Living With Roommates – 2

Linda’s roommates were constantly changing. Every time she had a new roommate she would ask me to write a letter of agreement between them. And I couldn’t refuse to do it. As I said, Linda lived not too far from where I lived. While my apartment was on a quiet street, her apartment was on a main street.

Linda lived in an old apartment on the fourth floor and with no elevator. Yet friends liked to socialize on her balcony as you could see the whole city from there, and it was a beautiful sight especially at night. Another reason for them to visit her so often was because she liked to cook and they liked to eat. However, in addition to being loud and aggressive, Linda used to throw garbage off her balcony. Some examples are empty bottles or scraps of food.

I was shocked by her behavior when I saw that. I’m not talking about the fact that it was disgusting and barbaric but also very dangerous. Her apartment was located on a very crowded street and was as busy as a highway. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the bottles she would throw off her balcony would hit one of the cars that were traveling at high speed…….Anyway, I was very angry with her behavior and gave her a piece of my mind. But old habits die hard, so I stopped visiting her.

Meanwhile, my roommate (Linda’s cousin) did not keep his promise not to invade my privacy. He would come to my room to take his clothes or anything else whenever he wanted. He would knock on my door late at night, very often after I already went to sleep. But what bothered me the most was when he tried to make a move on me. He wasn’t aggressive or anything like that, but he stroked my hair, which startled me and caught me off guard.

When he understood I was not interested in him it hurt his ego. Suddenly he changed his attitude and wasn’t polite as before. He acted like a juvenile. Nevertheless, shortly after that I just left the apartment and moved in with a friend until I found another apartment. I have to mention that he kept the apartment clean as we agreed and the housework was divided equally.

Finding a suitable cheap apartment in an area of high demand is mission impossible. Likewise, the economic reality for students or young people who have just left their parent’s home seeking work in the big cities forces them to live with roommates. Most people have lived with a roommate at least once in their lives. And I have a feeling that if you take a survey among those people, they would tell you they’d rather live on their own if they could.

However, Bonnie used to live in a small town. When she went to university, she had to move to the big city. She had no experience living with roommates as she lived with her parents until she moved to Toronto. Bonnie started looking for an apartment well before the semester began. Unlike her friends, she did not go to university after finishing high school. She wanted to make some money in order to travel in the Far East before going to school again. Besides, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study.

Anyway, Bonnie started university when she was approximately 21. She preferred not to live in a dorm so she found a nice apartment not far from the university. Her roommates were not students. They both worked in a pub until early in the morning. Their schedule was very different from hers. They would finish their shifts at 2 or 3 in the morning, come home with some of their friends, and party until sunrise. They would often disturb Bonnie’s sleep and she couldn’t concentrate on her studies.

In addition, her roommates and their friends would eat everything that was in the fridge without getting permission. Bonnie would prepare lunch for herself for the next day only to find out they ate most of it when they came from the pub. She would wake up in the morning and see people who she never met before sleeping everywhere in the apartment. She frequently couldn’t even eat breakfast before going to university as they were spread all over the apartment. However, she did not want to make a noise and God forbid wake them up.

Bonnie paid quite a bit of money for rent but felt like a stranger in her own apartment. She did not want to ruin her relationship with her roommates. Thus, she tried several times to gently explain to them that she couldn’t concentrate on her studies when she wasn’t sleeping well at night. They would apologize and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Their promises usually did not last more than a few days before they started partying again.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when she realized they would wear her clothes without her approval. And afterward, they would return it unclean and smelling of cigarettes which she could not stand. Eventually, Bonnie had no choice but to leave the apartment and move to the dorm………