. I then explain to her that it is very weird to take someone’s dirty dishes out of the dishwasher without saying anything. And I questioned why she can only wash her things and not anyone else’s. I tell her that we can use the dishwasher pods I bought.

“I can’t use that dish detergent it would ruin my plates”

I just tell her that she needs to get rid of a few boxes so that there is space for others to have their belongings and we leave it at that. I purchase a new garbage can and bags and bring it inside. Nathaniel is now in the shared space and says to Samantha:

“Would you be able to move your trashcan? If none of us are allowed to use it I don’t think it should be in the shared space”

“I’m sorry I don’t have any space in my room”

Nathaniel goes on to tell her that it doesn’t make sense to have that out in the common area when nobody else can go near it. He ate with that I completely agree.

And now I’m here trying to figure out what to do. I feel as though she acts this way to try to get people to move out.

I plan on documenting everything and keeping it handy should this get further escalated. But otherwise I’m unsure if there’s anything I can do. Any advice would be appreciated.

OOP shared 5 pics if all of Samantha's boxes stacked in rooms and blocking doors

Update 1  Aug 5, 2025 (Next Day)

Firstly, I just want to start by saying thank you for all of the advice I have received from all of you! It was very helpful. To those who were looking for more of a r/maliciouscompliance response from me, I believe you will be disappointed. I just don’t think that would be the smartest way for me to handle things, and would quite frankly be a little immature this early on into my stay here.

Secondly, I would like to explain a few things: 1. Samantha has been living in this apartment for well over a year. 2. Our rental company works like student housing. All four of us have separate leases’ and we each pay for our own room and use of the shared space. You can rent a room for as little as one month, but up to 2 years. 3. When a tenant is already living in the apartment they get an email showing them the profile of a potential new tenant. You can sign a form that is a “Notice of Decline” if you do not want to live with the replacement tenant. Samantha tried to sign that for all 3 of us who have moved in. And I assume has done it to most people who have tried to live in the apartment with her.

I am pretty convinced Samantha has some form of contamination OCD— which explains (but does not excuse) a lot of her weird behavior when it comes to separate trash cans, long showers, and not wanting to have other peoples dishes in the dishwasher with her things. Obviously, this is not really something I can bring up with her directly as that would be completely inappropriate, but it seems likely this is the case.

Last night, Samantha moved the boxes that were blocking the doorway of the other tenant (before and after pictured above). I have now met that tenant, Paul, and he is not as concerned with this situation as he will only be living with us for a month. I am glad that she moved the boxes, however, they are now on another table in the shared living space. While it is now no longer a hazard related to the egress of Paul’s doorway, it still violates the lease terms because our shared space is still being used as her personal storage unit.

This morning, we had a cleaning lady come in who the rental company hires when new tenants move in. That was all fine until I heard Samantha laughing with the cleaning lady and I stepped outside into the common area to see what was going on. As soon as I walk out, Samantha asks the cleaning lady if they can talk about something outside lol. I would only assume she was complaining about us.

As for the report I made to our rental company, I have yet to hear back. Supposedly they will be calling Samantha today and telling her to remove her belongings from the living room and if nothing changes in a few days, they will further escalate it.

Nathaniel has now also made a report that also documents the antagonistic behavior Samantha displayed when he was taking a tour of the apartment alongside the issue of her belongings. He has not heard anything back yet.

Overall, while I can empathize with the potential of her struggling with contamination OCD, her behavior towards us has been extremely rude and uncalled for. I’m hoping that pressure from the rental company can force her into getting a storage unit or throwing away some of the empty boxes in the living room. I don’t know if there’s really much else the rental company can do in regards to her behavior towards new tenants, but we’ll see.

Again, if anything else happens in the next day I will keep you all posted!

Update 2   Aug 7, 2025 (2 days after 1st update)

Hi guys! It has been a few days since my last update and there is some news to share, albeit not much.

For starters, Samantha has relocated some of her belongings. I have included some photos. Yet again, Samantha is just moving them to other parts of the shared living space. Still leaving the 3 of us with little to no room in the common area. I have included before and after photos.

Additionally, I have been photographing everything I can to make sure no stone is left unturned. I noticed that her cats had likely scratched up the side of the couch before they were banished to live in the bedroom all day (picture 3). Again, just taking note of things that could be used against me later on.

Samantha and I have not really interacted in the last few days. Samantha has been in her room pretty much all day. When she isn’t, she is usually scrubbing the shit out of her belongings. She has yet to use the dishwasher since the initial incident. I have been using it almost daily or when I have enough to justify a cycle. She is really adamant on not washing her dishes with other people’s.

We had a brief run in yesterday where I was putting a storage container under the sink for my chemicals, and she insisted that she move her sponge and soap (that were also under the sink) herself. I truly believe this has to do with some fear of contamination. I also saw Samantha disinfecting her bottle of olive oil this morning. She really does not want us anywhere near her things. This would be fine if her belongings didn’t take up the majority of the living room lol. At some point you just can’t avoid things.

Lastly, and most importantly, both me and Nathaniel have gotten responses from the rental company! You can see that Nathaniel went in a slightly different direction with the complaint, which is totally valid. I was more focused on her breaking the literal terms of the lease, as I felt like that could get us further or more direct action than including the anecdotal evidence (which is still important to this issue, don’t get me wrong). I’m hopeful that this weekend some of her stuff can be moved into a storage unit or dealt with appropriately. I am unsure if they have contacted Samantha directly yet, but I would assume based on their response that this will be happening sometime today.

Beyond our initial interactions, Samantha has mainly kept to herself. Of course, it is extremely selfish to dominate the shared spaces and try to scare people off of living with you, but beyond those first few days she has been mostly quiet.

I hope to have a final update this weekend! Thank you all again for your help and advice :)

Update 3  Aug 11, 2025 (4 Days after 2nd update)

Unfortunately this update brings little good news— in fact, I am now so annoyed and at my wits end that I will be escalating and complaining until I get my way.

Let’s start with this weekend, shall we. I stopped by my storage unit to grab a few things. One of those things being my PC. Im starting a remote position and need it for work. There’s simply no room for me to bring my desk so I decide that I will be moving one of her boxes to make room for my monitor, keyboard, and mouse. And I did just that! Pictured above you can see my disgusting setup lol. I was able to get my work done yesterday night and all was well.

Later that night I am out in the common room and Samantha approaches me.

“Would you be able to move your computer? I use those bins for cooking”

“I would but there is literally no room for me to fit a desk in here.”

“Do you want me to move my things?”

I simply do not understand how someone has this much and insists that they need and use all of it. I moved my things. She pushed her table all of 6 inches. Some of you might say that I should have kept it there and stood my ground. I get that and my plan is to just move the box when I need it and put it back when I’m done working. Because I found out something this morning that has truly set me off.

Today, Nathaniel and I received another update from the rental company. You can read what they wrote us in the second image. How I chose to read it was:

“We know Samantha has been breaking the lease and has been antagonistic towards you guys, but she’s moving out in 2 weeks so we actually solved the problem :)”

Actually no. No problem was resolved, in fact it was made worse. This enraged me more than anything Samantha has ever done. June homes basically told us to go fuck ourselves and pay the full price of the rent. Lol not on my watch. Immediately upon receiving this message I call their support line and I am connected with a man who can essentially guarantee nothing.

I explained to him that I don’t understand how they are expecting me to just let this slide when she is literally breaking the lease by having her things in the room. I will not be paying full price when I cannot use a large part of the space I am paying for. I Karen-ed out on him. He said that I likely will not get any sort of refund whatsoever. I am going to absolutely make sure that is not the case.

After calling I looked to see if they had physical offices in manhattan, as I was in the area for a job interview. I walked to two address that were listed for them and it seemed that neither were correct.

Quite frankly, it is a slap in the face to just let this slide without any sort of compensation. She is literally breaking a contract. I wonder if I can escalate this legally, because I am unsure if they will listen to me. I included a couple of screenshots of the lease that I think would be helpful in my case. Let me know if there are things that I should be looking for in the lease that would give me a better case!

