K The Klepto

I have had several bad roommates over the years, but K definitely took the cake. K was a co-worker who seemed warm and friendly at first, so when she mentioned that she was looking for a roommate, I decided to move in with her.

As these stories go, everything seemed to be going great at first. But it wasn’t long before I started noticing things going missing from my room. At first it was just hair clips and makeup  and then it was clothes. (Never mind that K was about half my size!) After the fifth or sixth thing disappeared, I finally went snooping in her room and found all of my things stuffed under her bed. Like a fool, I said nothing. I just took back my things and started keeping my valuables hidden.

Shortly after I moved in, K broke up with her boyfriend and she started dating a new guy, our boss. I would come downstairs in the morning to Boss sitting in his underwear eating a bowl of cereal. Definitely awkward. Before long, their relationship started to cool, and while they continued to date off and on, K began seeing her ex-boyfriend again, and she took a job at another company.

Things got really weird one day when the boss pulled me aside at work to ask if I’ve heard any updates on how K was doing, and to ask if her mom had made it here from California in time. I had no idea what he was talking about, as I had just seen K a few hours earlier and she seemed fine. Boss then proceeded to berate me for being a terrible roommate. Totally confused, I asked him what on earth he was talking about. Apparently, K had told him that she had to have open heart surgery, and that she was going to be recovering for a while so she wouldn’t be able to see him. That’s when I had to sit Boss down and tell him the truth–K is a pathological liar, and that was her way of breaking things off.

In addition, she lied to her parents about taking classes (which they were paying for). She would try to keep up the charade by leaving and saying she was heading to class, only to come home a few hours later with an armload of new clothes from various stores. (I said she was a liar, not a good one!)

Eventually, I moved in with B, an old college friend and eventually my very BEST roommate. K’s cousin and a friend moved in to my old place with K. Because she was the only one officially on the lease, they would give her their checks for rent and utilities, and she was supposed to be paying the bills. About three months after they moved in, K moved to another state, and it was only a few weeks after that when the utilities were shut off and they received an eviction notice from the landlord. She had been pocketing their money and not paying the bills.

I have no idea what became of K, but I imagine that she is somewhere out there still scamming her way through life.