Here's the situation. I currently live in a college apartment with three other guys. Two of them I get along with fine and are good roommates. The third is my dorm roommate from freshman year who has just followed me along. All three of us can't stand living with him for multiple reasons:

-He never cleans his dishes unless told to.
-He never helps clean the apartment.
-He rarely throws money down for apartment supplies.
-He drinks our liquor/beer and never buys any for the apartment.
-He is extremely loud and annoying during the day and early evening, but once he goes to sleep, he expects us all to be quiet and gets pissed if we're making noise or watching TV in the living room.
-He bought a lathe, and without asking anybody, placed it in the living room. When told that's not going to fly, he said he already bought it and has nowhere else to put it.
-He totally disrespects me because I don't have a 'real' job and I just sit at home and play poker for money. Of course I make 20x as much as him doing this and I sense jealousy there.
-He just isn't a fun person to hang out with and is somewhat uptight.

My other two rm's know a friend from back home that is transferring up to our school and needs a place to stay. I've met him before and he seemed like a cool guy. They tell me he will be a MUCH better rm. Our lease here ends very soon, but we STUPIDLY all signed for another year.

What should we do? If we move out, we have to pay a cancellation fee and find another place. I don't believe we have the authority to just give him the boot from the apartment. Does anyone know anything about this? We could just break this all to him and tell him none of us want him around anymore. This option would not be fun but is doable. Any other options OOT can think of?

a lathe? wtf does he need a lathe for?

That's what we said. He works at a woodshop and his hobby is carpentry type BS/building guitars. Why the hell he needs a lathe in the middle of our living room I have no idea.

He bought a lathe? A [censored] lathe?

Man, you might be stuck. Unless he wants to leave, or you can make him want to leave, there isn't much you can do.

In any case, if he stays, start keeping closer track of things like apartment supplies, etc. If he doesn't pay, charge him like it's the rent. Same with your booze. If you have to keep it in your room to keep him from mooching, do it.

The cost of what he doesn't pay for apartment stuff, and what he steals vs. whatever your cancellation costs are + the inconvenience of dealing with him may make it worth just paying to get rid of him.

And make him get rid of the lathe. Clogging up a common area with [censored] like that is stupid. Or tell him he has to pay more rent per month, since he's using up most of the common space.

create a gimmick facebook account and send him the url to this post

or

be a man and just tell him the issues and make sure he knows you guys are [censored] serious

Yea, if hes on the lease theres nothing you can do, and even if he isn't youd have to give him some time. Definately bring up all this to him, and ask him why hes a [censored] [censored]. If you're lucky he will get pissed and want to leave himself, a win win situation. I know this will be tough to do, but with all these things its the only way.

he has a legal right to live in your apartment pursuant to the lease.

Talk to him, see if he's receptive. If so, give him a chance to shape up.

If that doesn't work, then pay the cancellation fee and sign a new lease with the other guy included. It's worth it to avoid locking [censored] in your room and dealing with a [censored] roommate for another year.

I think it's awesome that he put a lathe in the middle of your living room. That takes gumption.

You and your 2 other roomates just need to bite the bullet and pay the cancellation fee and move. Of course the guy you want out will stiff you on his share and you'll each have to pay part of that as well, but that is the only way to get rid of him. It sounds like paying that fee and the hassle of moving will be a small price for better domestic arrangements for the next year.

Just don't try to threaten him with the above to get him to change, because he'll just wait until school starts and revert to his old behaviour when the rest of you won't want to carry out the threat.

However, if he tries to talk you into letting him stay you could offer him the alternative of paying him the cancellation fee so as to save the rest of you having to move.

wtf, [censored] no, you confront him and tell him to stop stealing your [censored].

Yeah. Just tell him he sucks and you want him to move out. How many more months until the new lease? Torture him with noise and ridicule and if he refuses to move, break the lease and eat the fee.

NT

You have lived with this guy for 2 years, then signed a lease for another year, and then figured out you don't like him??

Sorry, no pity here. You need to figure it out.

So you've known this guy sucks since your freshman year, currently spent a year living directly in his suckiness, and you let him sign a lease for another year?

You should be grateful your only punishment is the cancellation fee. You've brought everything greater than that on your self.

Here's the thing. He was always annoying and would do some of the things listed above, but he has become MUCH worse over the past few months. You guys are right though. Completely our fault for signing with him again. Also, the guy who needs a place to live has just come into the picture.

I was just going to say that there is some physical property in the universe that makes one roommate be bad and not do his dishes and stuff, but this guy put a lathe in your living room!!!!

If you all leave, he's not likely to be staying anyway, so just tell him that you don't want to live with him and if he doesn't leave you all will.

Can we get a pic of the lathe in the living room?

That's just too funny... do you have wood dust all over the place? Or does he not actually use it in the apt?

After reading every [censored] update of this thread I finally decided to find out what a lathe actually is and I must say that is [censored] funny.

Yea here ya go. Roommate is pictured. TV is behind the shaft.

From past experience, vicious confrontations of inconsiderate douchebag roommates usually do not go well and leave the situation awkward for months to come. And then you can't trust them at all after that.

Most of these dumb [censored] are oblivious and won't even respond well to threats. They find some way to turn it around on you guys. Roommate conflicts are highly strategic situations.

When you do confront him, expect him to try come up with anything that you guys do wrong as an attempt to justify his stupidity, even though he never once asked you guys not to do anything you were doing.

This is summer? Can't you three guys get another place next semester? I know someone who bailed with his friends on one obnoxious roommate. This is the cleanest solution. Don't even tell him that you got a new place without him.


If that's not an option, don't bother talking to the RA, but talk to someone who works for the university fulltime, and find out what the process is. If it ends in him leaving, find out how long the process takes.

If you're convinced anything short of an ass kicking, such as a lame group intervention, won't get him to change, you want this on a path that gets him the [censored] out of there.

Remember the point about him firing back about what you guys do. If you have to go the RA/Reslife route you guys should talk it out amongst yourself and think up what you all do that is annoying that he could complain about. Remember, the university workers/RA do not live with you and he can completely twist things out of proportion. Not doing that annoying stuff or being able to say 'Oh yeh, Roommate X brought that to my attention already so I've been laying off Annoying Thing Here'.

In all seriousness though he doesn't use it in the living room because he'd catch a flying knee kick if the plasma TV was ruined with sawdust and it's not a massive lathe like the ones you see on google. The fact remains that there's a pretty good sized metal machine just taking up space in our small college living room.

I now have tears in my eyes. I haven't laughed that hard in months. TY

Unfortunately, the apartment we're in is not actually university affiliated and we do not have an RA. 95%+ of residents here are college kids though. Looks like we're just going to have to try to talk to him and get him to move out which will most likely end bad. I think it will be worth it in the long run though.

Gotcha. Nice picture though, he picked out a nice lathe and I can see why it might be troublesome for him to sell that.

"Torture him with noise and ..."

The man has a f'ng lathe in the living room. Do you wish to rethink this strategy suggestion?

MS Sunshine