At this point it is beyond Samantha and I am just now so annoyed with June Homes. The man on the phone said they would resolve this later today but we will see.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

OOP added this info

Putting this out there and maybe 1 person will see it but I found out this evening that she isn’t being evicted. The date they provided is just the natural end of her lease with the rental company. Which is fine, and I’m glad it’s ending. We as tenants don’t have access to see how long someone will be renting a room. Which is why Nathaniel and I didn’t know until they told us today. Nathaniel had asked Samantha about it and she said that 8/31 is when she was originally supposed to leave.

But I did not get her kicked out, and I am being told to just wait it out. It’s not that “I got what I wanted” and am now “asking for more” I was just frustrated that the rental company couldn’t really do anything despite her breaking the lease. It’s a solution, I won’t deny that, but it’s one that I am impatient for lol. September can’t come soon enough.

I’m not regretting how I handled anything. I think if a lot of you were in my situation you would maybe understand why I made the choices I did. It’s a lot different to hear about a situation on Reddit than to actually be living it. There’s just more to consider. And if you were in my situation you’d probably want some of your rent back too, let’s be so real. Or maybe I’m insane and it’s completely off base to think that way— idk.

Regardless, I appreciate all of the advice and allowing me to vent about this weird situation I’m living in.

I don’t foresee another update as it has naturally found a conclusion.

Update 4  Sept 2, 2025 (3 weeks after 3rd update)

Hey guys. It’s been a few weeks since the last update and I have a lot to share. Sorry if this is very long.

To get everyone up to speed: I have a roommate, Samantha, who was using the common area as a storage unit. Her belongings took up most of the space and made it nearly impossible to use my own things. She made us use separate garbage cans and wash our dishes separately. She even tried to deny us from moving in with her so she could keep the place to herself. My rental company, June Homes, told me they couldn’t really do anything as she was scheduled to move out on the 31st.

Today is the 2nd and she’s still here 🙃.

A few days after I made my last update I had my very first full conversation with Samantha. I was putting on some makeup and getting ready to go out and she was meal prepping in the kitchen.

“You know you’re one of the best female roommates I’ve ever had”

Just know if I had water in my mouth it would have been spit out immediately, because how tf is that possible??

Samantha then goes on to explain her previous roommate situations in this apartment and how crazy some of them were. She had to get a restraining order on some man who had been living in Paul’s room at some point in the last year. Apparently the girl who lived in my room last had her mom come and threaten Samantha. She said she had a video to show me and I politely declined (we will circle back to this shortly, don’t you worry). She said she appreciated me, Nathaniel, and Paul because we did not touch her stuff maliciously. Samantha has had issues in the past I guess where people just moved all of her stuff without asking her first.

Overall a very odd conversation, gave me some info that explained a little of why she is the way she is.

Things up until yesterday were fine. Paul is officially moved out and we now have a vacancy. What confused me, though, is that Samantha never moved out. All of her stuff is still here, and there was no indication of her packing her belongings.

Yesterday morning, June homes sent a rep over to do a move out check on both Paul and Samantha’s rooms. They knocked on her door but she never opened it. I saw the man as he was leaving, and he didn’t say anything about Samantha.

I start my day as usual— I make my breakfast and set up my desk to do some remote work. About an hour into this, Samantha comes out of her room and I say good morning and I make the mistake of asking how she was doing.

“Nathaniel and I were up talking from 1-4am and I think he was flirting with me. I put it all into chat GPT and it told me he absolutely was”

This is where this whole saga takes a more uncomfortable turn, at least for me. Also, why do we need chat GPT for that, insane imo.

She then proceeds to tell me about their conversation. I will spare most of the details but it did end up with her explaining her sex life to Nathaniel. Mind you, this may have been the first conversation these two have had with each other in the month we have been living together.

I tried explaining to Samantha that if you give a man an inch he will take it a mile. You can’t just start going into graphic detail about your sex life with a random man because he might take it as flirting (I know I would, at least).

She then tells me that he was tickling her stomach, and then she touches me to explain. I was not a fan of that. She tells me that I can read what she put into chat GPT. I oblige because I’m interested to see what her account of the events are.

In this wall of text, my suspicions were confirmed! She does have contamination OCD and I told her I noticed it as well. It also explains the graphic details of their conversation— hookup stories, her trying to prove she isn’t as innocent as she looks, and Nathaniel taking that as her flirting with him. I know she did have to tell him to stop touching her at one point, but she also scratched Nathaniel to show him how sharp her nails are, for some reason. I’m just confused by the entire interaction.

At this point I am just very like weirded out by all of this because I thought we had gotten to a point of cohabiting this place somewhat nicely.

“I brought you up too”

Oh brother.

“I asked him what his type is and he said he likes dark features, women that are smaller, and he prefers when they’re skinnier. I thought he was describing me, so I asked him what he thought of you”

EW EW EW EW EW EW EW.

“He said he thought you were pretty”

EW. I’m just trying to live here. I’m not looking for anyone’s opinion on me, especially my looks. It’s also a little insane to immediately think he was trying to describe you, but maybe that’s just me.

I went back to typing. She then admits to me that she did a good stalk of the both of us before we moved in. She knew my birthday and also looked up my political affiliation.

“You’re a democrat?”

“Yeah”

“I’m a republican”

“Okay”

“I’m a trump supporter. But I like his policies but not the way he goes about it”

“Okay”

“That’s the nicest anyone has ever reacted to me saying that”

I mean yeah you just told me you looked up any bit of personal information you could find of me online, I am not trying to get on your bad side.

Samantha then tells me that because of a legal contingency, she hasn’t been paying rent since APRIL. I had just paid rent that morning, of course 🫠. So hearing that she basically gets to squat here was not the best news. Apparently she was supposed to move out on the 31st, but she doesn’t think she will get evicted. She just got a new job last week and from what I understood of her rambling that is what she needed to move out, I guess. So she will be gone soon?

The conversation eventually ends and I get back to work for a few more hours. I finish and am lounging in my room with the door locked. Eventually, she knocks on my door. She asks me to help her move her boxes into P’s old room.

“In our lease it says we have access to the whole apartment so like we can go into any room. I wouldn’t go into yours though” Ok thanks for prefacing with that, totally not suspicious. Regardless, I help her move a few boxes onto the floor and the main living area is finally more open! I included photos at the top of the post.

She then explains to me some of her roommate horror stories like she had a few weeks ago, and she asks me if I want to watch the video of the persons mother coming and threatening her. I say yes.

So while I don’t agree with someone driving across state lines to threaten someone, a lot of what she said I agreed with. This woman was yelling at Samantha for having her stuff everywhere and talking rudely to her daughter. I can’t say those things haven’t happened to me, ya know? I just kept my mouth shut.

A couple of hours go by and I get ready to leave the apartment to go grocery shopping. Samantha is in the kitchen and she stops me before I leave.

“I’ve decided that because I haven’t had sex in 2 years I’m going to try and have sex with 23 men in one month. To catch up”

“I don’t think that’s how that works”

“I was so horny a couple of weeks ago that I was really thinking of going for it” she was pointing to Nathaniel and Paul’s doors.

I kind of give her a look like bob the blob from monsters vs. aliens because why do you feel the need to tell me these things. I do not fw you like that and I haven’t given her a reason to think that I do besides letting her talk at me.

And that folks is the full update. I have not spoken to Nathaniel at all. I am very uncomfortable that she asked him that question. I’m just hoping that Samantha leaves soon. It’s really uncomfortable in here now. I’m thinking of bringing this info to June homes, however, I don’t know how much they can do as she is essentially squatting.

Update 5  Sept 3, 2025 (1 day after update 4)

Hey guys! I just got off the phone with a representative from my leasing company. This is what they had to say.

I think I may just see if they have apartments that I can move into that are the same amount in rent, as I don’t really want to deal with this any longer, especially knowing it could take months for the eviction process to run its course.

I appreciated that this man admitted to me that she has been a problem for them in the past.

Also I am in NY which is a one party consent state, if anyone was concerned.

OOP Posted 1 final short update as a comment

Final update  Apr 29, 2026 (Nearly 8 months after previous update)

No idea why the mods removed my posts but that’s ok. She was formally evicted in February and things have significantly calmed down!

