sometimes i just wanna go home

[thunderstorm_19]

well, tonight, i took one last look at the kitchen, before quietly (or not so quietly) going apeshit. i have held out on cleaning it up for the past 2 months, but i couldn't stand it a moment longer.

Virtually none of the mess was mine, which is why I didn't feel I should clean it.

However, I have now piled the dirty dishes so they all fit in the sink (I WILL NOT wash up after my housemates!), washed with all purpose cleaner the counters and tables and stove, put open food into tupperware so it doesn't spoil so fast, thrown out stray garbage (ie food wrappers) that didn't make it to the trash (there were many), made more space, put the shoes together in pairs on the mat (not strewn where i can easily trip on them), moved backpacks out of tripping range, hung coats up, piled their belongings which don't belong in the kitchen according to who owns what, made 2 piles of paper - important, and possible trash (which improves on the fact they were all over the table and floor).... the kitchen table is now useable as a table again...

it took 2 hours.

tomorrow i shall tackle the fridge, and the downstairs common area...

if it gets to this point of filth again, i shall move out.

the only thing i feel a bit bad about is that i did it between 11:30pm and 1:30am, so everyone else was in bed. so i feel bad in case i was bothering them, but i also feel a bit like "well, tough, you shoulda cleaned up after yourselves earlier" as well...

sometimes i just feel like i'm the only one who cares if we get cockroaches or mice in the house...

is my annoyance justified?

[littlest-bee]

Oh yes, your annoyance is justified!

The last student house I lived in sounds a lot like the one you're in now: the kitchen was foul - we had mice and ants, mouldy food everywhere, dirty plates, rotting bags of rubbish etc etc. The was a pile of junk mail next to the front door turning to compost because it had been there so long and everyone just walked right over it in their muddy shoes!

You don't even want to hear about the bathroom...!

Most of the time I just walked around with blinkers on - I refused to clean up after my dirty housemates but every so often I'd go MAD and clean up everyone's crap and then be very annoyed later when no-one said thank you!

In the end things got so bad I moved out to a nice clean little flat with my nice clean (most of the time anyway!) boyfriend!

[sistasmell]

Heehee! Oh, those were the days! I've always been the responsible type, so in college I was always the one who gave in first and cleaned up the dump. By the time the lease was up, I would hate my roomies so much that I'd move and get a new set. I moved every year. The only advice I have is: live with girls, if you don't already. They did tend to be slightly cleaner in my case. The boys were a nightmare, making the place into a dump every chance they got, and also showing up and acting pitiful every time I cooked.
littlest-bee is right about moving in with a boyfriend. In a worst case scenario, you'll only have one person to clean up after!
Now that I've been living with my man for 9 years, the thought of roommates gives me hives!
Hang in there! It does get better.

[eenie]

::hug:: i'm so sorry to hear that.. i've definitely been there before. my roommate freshman year was quite the spoiled rich girl, and had me mistaken for her personal maid. in the span of an entire school year, she never once vacuumed the floor or took out the trash (the trash can was next to my desk, so her and her friends would pile their half-eaten food on top and leave it for me to deal with), and would only wash her dishes if i would help. we didn't have a sink in our room, so you had to take the dishes to the end of the hall.. as a result, she would never rinse off her dishes, and we often ended up with molding food on her plates.
i wish i could say i had some magical answer to fix them, but i don't. with a month left of school, i decided that i wasn't vacuuming anymore. so our floor was covered with my roommate's long, curly hair (all the more reason why SHE should have vacuumed). the last week of school, i moved out four days before she did, so as my final act of revenge, i took the phone and left her with an overflowing trash can and no trash bags (i forgot to mention that she never offered to buy any bags). your annoyance is QUITE justified, i've been there before and have been ready to tear out my hair. hang in there.

