It seems odd if it was not a university owned property, but a private property, that they would take it upon themselves to match people up in apartments. Is that normal for a privately owned complex? I realize you want to be nice, accommodating, and not cause trouble, however…it seems like it would be easy enough to just have a chat with management. Say that you are a serious graduate student, and you must have a place that is quiet, and you don’t know if this is going to work out.And if it doesn’t, what are your options? If they couldn’t place you with other graduate students, at least they should have put you with older students. They may have a space elsewhere.
Thanks, everyone, for all your time and help on this! I’m sorry your kid went through that, @Madison85. It’s definitely not ideal, and I’m going to for sure have more talks with my roommates to come to some common agreements and understandings.
Also, I like your suggestion, @busdriver11. I should talk to management and see what my options would be if things didn’t work out (and clarify whether the university owns this place!). The one roommate is older (21 and a senior at my university) but the wild one is younger (20) and is a… junior I think, though may still be a sophomore credit-wise (she told me she was behind and would probably not graduate in 4 years).
So, age-wise, it’s not that bad. It’s just the behavior.
(And for reference, I’m a graduate student, but I’m 22 fresh out of undergrad, which might be what’s making me more passive since I was literally just an undergrad myself a few months ago)
Did you apply for the housing through the college? If so, whether the schools owns the buildings or not, it is student housing. Who do you pay?
Friend is in an apartment at FSU. It is housing g that can be used by FSU students, or the community college, or FAMU? She was the only one in the apartment when she moved in, but then they moved a non-student in and that’s not fair. This girl never stood up for herself and this non student had a lot of friends basically living there. She pays through FSU and they are responsible for her.
I think it’s not necessarily your age so much, it’s just as women, we are often trying to be accommodating and pleasant, and just live with things. I have tolerated obnoxious things with roommates before, though I’ve usually gotten lucky. I’ve never said anything, just picked up their mess and ignored the noise. But that sets a precedent, and people get used to getting away with these behaviors. Much easier to attempt to deal with it early, and find out what your options are, so at least you’ll know. Good luck!
Nothing will help, you cannot change people and you have no leverage for doing so. Move out to the studio apartment, that worked very well for my D. in her medical school years.
Is this a complex aimed more at students where your lease is by the room, rather than whole apt? Lots around here (college town) are like that when aimed at college, but no rule that non-students can’t also live there. Anyway, if this is the case, talk to mgt about switching your lease. My niece was involved in bad apartment mate situation at a “by the room” rental place and the management move the troublemaker out and figured out new arrangement. If they can’t make it work ask to released from your lease - especially point out that you have problems with legally being adult in apartment with underage drinking.
Good luck.
I highly disagree with MiamiDAP; I had a particularly difficult second semester senior year in college for several reasons that involved an ex-boyfriend and my trying to get over a nasty ending with him (the good news was that I met H at the end of the semester). I was also probably trying to work through some issues that should have been worked through at 17-18, not 21-22, so there was a lot of partying and not much studying. I was so self-absorbed in my drama that it never occurred to me that some of this weeknight stuff was interfering with my roommate’s ability to study and sleep. She finally had a ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting with me one morning after a particularly late night and made it clear it was equally her apartment and I had no right to keep her up with my noise and shenanigans. After that, I turned on a dime and became the model roommate - very respectful and even started picking up on some of the slack as far as some of the cleaning went that I’d neglected. I didn’t want to upset her again, but until she yelled at me, I was clueless.
So yes, your words can motivate someone to look internally and see how they’ve been screwing up, and give them a chance to make amends. Yea, I’m one anecdotal story, but I’m sure there are others.
Remember, “a stitch in time saves nine.” Don’t let this fester. You can talk to housing now, explain the noise issue and if they can’t resolve asap, you can get on a wait list. Waiting to deal with housing staff buys little. If she changes, fine. If she doesn’t, you’ve done some cya, set wheels in motion.
Call the police and get her arrested. The result will be two-fold, you’ll get her arrested and out of the house and be railing against the hedonistic party attitude prevailing in modern society.
Here are a few random thoughts:
For heavens sake! re-read this thread, pretending you didn’t write it. What advice would you give to this writer?
Assume it isn’t magically going to get better. Chances are it isn’t, unless you take every positive step you can, right now, before you get too busy. Talk to the building management. Make a complaint in writing, and ask for them to help you to resolve this problem. Be ready and happily willing to move, if that resolves it in the quickest, easiest way. Yeah, big pain right now, but not compared to a year of living with a terrible roomate (not that she is a terrible person, just that she is a terrible roomate for you at this particular time in your life.)
We women waste too much of our lives hoping for the best and trying to smooth things over. Sometimes it is better to cut your losses early and move on without looking back.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
This roomate is underage, and you are not. If a neighbor calls the police, are you going to be held in any way responsible for what is happening in your apartment? Are you sure? Laws are different in different states and municipalities.