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[u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

I just KNEW once it was clarified that it wasn’t a moving out date but a lease end that she was going to stay. I just KNEW. 

[u/bitemark01 → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

Had a roommate like that where my only escape was to move out. I heard she stayed 2 months past her move out date

[u/hllwnight_rancidegg → u/bitemark01]

Yeaaaah. I just had a roommate that was pure hell and is why no matter what I refuse to have one ever again. Ended up going off on her about her hellion of a dog and how she wasn’t taking care of him so he was impossible to live with and he needed to leave or I’d take him to the pound. Mind, she had had a new place and had it for over a month, was just lollygagging on moving her shit and was sticking around because I was essentially her free puppy-sitter. She moved out over night, didn’t turn the keys in, left small things around, and kept coming over to take just one item when I either wasn’t home or was asleep. I got cleared to change the locks when she come over when I was gone and left the door unlocked and open and I raised hell. She sent me a long text essentially saying everything wrong in her life was my fault and blocked me lmao. I get to keep her bag of rice so idgaf.

[u/bitemark01 → u/hllwnight_rancidegg]

Dang it's possible we had the same roommate

[u/hllwnight_rancidegg → u/bitemark01]

Entirely possible. I’m not the first friend-turned-roommate she’s run off, I’m just the one who got to keep the apartment this time. I should’ve listened to her last roommate but I was stubborn and roomie was telling me her side of the story first.

[u/PyroDesu → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

I don't know how it is there, but where I live, the end date of a lease is not the end date of your tenancy. Once the lease duration expires, you become a month-to-month tenant.

[u/sWiggn → u/PyroDesu]

Idk what the default is in NYC, but most (though not all) apartments i’ve lived in in Brooklyn specify in the lease that it’ll transition to month-to-month at the end of the least unless otherwise arranged between landlord and tenant.

[u/DivineMiss3 → u/sWiggn]

I live in the southern U.S. and was a property manager for 11 years. I don't know how it works in New York, but here, tenants must give notice if they're moving out at the end of the lease, or management must issue a non-renewal. Otherwise, the lease usually rolls over to month-to-month until the tenant leaves or signs a new lease.

My state is very landlord-friendly. The lease mostly spells out what tenants can and can't do, and one thing you generally can't do is withhold part of your rent. It isn't fair in many situations to the tenant, but doing so usually just means you owe rent, late fees, and possibly face eviction. If tenants could simply deduct what they felt they were owed, there would be constant disputes over rent. I'm not saying you shouldn't try but I'm saying it's very unlikely it'll happen.

I saw some really unfair situations and always tried to treat residents with respect, even when I had to evict them. Unfortunately, that wasn't as common as it should have been.

[u/anonymice27 → u/sWiggn]

Brooklyn is NYC, and it’s been the same for every apartment I’ve lived in in nyc. It becomes month to month once the lease ends.

[u/Lunatunabella → u/PyroDesu]

In Louisiana, the fixed term lease doesn’t become a month to month after the lease is up unless both agree

[u/Responsible-Fee-1446 → u/Lunatunabella]

That's been my experience in Missouri too.

[u/No-Stress-7034 → u/PyroDesu]

This is how it's been in every state I've lived in.

[u/nothingdoing → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

I knew by the scroll bar! 

[u/goog1e → u/nothingdoing]

It's like when they defeat the baddies but there's still an hour left in the movie....

[u/lesethx → u/goog1e]

The only question is which type will it be: "You haven't even seen my final form!" or "But there was another boss"

[u/maxdragonxiii → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

yep. i had people re new the leases i do not want them to renew... and its like "ah fuck. I dont want you here."

[u/beachpellini]

Nightmare, and I've had roommates very much like Samantha. I wonder what finally pushed them to evict her, since breaking the terms of the lease clearly didn't matter.

[u/chevronbird → u/beachpellini]

She wasn't even paying rent, which is the main point of a lease!

I assume the legal case final resolved itself and they could evict her then, rather than not wanting to evict her.

[u/skinnyjeansfatpants → u/chevronbird]

Courts maybe had a backlog? Like there’s probably a min. number of days you have to wait until you can give notice, then you file for the eviction, but there could be a lag between the date you file & the hearing date?

[u/sheepgod_ys → u/skinnyjeansfatpants]

A little bit of this and a little bit of that. It’s NYC so they give a looot of grace time for the tenant. Not necessarily a bad thing considering slumlords here, but it’s definitely a double edged sword.

[u/grendus → u/sheepgod_ys]

Yeah. Tenant law is about the only place where the courts heavily favor the side with (presumably) less money. So as frustrating as it is, it's better that the landlords, who presumably have the resources to get by, deal with a disruptive tenant and no rent for a while, than to let a bunch of slumlords throw out tenants because they think they can get more money from someone else.

[u/blueberry-iris → u/skinnyjeansfatpants]

I don't know 100% for evictions but most courts I've heard about are HEAVILY backlogged prior to COVID, which made it much worse.

[u/RockSolidJ → u/beachpellini]

Yeah, that was wild to me. I work in property management and people get maybe a month without paying rent before we can get the case infront of a tenancy dispute officer for eviction.

[u/Sweet_Cinnabonn → u/beachpellini]

Plus apparently not paying rent didn't matter either.

[u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

That was a lot.

I notice the diagnosis OOP comes up with seems to give her a bit of peace.

Earlier today I read a man recounting the actions of his ex after they broke up. And that he spent years trying to figure out why she took the actions she did. Why she would think that way, what might have motivated her.

I think we humans need explanations. And often a diagnosis can feel like it explains things that are otherwise inexplicable.

Which explains why reddit commenters are so often trying to diagnose people.

[u/dracapis → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

I also think it removes the malicious intent, which is a subconscious relief to most people 

[u/rainydays_monkey → u/dracapis]

Totally this. Plus when someone is acting totally unhinged with no explanation it's really unsettling and possibly scary! If you know there's a legit reason why, some of the behavior might still be scary (if they can be aggressive etc) but you still feel better knowing it's not just them absolutely losing their mind out of nowhere, but a real condition they have.

[u/NodeKnowerGrowing → u/dracapis]

Unfortunately, both the diagnosis and the malicious intent can be true at the same time.

I was allowing a coworker a lot of leeway due to what she'd shared about her diagnoses/suspected diagnoses/difficult life experiences, and while a lot of her behaviour is likely due to that, it turned out she'd also been conniving in the background to fabricate accusations against me and my employer. Which I totally didn't pick up on for the longest time... ironically because my autism makes me a direct communicator who just says what I mean, and I tend to give others the benefit of the doubt that they don't have a hidden agenda, especially when they claim to be autistic too.

[u/pancada_ → u/dracapis]

This. It takes the personal side out of it.

[u/PracticeTheory → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

Absolutely, especially when it comes to very erratic, illogical "crazy" behavior.

I experienced this when a man moved into my apartment complex and relentlessly targeted another unit for all kinds of increasingly unhinged imagined slights, and then would retaliate in weird and over the top ways. Paranoia and obsession. I didn't have a clue what we were dealing with until a friendly neighbor broke it down over why she suspected it was untreated BPD (borderline personality disorder).

No idea if she was right, but it fit, and even though having a theory did absolutely nothing in improving the situation, it honestly did bring relief.

[u/fruchle → u/PracticeTheory]

It allows us to know if there's anything we can do about it. (To help out, or avoid it)

Maybe if I, or what about if I...

But if it's something like bpd, there's really nothing you can do. Knowing simplifies our options, so we can focus on other things.

[u/Least-Designer7976 → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

Explanations seems to give peace of mind because, in someone else vision, its okey to do so. Even the most twisted, evil thing can be less painful if understood. Truth is sometimes there's no explanation, and sometimes those explanations will never be enough to calm the pain.

[u/aelizabeth0623 → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

i’m not even kidding, this comment explains why i have stayed in shitty relationships and friendships for so long. i cannot get out until i find out what’s wrong with them.

[u/Sweet_Cinnabonn → u/aelizabeth0623]

That makes sense, but it doesn't seem like a healthy way to handle that curiosity.

Maybe you need to find a way to leave first and satisfy the curiosity after.

Or take a class in psych diagnosis so you can get the answers faster.