[thunderstorm_19]

thank you all... you are quite comforting.
the garbage and recycling gets done here because I agreed to do it, and ditto on cleaning the bathrooms. those are my chores. I don't mind doing them, except when the others just leave random bags near but not in the kitchen trash can with both garbage and recycling in them, which i then feel obliged to sort out (well i'm not about to throw recycling in the garbage)... and the downstairs bathroom, well... we have 5 people here, 4 girls one guy, and 3 of the 5 of us share the downstairs bathroom... no one ever lifts the rubber bathmat except me, so each time i do it it's starting to go moldy, b/c if it's not lifted after showers, it can't get dry underneath.
they walk all over the fuzzy yellow bath mat that goes outside the tub with their shoes on (which kinda defeats the point, b/c that mat is supposed to keep your feet clean as well as dry after you get out of the shower).

i agreed to take trash out the nite before collection, which is fine, but no one else hardly ever takes any trash out, esp not of the kitchen bin... so if I dont' do it for whatever reason (even when i'm not here), it is just allowed to overflow. and if they do take the bag out of there, they rarely put a new bag in, but they continue putting garbage in, so you can imagine how icky that gets.

anyway, it's 10:36 and i have class at 12, which means i have to get up, dressed, fed, and catch a bus. i'll be back on later.

[Dalmaney]

Move. For the sake of your sanity, move. If you can at all afford it, move. I do have a few issues with my roomate now... but it's really not bad at all. My last roomie was an absolute nightmare. She had a dog (never ever again). An epileptic dog. A bored, epileptic dog that destroyed the garbage. When the garbage was not accessable, he destroyed whatever else he could find, usually her groceries. I always got home first, and I didn't want the carpets wrecked, so I cleaned up after the little monster. She mounted a motion light right over my bedroom window that went on and off all night. She'd have incredibly loud phone conversations until one in the morning when I had to be up at seven. She'd have friends over and do the same. The floor was always just MUD from the dog, and she rarely felt like cleaning up after him. It was ####.

And then I moved and now I'm sane. Oh, and for the record, she was 50, and I was 20. Age is NO indicator of maturity and no excuse. Worst roomate ever.

The only time I've lived with more than 2 people was a summer in res for a job. It only worked because I was second most likely to crack and clean. I think after 2 roomates it's all downhill.

[thunderstorm_19]

i hear ya...  and i wanna emphasize to them the point that i'm not happy here as things are, but i don't wanna start a fight about it if i can help it, because they are all my friends, and i'd like to keep it that way if possible... so how to talk to them without getting too high and mighty and pissing them off?

... i'm no neat freak, but this place is crazy... and if it gets to this point again after i'm done cleaning it, I WILL leave.

the only thing that worries me about that is, if I do decide to leave, what about money... i can afford the rent i'm paying here, but i couldn't afford to pay rent on two places, so unless i stopped paying rent here, i'd have a problem. and our internal agreement currently states that anyone who moves out shall continue paying rent until a replacement tenant can be found... which is mostly fair, but could be problematical. i mean, if it's so gross here that i deem it unhealthy to live here, is it fair to stop paying should i happen to leave?

i wouldn't wanna fuck these guys over, and i dont' wanna be the megabitch... BUT. y'know?

[eenie]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Guest @ Oct. 30 2002,08:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">She'd have incredibly loud phone conversations until one in the morning when I had to be up at seven. She'd have friends over and do the same.[/b][/quote]
my roommate would do that. i'd have an 8AM class, and she and her friends would be practising britney spears moves (i'm serious...) in front of the TV until 1AM, while i was trying to sleep 5 feet away. the kicker was the night that she didn't tell me that a boy was staying the night until after i'd gotten into bed, and then told me that it was innocent, and proceeded to fool around with him in the bunk right above my head, until i ran out of the room and slammed the door. http://nervousness.org/forum/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[victoria]

I'm pretty much a chaotic person, so... you ask how to talk to your housemates and I might be of some help there.

Try getting it down to some general complaints that cover everyone and ask them to help you out - listing every single thing at one time is a sure way to frustrate those of us who don't notice chaos to begin with. General clean issue things - like picking up the bathtub mat, keeping kitchen trash picked up, rinsing dishes rather than dumping dirties, sharing dish-wash chores, having one place for coats and backpacks and stray books and supplies - and making sure that if you point out when people don't follow up, that its not categorized as bitching, because its not - well, that's the start. Use your own skills at being neat and clean to set up things so people are encouraged to follow up after themselves, rather than letting things build and then cleaning up after them.

