Living with "wild child" undergrad and feel trapped in my own apartment - what to do?

Parent Cafe
1

Hi there,

I moved into my new apartment this week since my grad program starts up on Monday, and I’m having a horrible roommate situation. I have two and they are undergraduates. I was told going in that the complex would try their best to room me with other graduate students, but apparently there aren’t any other graduate students at this complex because they paired me with undergrads. My fault for apparently choosing a more undergrad-prone complex, I guess.

One is really nice and I have no problems with her, but the other is a WILD CHILD. She was smoking pot when I first moved in (smoking isn’t even allowed in our apartment) and the apartment smelled for DAYS, and she’s constantly drinking with her friends and taking up my fridge space to stash her beer/wine (and she’s underage to boot). She doesn’t even go to my university - she goes to one an hour away and is only living here in my university’s town to be away from her parents (who live about 20 mins away). She has all these people over every night and they’re constantly up until 4+ am drinking and thrashing around, keeping me up or waking me up (I’ve even been leaving the TV on to drown out the noise, but they can get so darn loud).

Now, I know this is probably still “party time” for them since their semester doesn’t start up for a few weeks, but I’m very busy prepping a course I have to teach and also working on conference presentations and other stuff. My coursework starts up next week and I’m not going to be able to afford restless nights.

I haven’t said anything yet since I haven’t had any need to actually get up early and thus need it to be quiet, but what do I do now?? I hardly even see this wild child roommate - she works somewhere and is always gone except late at night when she’s with all these people. I want to pull her aside and tell her that, while I respect her rights to the apartment and her rights to have people over, being obnoxiously loud at 4am is rude and inconsiderate and is not fair to me once I start school on Monday. I know this is near her hometown and she has a lot of friends in the area, but do they really need to be in our apartment ALL NIGHT, EVERY NIGHT??

I don’t know what to do. I’m homesick and emotional enough as it is, so I really don’t want to be dealing with this. I’m a passive person and I try my best to stay out of everyone’s way, but I know I’m just letting them walk all over me by not speaking up. I just don’t want to be a tyrant because I know that they have every right to use the apartment, but it’s affecting my quality of life and I can’t afford to move out, break my lease, and live by myself, so I’m really stuck here.

Any tips on how (and when) to talk to her and what to do if/inevitably when she refuses to be considerate? I’ve thought of unabashedly blaring my stereo at 7 am when she’s sleeping and then asking her how SHE feels to get woken up at a time that she wants to sleep, but that’d be horribly childish and I’m the older one/responsible one here.

I’d appreciate any advice!

2

Oh, I wanted to add that I do have an emergency plan in place - I have a family friend who lives about an hour away, so if worse comes to worse, I could stay with her on weekends when I have big things coming up and when, more likely than that, my roommate would host the entire world in our living room.

But that’s just avoiding the issue altogether and I know that I need to more actively confront it.

3

You know the answer and you already said it: “[P]ull her aside and tell her that, while I respect her rights to the apartment and her rights to have people over, being obnoxiously loud at 4am is rude and inconsiderate and is not fair to me.” That is not easy. That is being an adult.

Okay. Is this a private complex or school-operated? If the former, there is a management company; if the latter, there is a college officer. You do not have to tolerate this. You would not be a “tyrant” by insisting on YOUR right to a tolerable living situation. Heck, what do your neighbors think? Some of them cannot be happy.

4

I would sit down with both roommates to come up with house rules. You probably should have done it from the very beginning. I think it is reasonable to have quiet time after midnight on weekdays (or a time that would be agreeable by all of you). If someone wants to have a party (more than 2 people over) with music, food, and drinks, then other roommates need to be informed to make sure they do not have papers or tests due.

Frankly, if the wild roommate doesn’t want to adhere to the house rules, I would just threaten to call the parents.

You are paying rent to have quiet enjoyment of your apartment. You are entitled to it.

5

I’d tell the housing officer you don’t want to be the over 21 adult with the underage drinkers in your apartment. You are not a babysitter. You’d like to move.