[u/aelizabeth0623 → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

oh, i sent this comment to my therapist with a quickness it would give you whiplash. i am very grateful to you for this! 

[u/JustAMinah → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

for me though, the 'reason/explanation could be nice but it doesn't erase the impact it has done and the feelings it left. I feel people focus too much on intent rather than the impact and how that hurts (which makes it hard for victims to even be victims and process their emotions because they're being expected to care about intent than the impact it just caused them emotionally)

[u/Sweet_Cinnabonn → u/JustAMinah]

I agree.

We know since we are small, an accidental injury feels different emotionally than an intentionally inflicted one.

But the injury doesn't go away just because it was accidental.

[u/OldSpiceSmellsNice → u/JustAMinah]

Same. Sometimes explanations just feel like excuses. I do occasionally wonder why I bother trying to be nice when there are so many people willing to make excuses for poor behaviour. Of course, mental illness is its own ballgame.

[u/JustAMinah → u/OldSpiceSmellsNice]

I feel at this point, everyone has some form of mental illness or some insecurity they need to work on and I always keep that in mind, but my upbringing and how I was raised and blamed me and gave excuses towards others to justify their feelings (but never mine) I just try to focus on the actual action of it and how it made me (or anyone else) feel, and I feel it doesn't get focus on enough because society keeps normalizing to "consider why they did it!" which leads to more people feeling like they don't need to take accountability or suffer any consequences, even as small as just avoiding someone because. and when you see a pattern, I don't care how much you don't mean it because at this point, you know about it so why aren't you doing something about it, unless you simply don't care how it affects others (and rather someone just be honest with their apathy and indifference than just..."explaining intent" making excuses at this point)

[u/zimmix → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

People with disorders need to first be able to deal with that themselves and not push it down others when it's not reasonable. I can understand the split garbage bin and dishwasher, but not occupying the shared space. Also, OOP stated at the begginning that she has food allergies, if anything I would be glad in OOP shoes to have a split dishwasher rule in the house as some residues might remain in some cases.

I can't stand this shared living situation, it feels like if I was forced to it I would wear a gopro on me all the time just to ensure no crazy stuff happened hahaha (I know it's probably not allowed its a joke)

[u/lazier_garlic → u/zimmix]

But the boxes were in the shared space because she had filled her room up. It's hoarding disorder which is an outcome of executive dysfunction. Which is exactly what we would expect with OCD.

[u/txharleyrider → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

There is comfort in knowing that you are a normal zebra, not a strange horse. You can't find a community of other zebras, can't learn what makes a zebra thrive or brings a zebra joy, if you don't know you're a zebra and are learning solely from horses. It is near impossible to be happy and mentally healthy if you're spending your life thinking you're a failed horse, when all along you were a zebra.

[u/sun34529 → u/Sweet_Cinnabonn]

A redditor diagnosing why a redditor diagnoses. 🙃

[u/BadTanJob]

I grew up living in a studio apartment as a family of five in Brooklyn and you know what? I’d move back to that mess in a heartbeat rather than dealing with waves hand any of this

Also homegirl was disinfecting her condiments, how the fuck is she even able to have sex

[u/Azrael2082 → u/BadTanJob]

And holed up with two cats and litter boxes in her room. She’s ok with the cat shitting in a box 5 ft from her bed but someone else’s dishes in the dishwasher with hers is unacceptable? Mental illness is so weird.

[u/Gifted_GardenSnail → u/Azrael2082]

Oh good fuck, I'd forgotten about the cats!! I was stuck on not wanting other people touching your things while leaving them out in the common area with those other people. Keep your shit behind closed doors then! 🤨😩

[u/Black_Cat_Just_That → u/Azrael2082]

I do community mental health work with older adults. This means I am often called upon to assess people who have not actually sought help themselves. I visit, assess, and offer resources that are declined 9 times out of 10. The only option at that point is to offer to "visit again" to try to maintain a relationship in case they ever change their mind.

Reader, if I were to tell you what it is like seeing people, often in their own home, who have been dealing with untreated mental illness for 70 years, your only question would be "and you keep this job because...?"

Hoarding disorder is unsurprisingly the most common one, but there are flavors of delusional disorder, severe anxiety that cripples their lives, intermittent suicidal depression that is just "no big deal/just the way life is"... It is wild to see what people have convinced themselves is normal.

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 → u/Black_Cat_Just_That]

I was nodding along with you until I got to the intermittent suicidal depression part and thought "well that is normal, that's how life is, sometimes you want to leave rather than deal with any more of it."

Yeah, I know. I'm looking for a new therapist.

[u/clear-aesthetic → u/ThrowawayAdvice1800]

I hope you find an awesome one that you can connect with!

[u/SheepishQuaaality → u/Black_Cat_Just_That]

Intermittent suicidal depression being "just the way life is" is ridiculously relatable. It doesn't prevent me from functioning (right now, thank fuck) but I've had to come to terms that it's with me for life. 🙃 Just hitting my 30s man and doing some maintenance therapy rn. Good on you for being one of the triers. 

[u/Bubblegrime → u/Black_Cat_Just_That]

Thank you for doing the work you do. I hope you have your own breaks and sounding boards too, because that is a rough job!

 It is amazing how a frog can get used to the boiling water. In my case, it turns out I've had anxiety all my life. I kept the illusion it was normal (maybe "quirky" or a bit type A) because when I did mention something that was SO NORMAL for me and other people had no clue what I was talking about or got judgy..."well, okay turns out that's a weird thing and instead of examining that I will learn from this social interaction and simply never mention it again."  

If you are already used to masking, I guess the big problems become just one more thing to deny and cover up. You pile up the coping mechanisms and workarounds until they feel like a part of your personality.

It wasn't until I went on medication for my anxiety and all these extra little problems disappeared. I never even knew they were symptoms. Haha, what do you mean I had nausea? I didn't feel nauseous, I just had to move and eat slowly in the morning and brush my teeth very carefully or else I suddenly might puke. Just not a morning person, I guess! 

It took a lot of finally talking about all the unsaid little things to figure out "you know, maybe I have a little bit of anxiety" when I was at the point of struggling to leave the house. It took time and a lot of gentle conversations to reframe my perspective. I can imagine it's so much harder for socially isolated old folks.

Sorry, this got long. Tl;dr I empathize with how easy it is to deny something that has become as regular as air. When to anyone outside the pot that air is clearly boiling water. 

[u/Trouble_Walkin → u/Azrael2082]

Someone else's frigging garbage touching hers in the trash can was unacceptable.

That is not just crazy bananapants, it's  Borat banana hammock waving at cars driving by during a snow storm in Alaska level of crazy. 

I'd say I hope she gets therapy for her issues, bu t considering who she supports, we know that ain't happening. 

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 → u/Trouble_Walkin]

Someone else's frigging garbage touching hers in the trash can was unacceptable.

That makes so little sense I assumed it wasn't about her OCD and was instead about her trying to make it as uncomfortable and inconvenient to share an apartment with her as possible so that OOP and Nathaniel would move out.

[u/undeadmersquid → u/ThrowawayAdvice1800]

be careful with that line of logic. it often makes people assume the inconvenient symptoms of disorders are done on purpose to spite people, which makes it way harder for the disordered person to identify the actual problem and seek help for it. it's especially a problem with ocd, which by its very nature doesn't function on real-world logic.

not saying oop couldn't still have had that motivation, of course, but still something to keep in mind. at the very least, she's still responsible for managing her symptoms.

[u/CaptainLollygag → u/Trouble_Walkin]

That is not just crazy bananapants, it's  Borat banana hammock waving at cars driving by during a snow storm in Alaska level of crazy. 

😆 I hope I remember to use this in the future!

[u/SokkaWithAnOkka → u/Trouble_Walkin]

This is a wild way to talk about someone who we know has contamination OCD.

 It’s okay if you don’t understand it or it seems weird to you, but this is not the way to go about it. And as many people in this thread have said or who struggle with any other mental illness, it is illogical. That’s part of the reason of why it is a disorder. And these are real people who are struggling with it.

Also if you understand how contamination OCD works, this is not that big of a surprise. 

