Roommate Hell.....

[SadieBaby]

One thing "Jane" told me was that during the summer, she didn't throw food scraps/waste into the kitchen garbage, but put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, and then threw that bag out on trash day. Which, okay, a little fussy for my liking, but I could live with it.

Is it just me or... is the idea of keeping rubbish in the fridge/freezer a bit... ? I mean, I know it's in a bag, but it's still rotting rubbish right next to your food. Perhaps not in the freezer; maybe the freezing arrests things a bit - but in the fridge as mentioned in later posts?

So I'm not sure how that was any better than leaving it in the bin, in terms of being sanitary; sounds like the roommate had some weird ideas.

No bins here.  We live in the country and put out our trash in plastic bags, near the road, early on Friday mornings.  We have learned through sad experience that having aromatic food scraps in a bag can lead to animals (mostly birds) ripping open the bags and strewing garbage all over the road.  No fun picking that up!  We sometimes put the bags inside a large plastic garbage can but that is no sure deterrent either.  Some animal (we're not sure what) managed to gnaw through the heavy plastic lid and get at the food scraps!  And then we have to drag the empty can up a long steep driveway after pickup.

So we always freeze anything we think might be an issue, or refrigerate it in plastic jugs saved for the purpose.  The only problem is when we forget to take it out on garbage day and it stays in the freezer/fridge an extra week.  But I've never noticed an odor and there's nothing any more disagreeable looking than the occasional overdated items that we find in the fridge/freezer now and then!

[perpetua]

One thing "Jane" told me was that during the summer, she didn't throw food scraps/waste into the kitchen garbage, but put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, and then threw that bag out on trash day. Which, okay, a little fussy for my liking, but I could live with it.

Is it just me or... is the idea of keeping rubbish in the fridge/freezer a bit... ? I mean, I know it's in a bag, but it's still rotting rubbish right next to your food. Perhaps not in the freezer; maybe the freezing arrests things a bit - but in the fridge as mentioned in later posts?

So I'm not sure how that was any better than leaving it in the bin, in terms of being sanitary; sounds like the roommate had some weird ideas.

No bins here.  We live in the country and put out our trash in plastic bags, near the road, early on Friday mornings.  We have learned through sad experience that having aromatic food scraps in a bag can lead to animals (mostly birds) ripping open the bags and strewing garbage all over the road.  No fun picking that up!  We sometimes put the bags inside a large plastic garbage can but that is no sure deterrent either.  Some animal (we're not sure what) managed to gnaw through the heavy plastic lid and get at the food scraps!  And then we have to drag the empty can up a long steep driveway after pickup.

So we always freeze anything we think might be an issue, or refrigerate it in plastic jugs saved for the purpose.  The only problem is when we forget to take it out on garbage day and it stays in the freezer/fridge an extra week.  But I've never noticed an odor and there's nothing any more disagreeable looking than the occasional overdated items that we find in the fridge/freezer now and then!

Yeah, I can totally see how that works - we have urban foxes here and they'll rip open bin bags so you can't leave bags out on the pavement on rubbish day unless they're inside the wheelie bin. But in terms of while it's still in the house - do you not have indoor bins that you put your rubbish in?

123Sandy - thankfully my local council still does weekly pickups, but I've lived in areas where it alternates. Not fun.
Perhaps one for the transatlantic board, I dunno

[norrina]

My first year of law school, I took a bedroom in a 4-bedroom house that had the bedrooms leased out individually by the landlord. When I moved in the house was composed of a 40-something government employee in 2 of the bedrooms, a 50-something nanny in one of the bedrooms, and 31-year-old me in the 4th bedroom. (The nanny and my ages will become relevant.) Aside from a couple occasions where my alcohol was "borrowed" without asking first, we got along pretty well.

Then the government employee moved out, and the landlord set about the fill the 2 bedrooms he had vacated. Since the landlord leased the bedrooms individually, the remaining housemate and I had no say in our replacement housemates. The replacements would turn out to be 2 men (friends) in their very-early-20s. One of the men had an on-again, off-again rel@tionship with his primary source of transportation, and depending on their status the rest of us got to listen to them either fight, or make up, on a regular basis. The other man had recent charges for aggregated assault and drug crimes. My spoons disappeared from the kitchen at an alarming rate.

They brought into the house a stereo system and organ, both of which they would play loudly at all hours (2 a.m. was a favorite time for tunes). Whenever the other housemate or I would ask them to turn the volume down they would argue with us that it wasn't loud and that they didn't have to listen to us, then would talk amongst themselves and their guests about how old and unreasonable we were and how we weren't their mothers.

