Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Moving out of your parents’ house and living with strangers (or friends) can be a tale of two halves. If you’re lucky, you might end up with the perfect housemate who’s responsible, pays rent on time, maintains a clean space, and occasionally offers you home-cooked food. On the other hand, you might also end up with a slap across your face while you’re preparing food at 5AM for a hiking trip.
IRL asked Malaysians to share their disastrous stories while living with their housemates!
1. The vomiter
“This happened to me in my first year of college. I shared a room with another girl who was a total party animal. Let’s call her Jenny. Many times she returned drunk and threw up on the toilet floor, and guess who’s always the one left to clean up after her. The routine was the same: she’d make a mess, fall asleep right after, wake up the next morning and apologise to me telling me how grateful she is for me, and then repeat everything all over again the next weekend.
The worst incident was perhaps the night after our final exam. Jenny got wasted, tried to get into my bed when I was sleeping in it, and proceeded to vomit on my bed and all over me before passing out in the puddle. So there I was, covered in puke that wasn’t even mine. Jenny never apologised for it, and I moved out within the next week.”
2. The all-in-one sponge
“I rented a room when I was in college back in 2018, I lived with a housemate and he was an amazing person. In the 2 years that we lived together, he’d always offer to clean the house, cook for us, and even take out the trash even when it wasn’t his turn to do so. Everything was perfectly fine until I saw him using our kitchen sponge to scrub the toilet.
Naturally, I asked him why he used the kitchen sponge to clean the toilet. His response? ‘I thought we used this sponge to clean everything.’ My blood ran cold when I realised he had used the kitchen sponge to scrub every surface at home for the past year. God knows what he uses to shower???
Eventually, I had to sit him down and actually teach him the difference, apparently that was how his family did it! And thankfully he has since stopped using one sponge for everything ever since; I still get shivers whenever I think back about the situation!”
3. I don’t think those belong there..
“My boyfriend used to live in a tiny studio that had one room and a common living room. He had a friend that lived in the ‘extra’ room, which was just the living room that they’d converted into a bedroom. Technically she wasn’t supposed to be there, and it was just a unit for one person, my boyfriend was just doing her a favour. So whenever the owner decided to have an inspection, they’d revert the room back to a living room.
Anyway, she had this unkempt boyfriend and it started becoming super gross: the plates and glasses he used were left there for ages. She went to stay with him in another place for a couple weeks, and there was an inspection, so her housemate (aka my boyfriend) had to clean her room…. and found all these used condoms and tampons, just thrown behind the door.
We didn’t know how to feel about that, it was pretty gross to say the least. When we confronted them about it, all they did was laugh it off as if they didn’t nearly f**k up the inspection. I mean, she was already staying there for free, the least she could do was get rid of her trash properly..”
4. I know water is cheap la, but come on la bro!
“I used to live with a guy who would leave his washing in the machine for like an entire, hot day, then remove it and let it sit in a washing basket until it dried, stinking up the entire kitchen. I guess he was just too lazy to deal with clean clothes like any normal person would.
Then, because obviously, it smelled like sh*t by the time he went to wear something from there, he would wash it AGAIN. This was his routine cycle, and of course, it racked up our water bill. This happened too many times to count.
I didn’t know what to say to him, and I’m not one to be too confrontational about things that bother me. So every time I came home to my house smelling like damped clothes, I sort of just compartmentalised it and tried to ignore it.
I only eventually moved out after a year or so when my patience completely ran thin, and when my wallet decided that it was time for a normal-smelling place. ”
5. Filthy is an understatement
“He literally never cleaned. Ever. My room and bathroom were the only clean spaces. Once he ate satay and left the sticks on the side table in the living room. I counted how long it took for him to remove them. Almost two weeks.
On the rare occasion he cleaned, he managed to bring my vacuum into it. He claimed that it was broken and no longer worked, but when I moved out, the vacuum worked perfectly. I think his floors were beyond what my vacuum could work with, or in other words, an excuse for his filthy floor.
We were good friends before I moved in. Now we’re not, and it’s not because of the filthiness of his house, but because of his attitude. He always had to be right and he acted like an expert on everything. And the worst part? He never grew or changed as a person since we first met, over 10 years ago.
I wish him the best, but I need to grow.”
6. The mystery pee
“In one house I lived in we had a back toilet that didn’t work, and we were all pigs, so we would just use it to store rubbish like old pizza boxes, cardboard boxes, foam packing from IKEA etc., real absorbent stuff.
Then one night we threw a party and some guy must have had one too many and found the door to the toilet. He didn’t bother to do any further investigating before he peed in the direction of where he assumed the toilet was. We didn’t find out until the smell of 6 months’ worth of piss-soaked pizza boxes was too much to bear and we had to go searching for it.
Until today we had no idea who did it, it could’ve been anyone from any party.”
The next time you think of moving in with a buddy, make sure you do your procedural background checks to avoid having disgusting satay sticks laying all over your apartment – even your best friend can surprise you sometimes.
For more stories like this, read: Looking To Move Out From Your Family Home? Malaysians Share Tips And What You Need To Know
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