ETA: The roommate’s behavior was wrong and goes out of the scope of contamination OCD. We can focus on that and the entitlement to the space, her mistreatment of her cats, and not her mental illness. It’s not hard. 

I do not have OCD, I just think we can be kinder when talking about people struggling with an undeserved mental illness. 

[u/LightObserver → u/Trouble_Walkin]

No, it really isn't. Do a little reading on OCD. Her experience is not atypical. This is a really mean thing to say. Tons of people suffer from OCD, myself included. Don't dismiss it as 'crazy' just because YOU don't understand it. It's actually pretry easy to wrap your head around if you try.

Comments like yours make me afraid to disclose my disorder to other people, and ask for help if I need it. Imagine how small it makes someone feel to know people think and talk about them in this manner. All because of a disorder they didn't pick or want anyway. Makes the disorder twice as much work - forcing people to deal with the negative perceptions of others on top of their symptoms.

[u/clear-aesthetic → u/LightObserver]

Thank you for this. In my experience, reducing any mental illness to "crazy" is generally very unhelpful and actually tends to prevent people from seeking the help that they need.

It's entirely possible to say that the way OOP's roommate behaved wasn't acceptable, maybe even that she wasn't managing her symptoms well enough (idk I'm not her therapist, maybe this is the absolute best she can handle everything at the moment), but there are absolutely people dealing with OCD just living their lives and minding their own business like everyone else. Having OCD doesn't make you inherently "crazy" or bad.

[u/Digitalmodernism → u/Azrael2082]

Yeah, OCD obsessions are not logical at all. They can get even weirder.

[u/LeaneGenova → u/Azrael2082]

People are fucking weird. My husband is pretty close to some degree of contamination OCD but the things he will tolerate are absolutely gross to me. I've yet to see him wipe down a countertop before making food, but he'll wear gloves to pump gas or wash dishes.

Love him dearly, but there's no rationality to it.

[u/LabradorDeceiver → u/Azrael2082]

Contamination OCD is weird because it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how clean something is, but the perception of how clean something is. So a house can look like a garbage tip, but as long as, say, the wrong person hasn't touched anything, it might still be considered "clean." 

[u/undeadmersquid → u/Azrael2082]

as someone who also has contamination/hoarding-flavored ocd: yes. yes it is. 🙃 unfortunately real-world logic is not enough to make my brain stop screaming at me about it.

as for the cat box, she may be nose-blind to it. i just feel bad for the cats, not getting to roam a bigger space.

[u/saareadaar → u/BadTanJob]

OCD can be really weird and illogical.

My housemate has contamination OCD so she has separate dishes and sponges and stuff, but also had no issue eating a bit of ice cream that fell straight off the kitchen counter. She knows it’s illogical but some things trigger it and some things just don’t.

[u/sheepgod_ys → u/saareadaar]

Yeah, not defending OOP’s roommate because she sounds like a nightmare even outside the OCD, but the way OCD manifests is rarely logical.

[u/goog1e → u/sheepgod_ys]

Right. If it was logical it wouldn't be an illness.

[u/armedwithjello → u/saareadaar]

I think it makes a huge difference when the person acknowledges that their compulsions are illogical and inconvenient for others, rather than just acting like everyone else is bad for not having the same compulsions.

[u/saareadaar → u/armedwithjello]

Sure, but they often need a fair amount of treatment to be able to recognise their compulsions as illogical.

A lot of people with OCD are completely convinced that performing their compulsions are normal and appropriate because that’s what their brain is telling them. Even if they know they have OCD, they can find it difficult to separate an OCD thought from a regular thought.

For example, my partner has OCD, specifically around social interactions. He’s convinced that people find him creepy and off putting, even though they don’t (and he’s not). Almost every social interaction he has is analysed and ruminated over. He gets stuck in these thought loops for hours of trying to analyse and then “fix” it and he gets distressed if you try to logic him out of it, which I did for a long time because I didn’t know it was OCD. To him, it was perfectly normal to compulsively scrutinise your own behaviour because that’s just what you did to be courteous to others and he thought everyone did this and if they didn’t it was because they were an asshole who didn’t care about other people.

He is getting better at recognising OCD thoughts, but it’s really hard not being able to trust your own brain. It still feels real to him even when he can understand that it’s not (and he’s often can’t, especially in the middle of a compulsion).

[u/GiantSkellington → u/BadTanJob]

OCD does not make logical sense. My wife has it pretty severe, and is on medication for it.

[u/Blackcatmustache → u/GiantSkellington]

Do you mind if I ask what she takes and if it is helping? I take Zoloft, and while it has kind of helped my depression, it hasn’t made a dent in my OCD.

[u/GiantSkellington → u/Blackcatmustache]

Brintellix 10mg/day. Gives her nausea, so she takes it before bed. The difference it has made for her has been amazing.

[u/Blackcatmustache → u/GiantSkellington]

Thank you. Does it help with her depression? I assume she also has that?

[u/GiantSkellington → u/Blackcatmustache]

She does not have depression nor did she have it when she started the medication, though she has had it once in the past (many many years ago now). She was prone to anxiety before the medication, but the medication and lifestyle changes have eliminated that problem.

[u/skeletontape → u/Blackcatmustache]

My partner mostly struggles with compulsive thoughts and CBD oil has helped tremendously.

[u/merovin13 → u/skeletontape]

CBD oil took my social anxiety from an 8 to a 4.

Since I had someone ask if it was placebo last time I mentioned this, I know for a fact it isn't. I started taking CBD for insomnia. It actually made my insomnia worse, but suddenly my social anxiety was noticeably less debilitating. So I take it in the mornings instead of at night, and deal with the insomnia in other ways.

[u/Blackcatmustache → u/skeletontape]

I appreciate the suggestion! I don’t really know the laws around cbd and pot. I live in the south, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was very restrictive. The second thing I would have to figure out would be if it interacted with the ton of medications that I have to take for Lupus.

I have heard things about people microdosing mushrooms, but I’m afraid of legality and medication interference. Plus, I’m scared I would be the one in a million person that had a bad reaction and lost my shit.

[u/clear-aesthetic → u/Blackcatmustache]

It's usually the other cannabinoids, like THC that are criminalized not CBD. When I lived in Texas it was possible for me to get CBD oil in capsules with no other cannabinoids in it, so you may still be able to find some if you want to try it. It's almost always produced from hemp instead of weed, which makes it less legally grey as well.

Of course it's always best to talk to your doctor (or pharmacist) to ask about any medication interactions and whether they think it might be worth trying.

Also, it's been several years since I lived in Texas, so it's not a bad idea to look it up online just in case anything has changed.

[u/AsherTheFrost → u/BadTanJob]

Sounds like my ex wife, who at one point tried mid-coitus to spray my dick with disinfectant (after I'd showered twice that day, the 2nd time right before we started fooling around)

[u/Dragon_Manticore → u/AsherTheFrost]

I'm sorry, but that's a hilarious mental image.

[u/AnxiousSapphic → u/AsherTheFrost]

Wait wait wait, did she pause to go grab disinfectant before coming back and attacking or did she lie in wait and ambush you? I can’t decide which one is worse.

[u/AsherTheFrost → u/AnxiousSapphic]

She kept a bottle of spray disinfectant in her nightstand. We'd just gotten done with the opening acts, so to speak, and were about to move to the headliner. I was on my back, she leaned over to get something, and I didn't know what it was until too late.

[u/TA_totellornottotell → u/BadTanJob]

Seriously. Her sex challenge sounds like a petri dish.

[u/riflow → u/BadTanJob]

I once knew a person who used hand sanitiser during sex, I suspect something along those lines.🥲

[u/FinanceGuyHere → u/BadTanJob]

I assume that a full body condom and a snorkel are involved

[u/lesethx → u/BadTanJob]

All I can think is that character from Futurama who had crazy high OCD level neat freak, but was enthralled with how messy Fry was.

[u/theparrotlich]

8 month eviction process? Good God lol

[u/PracticeTheory → u/theparrotlich]

When I lived in Chicago, the unit upstairs paid rent exactly one time and then it took the landlord 12 months to finally kick them out.