6

Consider calling the police on the illegal drug use. Read your lease to see if a drug charge would get her evicted.

7

Don’t be passive. Sit down and talk to your roommates and come to an agreement about what is reasonable once the semester starts. Be willing to be reasonable and be willing to find a different situation if you are the “odd man” out.

8

Is this your university housing? If it is, how can they house a student from a college an hour away there? Honestly, I doubt that talking to her will do much good, however, worth a shot. You need to either get a new roommate or move, I think. Who is in charge there, that you can be honest about what is happening, and say something else has to be worked out?

9

Thanks, everyone… I don’t think the apartment complex is officially owned by the university but is still advertised as student housing. Maybe they let her in because she’s still a student somewhere? Or she lied? I don’t know. It’s definitely weird, though. It’s not an easy commute to where she has to go.

I actually spent some time with her last night and talked to her (told her my program starts Monday, she woke me up at 4 am the other night, I didn’t mind then but will now since I have class, I’d appreciate guests to be quiet by midnight, etc.), and she apologized and said she’d try not to be so loud once school started.

However, she also went out last night and forgot her keys, so she banged on the door at 3:30 am to wake me up so I could let her in, so who knows how considerate she will be in the future.

I guess I will talk to management if things don’t improve after talking to her? Because now I’ve definitely expressed myself and asked for a more reasonable solution (and I was open to discuss other things, though she wasn’t at the time because she was busy getting ready)

10

Talk to management sooner rather than later. Maybe you could switch out to a different apartment with people having a similar problem - and get the wild ones all into the same unit.

11

Someone who forgets her keys, then bangs on the door to wake you, isn’t about to change.

12

“I don’t think the apartment complex is officially owned by the university but is still advertised as student housing. Maybe they let her in because she’s still a student somewhere? Or she lied? I don’t know. It’s definitely weird, though. It’s not an easy commute to where she has to go.”

wait, WHAT? She is NOT a student at your school?
You have EVERY right to have this person kicked out!
She can find housing closer to HER college. Dont let HER adolescent behavior imperil YOUR education!

13

I don’t know if the complex is owned by the university, though. It’s off-campus and is called something else (so not “student apartments at university”), but the “owner” of the building on the lease seems to be affiliated with the university, and the maintenance guy mentioned something about the Internet being crappy because “the university doesn’t want to pay more for it” or something

14

Since they matched you with these people I’d go to them and ask for a different match. There might be an opening in one of the other apartments that is more suitable, or someone else who wants to switch for the same reasons? How does your other roommate feel about all the noise and chaos?

15

My other roommate really hasn’t been around a lot since she lives only 15 minutes away and the semester for most people doesn’t start for another couple weeks. She did initially warn me about the other roommate’s wildness and said that she tries to balance her out, but she hasn’t been around as much, so maybe it’ll get better when she is?

They both seem like very nice people (even the wild one). The wild one just gets too… loud. I’m really hoping to find a peaceful solution here because they seem like nice, reasonable people and perhaps I’m just extra edgy because of all the change in my life.

16

I don’t think pot smoking in the apartment is reasonable.

17

Well, except for that. It hasn’t happened in the apartment since then (and I explicitly told her not to do it in our apartment since it’s not allowed and since it stinks the whole place up).

I actually just read another roommate thread over in College Life about the roommate who took over the whole room and had a temper tantrum when the OP unpacked her own stuff, so I realize that I could have it much worse than I do.

18

^You are too nice!

But that’s a good quality to have when getting along with strangers in shared living space.

19

The wild, pot-smoking roommate thing happened to one of my kids, too, also with the random roommate as a student at a different school. It only got worse and grew to loud, late parties during my kid’s final exam week (the wild roommate’s school was on a different exam week schedule).

20

For some levity, it could be worse!

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1836751-help-with-unusual-roommate-issue-p1.html (maybe not that unusual)

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1679432-phobias-and-dorm-life-p1.html (the box-toileter thread)