Owner’s Outrage
I owned a house while going to university, and a year after graduation, all my sweet roomates had moved out and moved on with life. While looking for new roomates, I got an email from a girl who was looking for a place when she moved to town. I’ve had a few female roomates, and they were generally pretty good.
This girl passed all the initial tests by email and then by phone. Within two days of moving in, she had a job serving at a pretty classy restaurant in town. So initially, this looked pretty good. She was pretty good looking, and really looked hot every night as she went to work at this upscale restaurant.
One day I had to go through her room to get to the storage space. I couldn’t actually see the floor. There were three huge closets in the room (every girl’s dream I thought) and she had not used a single one. Everything she owned was just dumped on the floor. This was a month in, so there was definitely time to clean up. There was also a weird smell. The grossest part of the room was the underwear all over the floor with HUGE brown streaks on all of them. From that moment on, I could never look at her the same way, knowing how much of a pig this hot girl was.
It got worse though. The smell then started. Three months after she’d moved in, I’d decided to rent my house out to a family, instead of the hassle of having a constant stream of students and trying to find new roomates every semester. I’d show the house to potential tenants, who loved the house, until they walked down the stairs. When you started down the stairs, you could smell her room. I don’t know, or even want to try guess at what the smell was. But it got so bad that I eventually went in with a friend’s gasmask and threw out a bunch of stuff. (This was after I opened her door once, and then had to sprint to the nearest bathroom to throw up. I didn’t throw up, but definitely dry-heaved a few times)
I showed about 12 potential tenants through the house, who all said “we’ll call you later,” and of course, never did. Every one of them was completely grossed out by this basement room. I eventually got this girl out of the house, and after renting a carpet cleaner, and then getting professionals into the room, got the carpet relatively clean. (The girl also did laundry on her last day, which I realized was the first time she did laundry, in three months)
The next five showings I had all wanted the house after that, and now it’s rented to an OCD clean freak family, a great tenant to have.
Maybe she was being intentionally messy in an attempt to prevent your obvious ogling. Also nice dig about how having a lot of closet space is “every girl’s dream.” Clearly you have no idea what women actually want as it sounds like you don’t see them as full human beings, just things to be looked at.
@Sarah –
I’m curious as to how the phrase “every girl’s dream” is misogynistic? I want three closets, and I would never be a total pig and live in my own bacteria pool to “prevent ogling”. It’s completely ridiculous.
To Author-
Agreed. Smelly, messy roommates are the worst. Glad you got rid of her!
@Sarah – seeing how this girl couldn’t be bothered to keep a clean living space, it’s safe to assume she hasn’t the capacity for rational thought or deductive reasoning. It’s doubtful she was trying to strike back at the OP.
Is he not allowed to appreciate that she’s hot just because she’s his flatmate?
The closet comment was based on the fact that she couldnt’ be bothered to hang her clothes up and preferred to leave them all over the floor. Maybe the “every girl’s dream” bit was a bit of a presumption, but to say that he has no idea what women want, based on that comment, is completely ridiculous.
Being “intentionally messy” in her bedroom enough to create a stench … yeah, way to show him!
Full human beings don’t leave skidmarks in their underwear.
Anyone remember that “Friends” ep where Ross dates this very attractive woman only to find out she was a total slob? That’s what this story reminded me of…
Sorry, yes she’s a pig, but you own the house, as the landlord you have no right to enter her living space without 48 hours notice, nor do you have the right to just go in there and dispose of her things.
Let me guess… you hit on her and she said “no”, right?
hahaha@ Sarah.
I don’t know how people can throw clothing on the floor, walk on it, then wear it. I love my clothing so much, she must really love her filth…
I’m trying to figure out how the landlord was able to go through a tenant’s bedroom without her consent.
He never said whether he did have consent or not. All a person here in the state of tron has to do is give notice (24 hrs here), there is no consent required.
Without getting into too much legalese, she simply has fewer of the standard tenants rights when the owner actually lives there. I could write a really long explanation, or I could just say that when two people have possessory rights of a piece of property, courts will find that they have FULL possessory rights, meaning the right to possess the whole (including the right to enter any part of the property). No court wants to mess with drawing lines based on whose discrete part of the property is whose when it comes to determining possessory rights; this messes too much with what lawyers call the “bundle of sticks” of property rights. Taking away possession entirely, but retaining ownership, just takes away one stick from the bundle. Taking away only partial possessory rights takes away a part of a stick, and you can’t take only part of a stick. You have to take the whole stick, or leave it alone.
As for throwing out her stuff, no, he didn’t have a right to do that. That has no relation to landlord/tenant law, it’s a tort of conversion.
Meh….as far as the “hotness” comment goes I just got the impression he was saying it didn’t hurt to have an attractive woman around. It’s not like he was like “she had the juiciest tits.”
I was kind of wondering as well about privacy issues, like maybe she left her stained underwear around because she didn’t expect anyone to just be inviting themselves into her room, but considering how the rest of the story went, I think it’s clear she was in fact a pig.
I also think he mentioned that she looked hot when she went to work to contrast who she really was. She somehow manages to pull it all together and look great to the people whose tables she is waiting but the reality is that she was wearing skid-marked underpants and just rolled out of a filthy filthy room.
Girls don’t leave skidmarks, because girls don’t poop.
I’m a boy & would love 3 closets. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Which you didn’t.
I’ve always had a saying: Skip the shower or the laundry but *never* both. Hear that, roommates? Also, there’s a difference between ‘In 5 minutes I could throw these clothes in a hamper and have the room looking normal’ kind of mess and the stench producing sort of stench.
If only hotness were an indicator of anything except hotness, oh, what a wonderful world it would be.
that is kind of what I was thinking…..maybe she was bringing the bf over and he was the stinker? and she got home late from work, blah….
Also how do you own a house in college? doesn’t that require a mortgage and stuff?
I also remembered that Friends episode….i guess it’s normal to assume that a very attractive woman will be neat and tidy because they look so well put together. But the flipside can be that they are also very spoiled because they are so used to having everyone do everything for them without even asking! They take out a cigarette and there’s ten guys with a lighter; they never have to open a door…etc. I’m exaggerating but that is something I’ve observed. So why pick up after yourself? someone else will be there to do it!
I’m not sure i’d want an obsessive OCD clean freak either but at least in that case, you don’t puke from the smell and it’s sanitary.
When your a roommate with someone you have fewer privacy rights than if you full out lease an address to yourself. My boyfriend and I leased an apartment and the property owners could still come into our space without consent provided there was some notice. Those sorts of regulations vary widely from state to state but its pretty safe to say that as a roommate in the owner’s house your rights will be more limited as a tenant and if theres no official lease than you basically have no rights to privacy other than personal respect for each other and what your granted by other exsisting laws that cover everyone already.
I don’t get how the stench part went on for months. If you own the property is there nothing you can do about that.
Also, if the smell was so bad you couldn’t even walk in the room why on earth were you showing the house? If you found someone willing to rent a property with that problem I’d be very worried about what state they would have the house in after a few months.
@Andrew My guess is that the brown streaks weren’t from poop, but stains from menstrual blood. Either way, blergh.
Seriously nasty sounding person, but I don’t entirely think it was appropriate for the OP to just go through her things and throw stuff out, whether legal or not to enter the room. What was it you were throwing out? Moldy food?