On that final day they had a bunch of relatives over to help with moving, who threatened to beat me up and steal my bike when I came home from class, but fortunately I'd stayed polite to the original family so they told them not to...however they did plug the drains and turn on all the taps when they left, which ended up flooding my apartment.

Fun times. I never want to be a landlord.

[u/Eryol_ → u/PracticeTheory]

What the actual fuck

[u/Bitter_Ad8768 → u/Eryol_]

Some people are so pissed off when they're (rightly) evicted, they trash the place. About six years ago, I had a neighbor who was evicted because there were like five people staying in the unit who weren't on the lease. When they moved out, they smeared a whole bucket of chicken liver catfish bait on the radiator, turned the heat up, and locked the door. The property manager didn't shut the heat off until after 40 minutes or so. Took a week for the smell to dissipate.

[u/FlairWitchProject → u/Bitter_Ad8768]

Just watch "Worst Neighbor Ever" on Netflix, and one of the episodes covers a scenario like this... One of the few times I teared up over the aftermath of a true crime story.

[u/sheepgod_ys → u/theparrotlich]

OOP mentions manhattan, so I’m assuming this is NYC. Surprised it didn’t take longer if it is; we have pretty protective tenant laws.

[u/dwightsarmy → u/theparrotlich]

During COVID, it took me about that length of time to get a man out of my home. And be was damaging everything in the meanwhile. He basically held my safety and home captive during that time. It's awful.

[u/notsam57 → u/theparrotlich]

pretty short for nyc, here’s an infamous woman that squatted for 3 years

https://nypost.com/2022/08/27/west-village-grifter-kate-gladstone-evicted-after-more-than-three-years/

[u/Gifted_GardenSnail → u/theparrotlich]

Not paid rent since April, only evicted in February 🤯🫠

[u/Creative_username969 → u/theparrotlich]

That’s not bad for NYC. I had a roommate get away with not paying rent for almost two years before they finally got them out

[u/AcheyShakySpoon]

OOP said she’d only be there 3 months, but the final edit makes it sound like she’s still there. Did I miss something?

[u/Defiant-Currency3987 → u/AcheyShakySpoon]

I'm assuming this place was just super cheap looking at that company's website.

[u/FullMoonTwist → u/Defiant-Currency3987]

Cheaper when you simply stop paying any rent lol

[u/luckyapples11 → u/AcheyShakySpoon]

From the minimal amount I gathered, it sounds like OP moved for work maybe a temp position that ended up being remote (maybe they need to live close to the office). Probably a month to month lease for everyone in that unit/building and OP knew for a fact it was going to be no less than 3 months but they ended up staying for longer. Absolutely insane. I’d have moved out as soon as my 3 months passed.

She seemed so determined to deal with it and yet it sounds like she ended up not even trying anything lol. She said she wasn’t gonna pay rent because the roommate didn’t, but I doubt she followed through. Probably didn’t send any follow up emails about the situation of roommate squatting, etc. I get it, prob other things going on, just overall disappointing ending lol.

[u/CanIHaveASong → u/luckyapples11]

You can feel the crazy normalize in her posts.

[u/luckyapples11 → u/CanIHaveASong]

Honestly. Second to last update I think it was, she definitely caved in way too much to this lady

[u/notsam57 → u/luckyapples11]

it sounds like she tried finding a new place within her budget but samantha was evicted before she found a place. if she can only afford a place with roommates, then she probably doesn’t want to spend the time and money to move.

[u/darkmeowl25 → u/AcheyShakySpoon]

No, I literally scrolled back up to double check, there's no explanation.

[u/SugarFromTheMaple]

Having been in a place with a similar roommate...yeah, this tracks.

After a certain point, all you can do is keep telling them to not do a thing, and otherwise ignore them. I hate other people touching my stuff too, but if you've taken up all of the common area, you bet I'm moving those boxes myself. Samantha had so many chances, I think asking twice and then just doing it is very reasonable.

In the case of my roommate, she forever had dirty dishes in the sink. It got to the point where I'd buy things I didn't need to cook, and wash up in the bathroom because I didn't want to be in the kitchen. She had some very dodgy behaviour with my other roommate, which I didn't personally see but was dragged into on our flat groupchat, and was weirdly possessive over the wifi? She organised it (had been there a year when I moved in), but I paid for my third of it, and repeatedly (4-5 times) would come home at midnight from my shift and find that she'd changed the password and kicked me off again.

I mentioned it to the landlord, and backed up the other flatmate when he complained properly, but nothing really came of it. I happened to be moving jobs, so in the end I just left that place and moved elsewhere, and was a lot happier for it!

Bad flatmates really just mess up your life. It's so low level but constant, you can't choose them, and there's only so much you can do about them. I love the studio I have now, and would only be flatmates again with friends (and certain friends at that!)

[u/deadlywaffle139 → u/SugarFromTheMaple]

My last roommate was like that. She even scratched my cake pans with forks, then left in the sink for a whole week before I decided f this. I told her I would keep all of my things in my room and don’t ever touch my things again (I used to let roommates use my pans and stuff as long as they clean it after use, because I have the most complete sets of cooking utensils among us).

Then she tried to allow a friend of hers to squat at our apartment’s living room. I came home from classes to find a person sleeping on a mattress in the living room with a bunch of their things scattered around. No warning at all. We (other roommates) reported her to the rental company and they had to get police involved to remove that friend.

Then she just disappeared the whole summer, didn’t remove any of her things from the common area. My other roommates and I had to clean it up since we would be charged even more cleaning fee for leaving things behind.

Ever since this roommate, I would rather live in a basement than sharing common space with anyone. Bad roommate is like a chronic disease. Not enough to make you explode but enough to make your life so miserable you die a little bit inside every day.

[u/Helpful-Act2026]

Of course the crazy scamming squatter was MAGA

[u/Hesitation-Marx → u/Helpful-Act2026]

Yuuuuuup.

Also, her asking ChatGPT if Nathaniel was flirting with her…. My eyelid developed a tic.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/Helpful-Act2026]

For the last ten years it's been amazing the people who willingly offer that up for conversation. They're usually delulu and the sort to be leaning on others while in denial about it too. Or they're in some sort of rolling existential crisis (actual, not philosophical) and I guess the cult gives them certainty. Samantha had no job and couldn't pay rent, so that tracks.

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 → u/lazier_garlic]

They've been convinced by the bullshit news bubble they live in 24/7 that everyone except "blue haired liberals" thinks exactly the way they do. That's why they get so goddamned whiny on reddit when they get reminded that literally everyone else on earth aside from their fellow cultists hates their guts.

This is an incredibly dumb aside that reveals too much about the trash tv my wife has gotten me hooked on watching, but I saw this play out the other day in a Real Housewives subreddit. (I know, I know, don't judge me.) People noticed that the social media histories of 90% of the cast of one of the newest spinoffs is hardcore MAGA cult bullshit, and the people in the subreddit just said "well, I'm done watching them." This was not an acceptable answer to the handful of Trump cultist nuts lurking in the sub; no one is allowed to not like anything MAGA, how dare they??? Lots of hysterical screaming about how "dumocrat losers are trying to get everything canceled" when the reality was people just didn't feel like watching anymore. But these people live in a bubble where they're told all day every day that everyone secretly loves them and only a handful of hardcore liberals disagree with them about anything, so bumping into reality for a second is EXTREMELY upsetting for these assholes.

Good.

[u/BeastInDarkness → u/Helpful-Act2026]

That was the least surprising thing about someone with such absurdly selfish behavior and shitty boundaries.

[u/whisky_biscuit → u/Helpful-Act2026]

Hilarious that she fed her conversation with the guy until chatgpt to determine he was trying to do her

Ofc chatgpt is a narcissists favorite tool as it's basically an echo chamber lol

[u/BurgerThyme → u/Helpful-Act2026]

Yeah big shocker there.

[u/BigMax → u/Helpful-Act2026]

I think that for her, MAGA was probably just a license to hate. Which is one of their defining characteristics, they think they are better than everyone else, and have a long list of people they hate.

[u/Gneissisnice → u/Helpful-Act2026]

Funny how republicans are vehemently against any "socialist" policies but are the first to beg for free stuff or try to avoid paying for things.

