<p>O.K., helped move my daughter in 2 days ago. She had tried to talk with her roommate to discuss various things about their room during the summer but didn’t get a lot of response. It became obvious her mother was taking care of everything because she didn’t even know what classes she was taking 3 days before move-in day! To make a long story short, my daughter ended up bringing almost everything & the few items the roommate agreed to bring she didn’t. They agreed on a color scheme, not everything matching just a general idea of colors. The roomie changed completely & brought a comforter designed for a toddler (saw it on the computer), numerous stuffed animals (~20) & children’s toys (no she is not an early childhood ed major) While trying to move in, her family & boyfriend, 6 total were all over the place & made it difficult for us to get her side set up. Oh, she’ll be 19 in a few weeks & her boyfriend is 16. Her parents & siblings finally left the room for a while & everytime we tried to get in with more stuff, she had locked the door with just her & her boyfriend in the room.(against dorm rules) She or her family hung out all day in the room & only attended one required orientation activity that day. As soon as my daughter unpacked the microwave she carried it & set it on her chair & asked if she could heat up her food her parents brought her because she “is a picky eater & doesn’t like the cafeteria food” Well, tonight I received a call from her mother @ 10 pm, thinking she was calling my daughter’s cell phone long distance. She wanted my d to tell hers to get off the phone (room phone supplied by us)so she could call her. I did not give out my d’s # because I don’t want her in the middle of that, plus the phone charges. I explained that she was at the required orientation activity & would not be in for at least another hour. Well, when I spoke with my daughter, she said her roomie stayed in the room apparently all day, watching cartoons & talking to her boyfriend every time she went by her room. (from 8am-11 pm)
She said the girl’s boyfriend is talking about coming to visit. My daughter was expecting a call from a professor concerning work-study & her password for her college network on her computer was left out of her packet so the only means of receiving info this weekend was by phone. She said she is going to try to talk to her but the girl is not much of a conversationalist & if that doesn’t work, then the RA. Oh I forgot to mention, she asked my d 2 days before coming if she was bringing a car so she would know whether she needed to bring one or not. (does not have a full driver’s license yet because she doesn’t want to take a driver’s raining class) There are other things too but this gives you an idea. My d is very studious but also enjoys getting out & spending time with friends. She’s concerned (I am as well ) about what is going to happen when classes start this week & if her roomie plans to put forth an effort on being a roommate. Any advice???</p>
<p>“but the girl is not much of a conversationalist”</p>
<p>I have to laugh at this myself…@ least not with my d but no problem obviously with her bf!!!</p>
<p>Yep…just tell your D. to ignore the roommate and do her own thing. Chances are roomie will either get her act together or not be around after Christmas.</p>
<p>Agree about ignoring the roommate. Make sure she doesn’t let the roomie interfere with her life (ie NO sleepover BF) or otherwise inconvenience her. I predict she will lose the roommate soon, or she will grow up fast. Don’t worry- if roomie doesn’t follow rules or disturbs your D she can go through channels. Otherwise, parallel lives work for many. It is best to stay out of things, eg listen to your D and offer her suggestions (if asked), don’t respond to the roommate’s parents (as you have nicely handled) and defer to your daughter- it is her room and her decisions. In other words, don’t get in the middle. Let us know what happened later this semester.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d view that roommate as a write-off. Why hope for more interaction with that bunch?</p>
<p>You’ll be laughing about it in a few years.</p>
<p>My first impression was “why worry? the roomie will be history by Halloween.” My first college roommate never came back after Thanksgiving. I agree with the parallel lives suggestion.</p>
<p>General consensous…the roomie will change drastically or won’t be around very long. Only advice, have your daughter stand strong against having the boyfriend visit, sleepover, etc. Other than that, meet new friends, get involved in her classes and ignore the childish behavior of her roomie.</p>
<p>Such childish, selfish behavior, on part of rm/mt and her family. This girl acts as tho what is your dtr’s is hers. Your dtr will need support in setting boundaries.</p>
<p>I am confused that you pay for the room phone, yet rmmt and her MO act as tho it is theirs? I’m wondering if it would be better to rely on cell phones until students truly settle into their rooms. Doesn’t this girl have her own cell phone?</p>
<p>Like other posters, I suspect this girl will need to act responsibly to attend to classes and homework, or she will be returning home.</p>
<p>My son is now a sophomore and has yet to have a land phone. We just communicate via his cell and email. Much more accessible.
Your daughter may find that she gets very little use out of the dorm phone; if that is the case, I’d take it out. Just make sure she doesn’t lose the cell and keeps it charged.</p>
<p>If you do decide to go without the land phone, just make sure to get a couple phone numbers of her friends (just in case of extreme emergency- which you should have those anyway) and the number for the dorm. That should be enough.</p>
<p>Well a land phone is about ten bucks…If your D decides that she will take it out of the room because she doesn’t get a chance to use it anyway, I’m sure another would show up.</p>
<p>If we start a poll, I say she’ll be done by the week after midterms! Good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>My son has no land phone, BUT he attends our state university, and his cell phone number has the same area code as the university. Professors, university offices, etc. don’t object to calling that phone because they have no idea that it’s a cell phone. To them, it’s just another local number.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my daughter attends an out-of-state college. I think she will always need a local land line because people might be reluctant to spend the money to call her cell phone (which has a Maryland area code) from their upstate New York land lines.</p>
<p>Two years ago my neighbor’s daughter had a roommate that sounded like this one–spent all the time on the phone with her bf and family. When the bill for the landline arrived she refused to pay for all the long distance calls she had made, claiming that the phone belonged to my neighbor (because she had supplied it!) </p>
<p>So my neighbor got rid of the phone figuring it would solve the problem. Two weeks later she returned from taking a shower down the hall to find her roommate using her cell phone–claiming that her phone was not charged and she needed to talk to her bf. She had no idea as to whether it had happened prviously (she was sure the girl was just trying to save her own minutes) but after that she took her cell phone with her everywhere, including the shower!</p>
<p>I hadn’t even thought about the long distance thing!
