We asked fellow Malaysians what their worst housemate experiences were and boy, we sure are glad we’re not living with them.
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Moving out of your parents’ house and living with strangers (or friends) can be a tale of two halves. If you’re lucky, you might end up with the perfect housemate who’s responsible, pays rent on time, maintains a clean space, and occasionally offers you home-cooked food. On the other hand, you might also end up with a horrible housemate who never cleans, blasts music in the middle of the night, or even steals your food.
Recently, we asked iProperty.com.my readers to tell us what their worst experiences were with their housemates. Honestly, we were baffled by their awful experiences. Here are eight housemate horror stories that will make you want to live alone. Read at your own discretion.
1. The strange odour
“I once had a housemate who liked stuffing food supplies into our shared fridge but never eating them until they went bad. Some grew fungus or even disintegrated into liquid after six months. After she showers, the toilet will always have the stench of urine on the floor and walls. And we’d always smell a strange mixture of strong perfume and wet socks emanating from her room.” — Midori Sora
2. The part-time cleaner
“This happened to my best friend who moved out for the first time and rented a room in a house with the owner. It was a hellish experience as she was forced to do chores even though there were other tenants around. The house was constantly dirty and no one else, not even the owner, did any chores. After that experience, she never shared a home with other people, preferring a studio although it was more expensive to rent.” — Ivy Lie
3. The slob
“In university, I lived in a dorm with this other girl. She was such a slob and never cleaned up after herself. The crux of my nightmare was when I came back from class once to find her blood-stained panties at the back of the door. Sometimes, she never showered for days and the room would reek of her body odour. She would also randomly break into song, providing unsolicited entertainment by singing loudly when I was studying. I tried telling her off and writing to campus services but there wasn’t much that the school could do. I was fortunate to be able to switch dorms after a year of hell.” — Audra Tan
4. The all-girls unit
“I once stayed in an all-girls unit because I assumed that girls will be cleaner. The owner thought so too, hence his decision to rent his unit to only females. Boy was he wrong. There were a total of four girls in that house and let’s call them Janice, Olivia and Sarah. Janice used to use my pots and pans and leave them unwashed in the sink. Olivia was a hoarder. Her room only had one lane in because she would buy stuff and just leave them in their bags and never used them. And let’s not even get to all the hair clogging up the common toilet’s drain and everyone refusing to clean it because all claim that it’s not their hair (well, my hair certainly wasn’t blond nor is it curly). Sarah was the worst. I heard a commotion outside one night but ignored it. Then I got a WhatsApp message from Olivia telling me furiously that she found a used and unwrapped pad on top of her shampoo and soap bottles in the toilet from Sarah. Apparently, Sarah always did that but just forgot to take it out that night. I consoled Olivia as best as I could. Later that night I walked out to the kitchen to get some water and saw something on the floor. Wondering what was it in the semi-lighted kitchen, I bent down to pick it up and realised… it was a rolled-up used pad. Presumably, the same one that was on Olivia’s soap and shampoo bottles earlier.” — Lynn
5. The toilet clogger
“I had a roommate who always left blood on the toilet seat whenever she was on her period, bloody sanitary pads on the toilet floor, and refusing to flush the toilet after doing a number two. The worst is when she would clog the toilet with her sanitary pads. I had to use the gym bathroom to shower on many occasions because of that.” — N. Farah
6. The vomiter
“This happened to my friend in her first year of college. She shared a room with another girl who was a total party animal. Several times her roommate returned drunk and threw up on the toilet floor. The worst incident was perhaps the night after their final exam. Her roommate got wasted, tried to get into my friend’s bed when my friend was sleeping in it, and proceeded to vomit on her bed before passing out. She never apologised for it.” — Yan
7. The toxic relationship
“I once rented a house with another couple. They were both sloppy and never cleaned up after themselves whenever they cooked. They never took out the trash, at times to a point where insects began crawling out of the trash. I always had to be the one to take out the trash. The worst happened a few days before the couple broke up. They had a huge argument and the girl locked her boyfriend in the room — it got so bad that even the police had to come to our house to investigate.” — Charmaine
8. The all-in-one sponge
“My housemate was an amazing person. He’d offer to clean the house, cook for us, and even take out the trash even when it wasn’t his turn to do so. Everything was perfectly fine until I saw him using our kitchen sponge to scrub the toilet. Naturally, I asked him why he used the kitchen sponge to clean the toilet. His response? ‘I thought we used this sponge to clean everything.’ My blood ran cold when I realised he used the kitchen sponge to scrub every surface at home for the past year. Thankfully, after teaching him the difference, he has since stopped using one sponge for everything.” — Danesh
* For privacy reasons, some respondents’ names were changed. Interviews have been lightly edited for clarity.
Do you have a housemate horror story to tell? Drop your submission here!