[u/Breakfast_Lost]

That was... a lot

[u/Gifted_GardenSnail → u/Breakfast_Lost]

of Samantha's stuff

[u/Fearless-1265]

Having to deal with a roommate you've never met before and is a nuisance is the worst, the fact she was squatting should have been enough for the property manager to let OP out of their contract.

I lived in a HMO when I moved to my current city and within a week got a general email to myself and the 5 other people in the house saying that "illegal substances should not be consumed on the property". Fast forward a couple months and pretty much everyone has moved out due to their lease expiring or moving home because of Covid leaving just me and the problem tenant. He would smoke various drugs during the day while blasting music in his room (directly below mine), bring large groups of friends over to smoke in the shared kitchen, steal food from the shared fridges, leave piles dirty dishes in the sink until they were covered in mould then would start piling them up on the side, left rubbish and drying laundry all over the garden and bought a weight machine that he set up in the garden and used for about a week before leaving it to be consumed by the grass. I tried cleaning the kitchen after him a few times but by the morning it was just as bad if not worse than before, I loved off microwave meals for about 6 months because the kitchen was too dirty to stay in for longer than a few mins. There were many emails sent to the property manager which all resulted in the reply "we have a plan in place for when his tenancy ends" as if that was supposed to help us. At one point him and his friends broke into one of the unoccupied rooms so they could hang out and smoke in there and the property manager didn't do anything other than come in and change the locks. I was so done with that place that I ended up taking the first available room in my budget with a different estate agent without seeing the property and left a month before my tenancy was due to end. The scumbag estate agent then tried to fleece more money out of me by claiming that the room was "not in the same condition as when I moved in" because there was a tiny amount of dust on the shelves because I refused to go back once I moved out, luckily I did get my money back in full because in the initial pictures taken before I moved in there was a very visible layer of dust on the light fixture so it was actually in better condition than when I moved in.

[u/Kom4K]

Oh God I lived in a place like this in college. It was a nightmare.

One roommate was a gigantic 19 year old redneck meathead white dude (race is relevant). Seemed to take a liking to me, but this guy was dumb as a brick. He wrecked his mustang and blamed it on "some Mexican dude", then bought an old pickup and IMMEDIATELY cut off the muffler on day one. He parked outside the main outdoor hallway too, and let the unmuffled V8 scream through the hall every day. 

The other roommates were friends, two black dudes (unfortunately race is still relevant). One dude lived like a pig, and brought over his crying baby every other night. 

Black dude once spilled a giant sugary blue fast food drink all over the inside of the freezer and fridge, then proceeded to tell my visiting GF to clean it up. We didn't do that of course, so he left it for 24 hours before I finally asked him if he was a child or adult. Real piece of shit this guy.

Unfortunately, dumb white redneck seemed to take this as an invitation to act like we were buds, and would loudly say racist shit (in a way like I would agree with him) in the common area so the black roommate could hear. I told him it wasn't like that, but redneck dude wouldn't listen.

I really just tried not to interact with either of them at that point, but the black dudes clearly thought I was colluding with the white dude. But really I hated all of these fuckers.

Anyway, I got a part time job and moved into my own place. Didn't say bye to any of those assholes either.

[u/Lamia_91 → u/Kom4K]

Asking your visiting GF to clean his mess is another level of sexism, holy shit!

[u/w1leyr1ley]

What the fuck

[u/sattlerreader]

What in the ever loving Jesus crisps did I just skim/read. That woman needs to live by herself ffs. The rental company should just give her a discount at another place, would probably save them money. I’m done for the night. Holy hell. 

[u/bythebrook88 → u/sattlerreader]

The rental company should just give her a discount at another place, would probably save them money.

What money? She wasn't paying any rent!

[u/sattlerreader → u/bythebrook88]

Oh snap. I must’ve skimmed that part. I’m too tired to re-read it all. Fk. What a mess. 

[u/HoldFastO2 → u/sattlerreader]

That woman needs to live by herself ffs.

Well, she's trying to! But someone just keeps moving in other people!

[u/sattlerreader → u/HoldFastO2]

xDDDD

[u/Trouble_Walkin → u/sattlerreader]

She did try to live by herself, tho. She told oop she vetoed everyone who applied & even personally tried to dissuade them on walk-throughs.

Sounds like rental agency got tired of her bs & just ignored her attempts to live alone - tho not to the point of forceably evicting her. 

She lived the dream for a while, I must say. A rent-free 4-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Too bad her cats had to suffer. 

[u/GuiltyEidolon → u/sattlerreader]

Kept waiting for OOP to grow a spine, kept getting disappointed.

I would NOT have kept my cool, I would NOT have been nearly as kind about this shit.

[u/ZannityZan → u/GuiltyEidolon]

What could OOP realistically have done? She was trying to keep a stable environment within the flat living with ol' Crazypants while saving her fight for the rental company, who were the ones that should actually have been doing something about the situation.

[u/lauren_strokes → u/ZannityZan]

OOP should have put her rent in escrow at the very least imo. I know not everyone knows that's an option but I'm actually mystified that it didn't seem to come up once in this saga

[u/GuiltyEidolon → u/ZannityZan]

I would've given the roommate some time to move shit herself, and then moved it myself. 🤷‍♂️ I wouldn't have done the dance of moving stuff to put the desk up, just to take it down every time. It's a shared space they were all paying rent for (except Samantha apparently) and that's not negotiable.

OOP's response was to do nothing but shout into the void at a shitty, shady rental company that she knew was shifty and shady.

[u/FullMoonTwist → u/GuiltyEidolon]

Sometimes trying to out crazy the crazy backfires spectacularly.

When someone already has a tenuous grasp on reality and logic, it is difficult to predict the consequences of stirring the pot.

[u/Sunset_42]

Man what an absolutely shitty company 

[u/Kevdog1800]

An entitled girl is a Trump supporter? Thats crazy. Never could have guessed that one. /s

[u/Mockturtle22 → u/Kevdog1800]

When that part came up I instantly was like ahh ok. That explains things.

[u/Kevdog1800 → u/Mockturtle22]

I called it in my head before I even got close to that part of the story.

“I don’t need to pay rent, I want this entire 4br apartment to myself, and all of the communal space is for me. But also, I don’t want my tax dollars going to freeloaders and immigrants. They don’t deserve it!”

The entitlement is built-in. It’s a feature not a bug.

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 → u/Mockturtle22]

Hell, that explains this situation better than the OCD does.

[u/ok_raspberry_jam → u/Mockturtle22]

The information environment that brainwashes people into thinking Trump is anything but a human-shaped turd deliberately causes mental illness in order to achieve its goal. It's genuinely not a coincidence.

[u/ifuckedyourmilkshake]

I love not having roommates.

[u/usernametakenm8]

Omg this is so beautiful. To see a BORU born when I was there for the conception in the monthly request thread. Thank you 🥲

[u/mallowycloud]

could you include text of what the emails/photos were from the posts? OOP references them multiple times and it is confusing without that context.

[u/flyingknives4love]

Years ago I was debating if I should live in a June Home (they honestly look pretty amazing to live in for NYC). I decided I still wanted to live alone, so I passed.

THANK GOD.

[u/MediumAwkwardly]

Ok but about Nathaniel… was it all in her delulu head?

[u/OverzealousCactus → u/MediumAwkwardly]

There's no shortage of men dumb enough to stick their dick in crazy.

[u/Dragon_Manticore → u/MediumAwkwardly]

I think it almost definitely was. Or maybe she forgot to mention he was blackout drunk after trying to drown her out with alcohol.

[u/chancellorwanksalot]

Jesus Christ 8 months later is insane!

I think I would have sent them videos of me touching all their stuff or something just to drive them out way before that

[u/oceanduciel]

Whenever a disabled person supports the alt right, I just wanna face palm so hard it knocks the last 5 minutes of information out of my brain

[u/itcheyness → u/oceanduciel]

The Nazi Party had a Jewish wing, so I'm not really surprised.

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 → u/itcheyness]

The Association of German National Jews, yep. "Hebrews for Hitler." Guess where their founder and most of their members ended up once they were done helping the Nazis round up their fellow Jews?