(Edit: My husband is a physician. We were married during his medical school years, but most med students were not. Most shared apartments and houses with roomates. The roomates were other med students, dental students, PharmD students, and other graduate students. The only person I ever knew who had an undergrad roomate during those years shared a condo with siblings. We all had fun, had parties, had social lives, but it was different than it was as an undergrad.)
The Grad. student living with the Undergrad is a disastrous mismatch. Get out of this situation as quickly as possible without loosing too much of the precious time. Undergraduate kid will not understand anything you say to them, they are not there at your level of maturity. Do not waste your time. As I said previously, our D. did not even want to attempt having any roommate at all. The studio is the best in Grad. school situation.
@MiamiDAP with all due respect. I disagree with you. It’s not that this is a grad student, and the other an undergrad…it’s that the undergrad has poor roommate manners. You know…some grad school students have lousy manners as well, and many undergrads have very good roommate manners.
And you know…some people (like me) actually like having roommates. Also, it could be a cost issue. Sharing an apartment means not only sharing rent costs, but also other living costs like utilities, Internet, etc.
This poster first needs to show she tried to reconcile the bad situation. If this doesn’t change, she needs to see whomever assigned her to this roommate situation,mand explain both the illegal activity, and the rude behaviors. Surely the building has a policy about underage drinking and drugs.
Then ask the person who assigned the housing what can be done as its interfering with this student’s ability to study, and sleep.
…there are apartment buildings devoted strictly to Graduate students and above (residents, and such) that have strict policy of no undergraduate students. I guess, they do it to just enjoy the controlling nature of this policy…without any valid justification for it…
Sounds like the apartment complex set-up is similar to many at our flagship.
The apartment complex is not owned by the university but caters to students. The apartment does individual leases to the students rather than renting an apartment with one lease with several names on it. They provide roommate matching if needed. The benefit is that students don’t have rent an apartment on their own and try to find roommates, worry when someone drops out mid-semester etc.
DAP, do you know enough about OP, what school, etc, to tell her to copy your daughter? How would you feel if we told your daughter to copy our kids?
I am happy I did not live alone during grad school.
There are apartments set up strictly for grad students at SOME colleges…not ALL colleges @MiamiDAP.
Miami, what worked for YOUR D at the grad school SHE went to may not work for ALL grad students.
I agree that things might improve once school begins, but my gut tells me things will not change to the point you are satisfied.
If this is one of those rental companies where each person has their own lease then get down to the office immediately and put your name on a waiting list for another apartment. You can always turn it down if an opening comes up, but at least you would have an option.
You don’t want to get into a situation where your roomie tells the police that YOU were the one who provided the liquor to her and her friends leaving you to prove otherwise…
“DAP, do you know enough about OP, what school, etc, to tell her to copy your daughter? How would you feel if we told your daughter to copy our kids?” - I do not need to know OP beyond the OP statement that the roommate is a trouble. I thought that we all have an equal voice here, I guess, I have an inferior opinion, I apologize for expressing it. I still would never ever mix the graduate student with the UGs, copy my D. or not is irrelevant, even the fact that I am so inferior in comparison to others’ superior reasonning is irrelevant. Mixing Grad. students with the Undergrads is asking for trouble, this set up has inherent flow that is not possible to fix.OP can do whatever…I am just responding to the solicited advice. Grad. student does not have time to nurture the immature unruly college kid.
Thanks for all the input, everyone.
To clarify a few things: yes, I’m leasing a room in a shared apartment and it seems to be a complex that caters to university students (though I don’t think it’s owned by the university). Also, this is one of the only furnished complexes in the area, which was a main reason for selecting this complex (undergrad reputation or not) since I don’t have my own furniture/don’t plan on moving out here permanently.
Re: grad students living with undergraduates, I agree that it isn’t always ideal since the type of schooling both are experiencing is quite different, but since my university has no designated, university-owned graduate student housing (that I’ve seen), it’s not too uncommon for undergrads and grads to live together. I know of at least two other people in my department who do as well, and a friend at a different grad school lived with an undergraduate senior and they became best friends. Now, clearly I’m not really looking for a bff relationship with my roommates - just a respectful, cordial one where we all understand each other’s needs.
Also, I did talk to wild child roommate over the weekend, and she has been quiet after midnight the past few nights, which is a huge improvement!! She and the other roommate did completely redecorate and arrange the apartment when I was in class yesterday, though, and I left them a note this morning (and talked to them today) about a couple things I’d prefer/need to have done, so I think we are getting off to a better understanding. Hopefully it sticks.
Finally, I value and appreciate your advice and your voice, @MiamiDAP , as I value and appreciate everyone else’s. Thank you all very much for chiming in and helping me navigate this process. Things have been going well the past few days, so unless things rev up again, I think I will be fine as long as I clearly communicate my needs/thoughts/issues/etc.