My son hasn’t had a problem with his cell being a different area code. I think most/all of the students and faculty use cells as well, so it doesn’t matter? He stays in contact with his teachers and advisors mostly by email. I think they have “websites” for classes too (at least some classes), with grades posted, etc, and maybe the students can contact professors that way as well.
What I see a lot of is communications with freinds by IM and cell.</p>
<p>To OP-- is there campus support for these kinds of issues? An RA or Dean of Student Life. Your D deserves some assistance/support here. Starting college is tough enough w/o having your personal space and energy invaded.</p>
<p>It might be a little premature to go to the Dean at this time, but perhaps in the future. Right now, if a student were to go to the dean or RA with the following complaints- dormmate has a babyish bedspread and toys, dormmate skipped orientation, dormmate had her boyfriend in the room (on move-in day), dormmate used microwave, dormmate is on the phone all the time, dormmate has a 16 year old boyfriend, dormmate didn’t bring her own car- they’d think you were crazy.</p>
<p>Not that dormmate doesn’t sound wacko…but at this point, those complaints would seem silly to a dean, who would assume that he/she is only hearing one side of the story. </p>
<p>I’d wait until things get really bad, like getting sexiled, before tattling yet.</p>
<p>S has a cell phone. I do not think profs have ever called him. They email him and he emails them.</p>
<p>The roommate seems incredibly immature. What’s the family’s excuse, though?
Your D should talk to the RA and/or Dean of Student Life. In fact, at the beginning of school, the RA and/or Dean should gather the students together and go over the rules (e.g. no bf in rooms behind closed doors, no sleepover, and so forth).<br>
But I agree with the other posters, mommy’s d is probably going to be gone by the next holiday.</p>
<p>I’m sure the prohibition against opposite sex in rooms is waived on move-in day. At this point, unless I misunderstand, the D’s roommate has not had bf in room other than on move-in day. D will have to wait. Right now if D goes to RA because of bf being in room during move-in, SHE’S the one who is going to look wacky.</p>
<p>This sounds like something your D should immediately discuss in a problem-solving context with an RA. It seems to go beyond the usual settling-in difficulties and indicate conditions that could seriously impact the ability even to live parallel lives. The color combinations and tastes in comforter don’t really matter, though they are superficial disappointments and reflect the deeper unreliability, but the other issues and overall behavior pattern are substantive concerns.</p>
<p>Re the phone, almost everyone uses cell phones, so for them it is the carrier and the minutes package that matters, not the area code; in-network minutes are usually unlimited, or close to it, as are night and weekend minutes. And even many land line plans in businesses and peoples homes have large very generous regional and long-distnce packages so they are fine with calliong other area codes, though if they are daytime calls they will be charged against your D’s primetime minutes. As noted, much official school communication is by email and Web sites. D should make sure to keep her computer to herself (lock? password even to log on?) and be sure to keep her school-related comptuer password and any other sensitive information to herself as well, because the roommate sounds as though she and her family are beyond the usual norm of behavior. (I’ve had two children go through college now and I’ve never heard of roommates activing like this. BF or GF sleepovers are obviously ongoing issues but in this case it sounds like there is a whole other constellation of things.) </p>
<p>Obviously the roommate should have no access to your D’s cell phone except in dire emergency (safety/health), but bringing in an inexpensive land-line phone for a shared phone line seems reasonable–not a major expense for you–as long as your D does not get stuck paying for half the long distance land-line charges when she has made none of the calls.</p>
<p>The car question the OP referred to was odd too. No one shoujld be driving your D’s car except your D. And she is not there to provide transportation for her roommate or anyone else unless it suits her own needs and schedule or is a real emergency of healtyh/safety/family emergency. Maybe not an issue this year but it will be if/when she brings a car. This question also raises red flags about this roommate and her judgment and respect for other’s property and convenience.</p>
<p>Encourage your D to act on this–I don’t think it is something you can or shoud be directly involved in at this time. If it became an actual safety issue then it might be.</p>
<p>Your d may want to get some sort of lock box to keep any important/expensive things in and out of roommate’s hands - like cell phone, car registration/keys (if d has one), even inexpensive jewelry that she just likes - so they can’t just be “borrowed” willy-nilly. A little more inconvenience for your d, but it may be worth it.</p>
<p>I must be the lone voice out here about not going to the authorities yet. While I can see a definite red flag, I don’t think there is any ammunition yet for going up the chain at this time. The first thing the dean is going to ask is, “have you talked to your roommate about these issues?” When the answer is no, the D is going to look like a whiner. </p>
<p>The roommate has not actually borrowed the car; and if she asks the D has every right to just say no- case closed, so what’s the deal there? The roommate has used the microwave- OK, in every dormroom across the country, roommates are sharing frig’s and micro’s. The roommate has not actually (except on move-in day) had bf into the room yet. What does one do, go to the dean and say “I predict that my roommate is going to have a boy in the room so I want something done now”? The part about the bedspread and stuffed animals would just be laughed at; lots of people are quirky with their little toys and accessories. About the only thing right now one can complain about is the excessive phone use. Good luck getting a change made right now because roommate has been on the phone too much.</p>
<p>Sometimes going too soon to the “police” backfires, and I think this would be one of those times. I would first try to establish some guidelines with roommate, then if she continues to be a pain, that’s the time to go up the chain. Isn’t that the way adults solve their problems? </p>
<p>Although I commiserate with the issues, and predict that things will probably get worse instead of better, here is a case where I think D is just going to have to wait until something more egregious happens.</p>