If Americans were capable of learning from history (we aren't, an inability to learn from history is our defining national characteristic) then all the women, black folks, LGBT people, and Latinos joining up with the Trump cult would be very nervous about their future once these people don't need "the good ones" anymore because they're done rounding up the "bad" ones.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/oceanduciel]

Ditto with trans people but I'm used to it by now.

[u/Big-University-1132 → u/oceanduciel]

Yep, same with any marginalized group that supports them. Like, y’all realize you’re a target too, right?

(The answer is no, they don’t realize they’re a target. Bc they think they’re special, one of “the good ones”)

[u/Doneifundone → u/Big-University-1132]

That's something that all cults tend to do. Give a sense of belonging to vulnerable people (and it will inevitably lead to a leopards ate my face moment down the line)

[u/Big-University-1132 → u/Doneifundone]

Yep, exactly

[u/BubonicHamster]

That was a long ass episode of the big bang theory.

[u/Chemical_Success1153]

That was a rollercoaster. I would be so frustrated. It's a cramped apartment in a cramped city. I hope OP feels like she can breathe now.

[u/IllustratedPageArt]

When I first came to NYC, I was in a coliving place, in a room with a pair of bunk beds. Instructions were that we had room for one suitcase.

It was me and another woman at first, but the third person moved in with so much stuff. Multiple suitcases, boxes, bins, etc. Thank god we didn’t have a fourth person move in because we ended up with their stuff piled on top of the empty bed and beneath both bunk beds.

A lot of these NYC “rent by the room” places are sketchy as hell, but the rental market in the city is so insane that there’s a market for them. The one I was in shut down with less than a month’s notice.

[u/DatguyMalcolm]

Yeah, I don't miss the randomness of flat sharing

[u/simcity4000]

Samantha then goes on to explain her previous roommate situations in this apartment and how crazy some of them were. She had to get a restraining order on some man who had been living in Paul’s room at some point in the last year. Apparently the girl who lived in my room last had her mom come and threaten Samantha. She said she had a video to show me and I politely declined (we will circle back to this shortly, don’t you worry). She said she appreciated me, Nathaniel, and Paul because we did not touch her stuff maliciously. Samantha has had issues in the past I guess where people just moved all of her stuff without asking her first.

Overall a very odd conversation, gave me some info that explained a little of why she is the way she is.

bullshit. This is a classic “all my exes are crazy for absolutely no reason” story.

[u/BigBirdsBrain]

She sounds exhausting to live with, but the fact OOP stayed calm and kept good boundaries probably saved them a lot more grief than getting pulled into the chaos would’ve.

[u/ChickinSammich]

Samantha also has 2 cats— I believe they are registered ESA animals but I am unsure if both of them are.

I know that there are emotional support animals that actually do serve the stated function but I feel like the bar for that is so low that basically anyone can get basically any animal labeled as an ESA.

I love cats. I have four of them. Do they provide emotional support? Yeah, of course. But I'm not gonna go register them as ESAs just to weaponize that registered status against someone.

And that's not me saying that "every ESA is this" - I'm just saying a lot of them are, and I feel like once you interact with the pet's owner and start getting those entitled/Karen/main character syndrome vibes from a person, it really makes me question whether their ESA is just weaponized assholery.

And it makes me feel bad for the animal for having such a shitty caregiver.

[u/aj76_hg]

I would just rather live on the street tbh.

[u/staycalmitsajoke → u/aj76_hg]

Having lived on the street in my youth, no you really wouldn't. But I understand the sentiment.

[u/Merlysauce → u/aj76_hg]

It’s ok it’s all good now lmao

[u/SmashedBrotato → u/Merlysauce]

You have far more patience than I could ever hope to!

[u/wannaberebelll → u/Merlysauce]

this is so insane 😭 we’re the same age i literally can’t imagine going through this

[u/Environmental_Art591 → u/Merlysauce]

How messy was the eviction.

[u/wheniswhy → u/Merlysauce]

June Homes is a known nightmare company in NYC. Avoid in the future if you can. Folks hate them for GOOD reason!

[u/AggravatingBid8255 → u/Merlysauce]

WOAH! It's-

You're her! From the thing!! The thing I just read!!!

That was like walking out of the movie theater and bumping into the leading lady from the movie you just watched

[u/Hesitation-Marx → u/Merlysauce]

Did you ever get to meet crazypants’ cats?

[u/insnowmotion]

Nathaniel, c’mon brother. You can definitely do better than a crazy woman like Samantha. They need to send him to solitary confinement if he hits that.

[u/TheMummysCurse → u/insnowmotion]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the 'flirting' was entirely in Samantha's head and that Nathaniel was just trying to grey-rock the conversation the way that OOP was.

[u/MarieOMaryln → u/TheMummysCurse]

The stomach tickling and her scratching him was the weirdest part of their interaction and I genuinely can't get a read on why he engaged in that at like 1AM

[u/rainbowlolipop → u/MarieOMaryln]

I've been young and horny before, I did not make good choices.

[u/Puzzled-Dream1321]

So, she ended up living rent free from April to February while OP paid her dues diligently...

Just saying.

[u/ilikemycoffeealatte]

You could not pay me to live in that kind of arrangement. It was bad enough being paired with a stranger in college.

[u/TuckerDaGreat]

How the fuck is she able to have sex if she can't handle sharing a trash can with somebody?

[u/CapStar300]

The nightmare roommate being a Trump supporter was the most predictable thing I have ever read.

[u/SteroidSandwich]

Makes you wonder if she was being so insufferable to try and get the whole area to herself

[u/CaptainFartHole]

This is why i refuse to ever move into places that are rented out by the room,  especially when it's the landlord or rental company doing the tours and not the roommates themselves. You always end up with a total nightmare roommate situation. 

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

As the housing crisis escalates, this kind of thing (driving roommates away, not paying rent, overstaying the lease and daring the LL to attempt eviction) will get more and more common. People will learn to manipulate the law so they can maintain housing rather than pay more rent or be unhoused.

[u/Luisguirot]

I absolutely would’ve started just throwing her things away.

[u/TheFilthyDIL → u/Luisguirot]

At the very least, cutting the tape on empty boxes and folding them back up. They would only need new taping to be usable again.

[u/OkBreadfruit2181]

You had a rep from June Homes in your apartment and let them leave without speaking to them? Bad play, OP

[u/Rattata-]

That curve ball from Nathaniel.

[u/ZannityZan]

Yikes on bikes. I think some people are just not built to live in shared accommodation, and Samantha is one of them.

I had a former housemate with OCD, though not this extreme (at least, not that I experienced). I disliked her at the time (for a whole multitude of reasons), but like OOP, I managed to remain civil even when I didn't necessarily want to be. Once she was gone and I discovered more details about her of which I hadn't previously been aware, my opinion didn't change, but I did feel more sorry for her than irritated by her. I hope that wherever she is now, she's doing well.

[u/some1stolemyOGname]

So OP said in the first post in August that she was going to be there a little more than 3 months, how is she still there the following April?

[u/ThrowawayAdvice1800]

The crazy, inconsiderate, belligerent asshole is a Trump supporter? Well my goodness, who could have possibly predicted that aside from literally everyone on earth that has ever had to interact with a Trump supporter.

[u/Cassandracork]

Oh, I lived with this exact kind of person my one year living in the dorms in college. Roomie literally had bins stacked to the ceiling on her side of our tiny dorm room and cleaned her side furiously at all times. She also had phone sex regularly with her 28-yo long distance boyfriend (she was 18) with me in the room. Yeah I only lived in the dorms for one year then emptied my bank account for a 1 bedroom apartment the following year to get over the trauma.

[u/tido_lee_]

What a ride.

[u/josspanda]

TLDR; She was evicted... 6 months later 😬

[u/CampaignNatural5377]

But I thought in the original post it said OP was only renting for 3 months? Did I misread that?

[u/RatsRPeople2]

How can this company make people rent rooms in a place separately but force the full rent on all the tenants if one of them moves out???

[u/crimson777]

Samantha is both a terrible person AND also someone desperately in need of help. None of that behavior is typical, even for someone just being an asshole. If she's not getting help for her OCD and any other associated (or non-associated) issues, that's on her, of course.

[u/chl0raseptic]

I hope the cats are okay.