My Worst RoomMate Ever

Creepy Scrub

I'm a 26 year old female, and about 8 months ago my family was very generous in helping me purchase my first home. It's nothing fancy, but it is a very nice little half-plex (like a duplex, but side by side sharing one wall, instead of up and down) and I'm really happy there. In order to help with the mortgage, I rent out two of my bedrooms. I was lucky that my best friend Justin decided to take one of the bedrooms, but that left us with the prospect of finding a stranger to share our home. We had the usual assortment at first, a young couple (18 and 21) who were nice but really flakey with money (and he had a drug problem) so they had to go. Like I said I needed their rent to pay my mortgage, and I couldn't afford to let them slide by. Then we had a friend of Justin's move in who was also nice, but didn't pay rent either so then he had to go too. But the worst by far (and the subject of this post), was Creepy Carl.

Carl was one of a few interviews I had, and at first I was wary. Justin was at work, so I was doing this one on my own. Carl had told me he was 37 (we are 26 and 25) so I wasn't sure, but decided to let him see the room anyway. When he rang the doorbell, he looked like your typical scummy burnout. He was about 5'5, with a mouth full of rotten teeth and he was proudly wearing a t-shirt that read "Fuck Tha Police" over his baggy-ass jean shorts. The baseball hat on his head was of course turned sideways. I don't know why I didn't turn him away right then, but I let him up to see the room. He told me he had just been kicked out of his mom's house (umm.. at 37? I should hope so) and his baby mama(s) wouldn't let him back there either. But I felt so bad for the guy, and his references surprisingly were really good, I let him sign a month-to-month lease. I would soon come to regret this decision.

Things started out fine, Carl was actually really clean and offered to do all sorts of things around the house. He said "I would be happy to clean this house every day in exchange for half rent", to which I laughed and said thank you, but I really would rather we all pitch in and I continue getting my full rent amount. No argument ensued. Now, I should probably mention that Justin had just started dating someone, a sweet girl named Haley. She was 19, so young, but he was only 25 so it wasn't a huge deal. She didn't really have any friends in town and I really liked her, so most weeks I just let her stay and Justin would pay a little extra on the utilities to make up for her being there. Haley is beautiful, and really nice, so it's no surprise that Carl and her got along really well at first. But every time we had people over to drink, he would not only hit on all the girls in the most blatant and irritating way possible, but he would try to start "play fights" with our male friends. Tiny little Carl got knocked to his ass more than once, but he'd just laugh cause he didn't realise they weren't playing and actually wanted to beat the shit out of him. When he drank, he got so wasted that he was barely coherent. Carl was also a very angry and unstable drunk, which soon turned into him just being angry and unstable in general.

Fast forward six weeks, and Justin ends up breaking things off with Haley. She still really likes him, and he likes having a woman around, so they still hang out and she spends the night quite a bit. I like the girl, she helps out, and it's nice to have a little estrogen in the house, so I have no problem with this. Carl decides that Justin doesn't deserve Haley's affection because he dumped her, and tries desperately and pathetically to get her to start sleeping with him instead. He does this mainly by trying to out shine Justin at every turn. Normal things like taking Haley out to eat when Justin won't, or going out of his way to buy her something. But it also got hilariously weird. Justin is really easy on the eyes, and a born entertainer. We'd all be drinking and singing along to music, and he would sometimes (jokingly) get up and put on a pseudo strip-tease. Carl saw that me and Haley always laughed and encouraged him, so he started to do the same. But while Justin has a ripped, tanned, 25 year old body, and actual moves, Carl would just sidle over to the corner of the room, grab the doorframe, and proceed to dry-hump his pasty, saggy body all over it. He once did this for ten minutes straight while we ignored him and kept our own party going. Anyway. Haley plays the whole "creepy guy twice my age" thing off for a while, but once he corners her in the room and forcefully tries to kiss her, she yells that he is "an old creep the same age as MY DAD, dude! Gross!" Now Carl is pissed, because he can't imagine why a hot 18 year old wouldn't want to date a crusty old ex-meth addict.

He starts getting angrier and angrier. Every day he comes home and sees Haley, he screams at her for some supposed infraction. She said "Hey Carl, do you still have my phone charger?" one day and he screamed in her face "STOP FUCKING HARASSING ME YOU FAT BITCH, FUCK OFF!" So Haley comes crying into my room and I decide I've had enough. I take Carl for a drive and tell him threatening, rude, asshole behaviour is a great way to get kicked out. Now I don't know why, but as badly as he treated everyone else, he never once threw me attitude. I guess as the landlord he figured he should treat me a little better than our poor housemates. He starts crying about how nobody in the house likes him, and I tell him that if he shapes up his attitude we'll like him just fine. The next few weeks alternate between passive-aggressive (sometimes just aggressive) bullshit, and him "apologizing" by coming back after a freakout and giving away all his shitty drawings and comic books to anyone within reach. Literally throwing them at people who could give a shit, and crying when he found them "accidentally" left behind. The day he said he found a new apartment was the best day of our lives. It was literally a wash of calm over the house when we watched his mom pull away with all his shit. I will never forget me, Justin, and Haley sitting in his room watching TV that night, when all of the sudden we just smile at each other and go "Carl is never coming back. He's actually never going to be here again. This is the best day ever."

Greasy fuck. Good riddance. I now have two wonderful roommates who are respectful and decent people, thank god.