During my sophomore and junior years of college, I had the extreme misfortune of living with my three Very Worst Roommates.

R was a spoiled brat. She would always call her mom and yell at her to give her more money, and said many times, “If I can throw money at a problem to make it go away, I’ll totally do it.” If I was going to the store half a block away, she would whine for me to get candy for her. When I couldn’t find it, she’d blame me instead of getting it herself. She required total silence from 9 p.m. onwards, but would be blasting her music at 7 a.m. She was a slob, too, never doing any dishes, and letting piles of them get moldy under her bed. She was extremely fat, and her doctor told her to watch her calorie intake. R took this to mean that every morning for breakfast, she could have a bagel slathered with cream cheese, bacon, more cheese and several eggs. Not exactly Jenny Craig.

C was a self-righteous prima donna. She was constantly dating, and cheating on, new guys and using them for their cars. She was super messy most of the time, except when she went on cleaning kicks for the entire apartment (though not nearly often enough). I’m pretty neat and usually helped out when she did this, except she would scream at all of us for not helping her. She slept with my boyfriend between sophomore and junior years, and apparently all three of MVWRs knew for months and didn’t tell me. C was self-absorbed, and convinced she was the next Janis Joplin, spending hours practicing with her lame reggae band of white kids.

L was the best of the three because she was constantly with her boyfriend and out of the house. But when she was back, her and C were inseparable- gossiping about me and my friends behind my back, and generally being catty and spiteful. Halfway through my junior year, all three of MVWR sat me down and explained to me that they didn’t like me as a person (me!) and asked me to move out when the lease was up. I spent a couple weeks miserable in my room, alone and abusing painkillers, before realizing it was a blessing in disguise. I now live with two wonderful girls, and am dating a much better guy. I just hope I never have to live with anyone like the last MVWR crew again.