Those of us that don't get the first orders of neatness may be okay and very cooperative if its pointed out in a nice way and if we get some time and hear good pointers to help us adjust. If they can't meet you halfway, you don't have to excuse yourself and neither do they. You've got the right to find a new place to live, and hopefully you can all part as friends who disagree on how clean to keep things.

I must admit and especially since they're friends of yours - I don't think you get to leave them high and dry on rent, though, unless they're inviting over carriers of the bubonic plague, or dirtying your space specifically. Just because they're slobs, unless neatness and cleanliness in the common space was part of the original deal, it's not really right to screw them financially if you decide to move. Find them another slob to take over your part of the rent.

[thunderstorm_19]

just feel like adding that i cleaned the downstairs common area too, and cleaned out the fridge. i also did my agreed-to chores of garbage and recycling collection and bathroom cleaning. (yesterday).

All of that took me 5 straight hours.

Plus the night before I'd spent 2 hours cleaning the kitchen.

Anyway, best go 4 now, hafta go candy shopping today.

[Helquin]

Oy! Does this thread bring back some memories! My first year of college was spent living in a suite with 7 other guys... and it was as filthy as you would imagine the home of 8 teenaged boys could be. I shudder even now just thinking about the bathroom & the kitchen in that place. We actually had mushrooms growing in the shower stall!

I wish I had some advice to share with you, thunderstorm_19. All I can think of is, yes, your annoyance is justified. Do what you have to do to to maintain your own comfort level but don't expect the others to appreciate it or help out. If these people are your friends, try not to build up resentments. Take it a day at a time until your lease/share agreement is up, then get the heck out of there!

It is a lot easier dealing with only one roommate (or significant other). Less mess & easier to negotiate disagreements. I hope things work out for you.

[guineababy]

If I ever get a room mate, I want one of you! I'm not the neatest person in the world, but I am clean. Mushrooms? *cringes* Yuck!

[Helquin]

http://nervousness.org/forum/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif   LOL  I had forgotten all about those mushrooms until I started reading Thunderstorm's posts about cleaning house.  It was pretty bad alright!  But as an 18-year-old kid I could tolerate a lot more than I could now.

Believe it or not, that wasn't even my worst living situation.  The low point came a few years later, when I had to live for a few months at the Jane West Hotel in lower Manhattan.  At that time (early 1980s) it was a low-rent dump with little 8' x 8' rooms and communal bathrooms on each floor.  It was so filthy I used to visit my friends just to shower & brush my teeth!

Ah, youth!

[watusi!]

oh geez. i had a roomate who was insane. she did not make messes, or so she thought. we lived in a dorm and had health inspections once a semester. she refused to help us clean because she had midterms. but so did i and my other roomates. to prove to her that she did make a mess as well we picked up all of her crap and put all of it on her bed so that she would have to move it somewhere to go to sleep. she had a countless number of dirty socks laying around the living room. and we put all those smellys on her bed and pillow. heheh. i think we even took a dirty pot that she hadn't cleaned in days and put it on her bed. ha ha ha.
in my experience guys were cleaner than girls, believe it or not. both years that i lived with girls they were complete slobs. and i mean dirty. they would leave dirty dishes and food out to the point where sometimes we would get fruit flies.

[Willow_starr]

Do you have a VERY LARGE list of agreed apon chores pinned to the wall? If yes make more. pin them to all the walls. Piling people's crap RIGHT outside their bedroom door tends to work as well.

I feel your pain Allison! Don't give up and don't let yourself become a maid/doormat.

[thunderstorm_19]

there is a copy of the chore list on the fridge, yes, though that now needs updating, but that'll just take a few minutes to do...

there's one thing i haven't done, there was miscellaneous STUFF in the kitchen, which i dumped into a box. i just left the box on one of the chairs, and it's still there. so i'll probably take the stuff from it, and do as you suggest, willow_starr, and put it outside their rooms, if i can figure out what is whose.

[thunderstorm_19]

i've now re-typed the chore list, so i'm gonna post that on the fridge, just in case anyone's in any doubt as to what they're supposed to be doing...