The house was supposed to be non-smoking, and when we would smell the cigarettes wafting through the house and find them lighting up in the living room, they would inform us that since the front door was open they weren't doing anything wrong. Then more complaining among themselves about not living with their mothers.

The nanny and I ended up moving all of our kitchenware into our bedrooms, as if they were left in the kitchen for communal use they would either be misused, left dirty, or disappear. I couldn't find my Wustof paring knife one day, and after vehemently denying any knowledge of its whereabouts, it showed up in one of the boys' bedrooms, at which time their explanation was that they didn't know what a "paring knife" was so they hadn't realized they had what I was looking for. They were most upset when the $350+ knife set that had lived on the kitchen counter was removed to my locked bedroom (after several more similar instances, mind you) and they had to find their own cutting implements.

By the time the nanny and my leases had expired she was staying with friends, and I was only home to sleep.

[Harriet Jones]

Yeah, I can totally see how that works - we have urban foxes here and they'll rip open bin bags so you can't leave bags out on the pavement on rubbish day unless they're inside the wheelie bin. But in terms of while it's still in the house - do you not have indoor bins that you put your rubbish in?

 

Again, fruit flies.  (Or other insects)

[Outdoor Girl]

Yeah, I can totally see how that works - we have urban foxes here and they'll rip open bin bags so you can't leave bags out on the pavement on rubbish day unless they're inside the wheelie bin. But in terms of while it's still in the house - do you not have indoor bins that you put your rubbish in?

 

Again, fruit flies.  (Or other insects)

And smell!

A friend gave me a couple of bass one weekend.  I cleaned them, wrapped the innards up in newspaper and put it in my green bin for compostables and organic waste in my garage.  Pick up wasn't until Wednesday.  The smell was horrendous.  It was so bad, I wrote a note of apology to my garbagemen and taped it to the lid of the bin.

Now, everything goes in the freezer or the fridge until garbage day in the warmer months.  In the winter, my garage is about the temperature of my fridge so I'll put stuff in the green bin any time.

[Luci]

One thing "Jane" told me was that during the summer, she didn't throw food scraps/waste into the kitchen garbage, but put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, and then threw that bag out on trash day. Which, okay, a little fussy for my liking, but I could live with it.

Is it just me or... is the idea of keeping rubbish in the fridge/freezer a bit... ? I mean, I know it's in a bag, but it's still rotting rubbish right next to your food. Perhaps not in the freezer; maybe the freezing arrests things a bit - but in the fridge as mentioned in later posts?

So I'm not sure how that was any better than leaving it in the bin, in terms of being sanitary; sounds like the roommate had some weird ideas.

So we always freeze anything we think might be an issue, or refrigerate it in plastic jugs saved for the purpose.  The only problem is when we forget to take it out on garbage day and it stays in the freezer/fridge an extra week.  But I've never noticed an odor and there's nothing any more disagreeable looking than the occasional overdated items that we find in the fridge/freezer now and then!

 But in terms of while it's still in the house - do you not have indoor bins that you put your rubbish in?

It is exactly the same stuff that we just took out of the freezer or fridge, just the unedible parts. If it hasn't sat around to rot, it can't hurt anything. How can that be icky? I've been freezing our summer garbage since 1997. We don't get odors or fruit flies like we did when we kept it inside. Outside is not a option - odors still manage to escape and the insects get to it even if the stray cats or foxes don't.

[Harriet Jones]

We also have problems with wasps in our outside garbage.  Clouds of fruit flies are disgusting, but they're not as bad as ill-tempered wasps

[mrs_deb]

It was more the fact that every single thing had to be done her way. That every thing I did was "wrong." Not "different," just "wrong."

I had a roommate right after college like that, too.  Nothing near as extreme, but she specifically used the word "wrong" about things I did, not "different".  I finally gave up and moved out on my own where everything I did was "right".

Funnily enough, a few years later one of our mutual friends shared with me that when I moved out, they all assumed that my "Jane" was in the right and I was the one at fault, but after seeing her go through a number of other roommates that were also "wrong" all the time, they figured maybe "Jane" was the one that was "wrong" :-).

[z_squared82]

Not so much a roommate from hell but definitely a *huh* moment.

I was studying abroad, in England. The entire campus was American students, from maybe five different universities. I did not know my roommate, she went to a different school. I did not see my roommate before I went to bed the first night. When I got up for breakfast the next morning, there were *two* girls in that bed. Huh, I thought, and went down to breakfast.

I don’t think I met my roommate until we had been there three days because she always went to the bar in the basement (yes, we had a bar on campus) at night, and then didn’t go to breakfast.

Turns out, that was her friend who was just really homesick.

