Roommate Horror Stories: My Roommate Turned Our Minimalist Apartment to an Antique Store

When I first met Casey during our virtual roommate interview, she described herself as a minimalist. Clean, organized, not too many things. That was exactly what I wanted. I had lived with people who hoarded dishes, dirty laundry, and useless furniture. I was ready for peace. Calm. Space.

She seemed perfect. Soft-spoken, she said she worked full-time at a quiet bookstore and even mentioned how much she hated clutter. I imagined shared quiet mornings, a fridge with actual space in it, and a living room that didn't look like a garage sale.

Move-in day came, and I woke up early, excited to help her settle in. But when the moving truck pulled up, my heart dropped. First came five massive plastic bins. Then a bookshelf. Then another. Then bags of clothes. More bins. A keyboard. A cat tower. She doesn’t even have a cat.

By the time her “stuff” was fully inside, our shared living room looked like a thrift store exploded. She claimed she just needed a day or two to “sort things out” and that most of it would be in her room. I waited. Nothing moved.

Instead, the boxes sat there. I tried to be patient. I asked politely after two weeks if she had plans to clear up the space. She laughed and said, “This is cleared. You should have seen my last place.” That explained why she moved.

It got worse. She started bringing more things in. From where, I don’t know. I think she went to thrift stores during her lunch breaks. The kitchen counters were overtaken by weird gadgets like an antique toaster that didn’t work, an egg separator shaped like a pig, and a collection of chipped mugs with slogans like “Live, Laugh, Latte.”

Every surface became a shelf. I found her hairbrush on top of the microwave. A ceramic frog sat on my cutting board. I moved it, and the next day it was back with another frog next to it. They multiplied.

I snapped when I came home one day and found my laundry basket missing. It had been “borrowed” to organize her vinyl collection. I tried talking to her. Calmly. I even suggested we each keep our belongings in our rooms and leave shared areas clear. She nodded. Agreed. Then did absolutely nothing.

The final straw was the night I stepped on a cactus on the way to the bathroom. She had bought tiny potted plants and left them in the hallway for “decor.” In the dark, I didn’t see them. I screamed. She apologized but only moved the cactus a few inches to the left.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. She had travelled to see her aunt and wasn't going to be back till days later, which was more than enough to hatch my plan. I hired some guys to box her stuff, neatly arranging them in her room. You could have seen the look on her face when she got back. I gave her two options: move out or leave the boxes in your room. This time, she listened and moved out the next week, probably out of fear of what else I could do.