I don’t think I spoke more than 20 minutes with my roommate all semester. It’s not that we didn’t get along, it’s just that we were both so busy doing other things.

[Diane AKA Traska]

One thing "Jane" told me was that during the summer, she didn't throw food scraps/waste into the kitchen garbage, but put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, and then threw that bag out on trash day. Which, okay, a little fussy for my liking, but I could live with it.

Is it just me or... is the idea of keeping rubbish in the fridge/freezer a bit... ? I mean, I know it's in a bag, but it's still rotting rubbish right next to your food. Perhaps not in the freezer; maybe the freezing arrests things a bit - but in the fridge as mentioned in later posts?

So I'm not sure how that was any better than leaving it in the bin, in terms of being sanitary; sounds like the roommate had some weird ideas.

No bins here.  We live in the country and put out our trash in plastic bags, near the road, early on Friday mornings.  We have learned through sad experience that having aromatic food scraps in a bag can lead to animals (mostly birds) ripping open the bags and strewing garbage all over the road.  No fun picking that up!  We sometimes put the bags inside a large plastic garbage can but that is no sure deterrent either.  Some animal (we're not sure what) managed to gnaw through the heavy plastic lid and get at the food scraps!  And then we have to drag the empty can up a long steep driveway after pickup.

So we always freeze anything we think might be an issue, or refrigerate it in plastic jugs saved for the purpose.  The only problem is when we forget to take it out on garbage day and it stays in the freezer/fridge an extra week.  But I've never noticed an odor and there's nothing any more disagreeable looking than the occasional overdated items that we find in the fridge/freezer now and then!

In the city here, and it's no better.  We bought two garbage cans, both were stolen within a few months.  I'm not spending $50 per can to see them walk off.  (There are cheaper cans, but the wind distributes them down the street.  These were solid, heavy cans)

[Asharah]

When my Dad came back from fishing trips and finished scaling and gutting the fish, he put the refuse in the garbage can outside and dumped bleach on it.
I think this is getting a little off-topic.

[SadieBaby]

Yeah, I can totally see how that works - we have urban foxes here and they'll rip open bin bags so you can't leave bags out on the pavement on rubbish day unless they're inside the wheelie bin. But in terms of while it's still in the house - do you not have indoor bins that you put your rubbish in?

 

Again, fruit flies.  (Or other insects)

And smell!

A friend gave me a couple of bass one weekend.  I cleaned them, wrapped the innards up in newspaper and put it in my green bin for compostables and organic waste in my garage.  Pick up wasn't until Wednesday.  The smell was horrendous.  It was so bad, I wrote a note of apology to my garbagemen and taped it to the lid of the bin.

Now, everything goes in the freezer or the fridge until garbage day in the warmer months.  In the winter, my garage is about the temperature of my fridge so I'll put stuff in the green bin any time.

Yes!  All of the above!  Our indoor trash cans are for non-smelly trash only.

[Piratelvr1121]

Not roomate so much as neighbor, but my friend lives next door to a house that was divided into apartments.  A couple days...or maybe the day before, (It's been 5 years) before I was coming out to visit she started smelling something quite foul.  Turns out someone had dumped a bunch of raw meat into an open dumpster...in August. 

She got someone to take care of it and I wouldn't have known if she hadn't told me about it but man...that's just nasty.

[hermanne]

Wow, the things I missed by commuting to college!

[siamesecat2965]

Hmm. I forgot about this one, since I had very few roommates, both in college, and when later on. I lived with a friend one summer, at the beach, in her dad's condo. we paid him rent, but well below the going rate, since he wanted us to be safe. It was fun, we lived at the beach, waitressed, and generally had a good time.

She did have some quirks though; mind you, we never really put together a schedule of chores, but each did what needed to be done, and it worked. We worked different shifts too, so we weren't always home at the same time. But it turned out she had some very PA habits. 

And neither one of us, I thought, was a particular stickler about dishes, etc. So I'd sometimes eat breakfast, then rinse and leave my dishes in the sink, to wash or put in the DW later on. And if I happened to see any of hers there, or maybe a cup lying around, I'd either wash them all or put them ALL in the DW. Didn't matter whose they were. She all of a sudden, apparently didn't like that i left dishes in the sink, and while she'd put HERS in the DW or wash them, she'd leave mine. Which was childish and petty since she never actually SAID anything to me.

She was also a bit possessive about her "stuff" we bought our own groceries, but also some together, like milk, eggs, bread, and so on. but certain things, she bought for herself, she made a point to ask me not to eat. Um, you bought them, they're yours, so no i won't. not without asking or being offered. So while she wasn't the roommate from hell, she's someone i definitely would NOT ever live with again.