The semester began 4 weeks ago and received a new roommate out of the blue (my school didn’t alert me until check in day).
This roommate seems cool so in comparison to my old roommate but I need some advice on some stuff.
My roommate had a boyfriend that doesn't live on campus so she leaves on weekends to spend time with him. During the week they talk everyday (naturally) but they talk when she wakes up at 7am. (She has 8am classes everyday). Now whenever she talks to him in the mornings, she puts him on speaker while I'm trying to sleep (I'm a light sleeper) and I have classes that are later in the day so I don't want to wake up that early.Then she process to play videos out loud while she's getting ready.
I've spoken to her about this the first day when we made a verbal roommate agreement and I spoke to her last week about it but she did it again this morning. This is similar to what happened with my last roommate where she would talk to her friends while I'm trying to sleep. I even explained to my current roommate what happened with my old roommate.
She also plays videos randomly out loud whenever I'm sleeping at night also.
I'm hardly in the room during the daytime and she doesn't have classes after she's done with her 8am so she stays in the room all day.
What would you do?
I would talk to her again. Is there a common room where she can talk to her BF early or watch videos late? If nothing changes and you find the situation intolerable, then you may need to involve the RA.
I would say matter of factly “can you please talk on your phone after you leave our room? You did agree to that. It’s not fair to me that I have to listen to your vidoes and conversations at 7 am.” If it happens one more time, you need to talk to,the RA.
@project21 she has a pair of headphones that she just doesn’t want to use. I’m not confrontational it’s very hard but I don’t think passive-aggressive would work with her honestly
7AM is an unreasonably early time to disturb for her to disturb you. I hope you can convince her to chance her habit or else it might be worth it to talk to a RA.
Retaliate. Find when she needs sleep and then watch a movie without headphones for her as well. If she’s confrontational then she will talk to you about, it then you can mutually agree to use headphones.
@HRSMom its not necessarily a new routine for her. She’s had roommates before at her old school(all girls college). I’m planning on talking to her again tonight it’s just that with my old roommate I had to speak to her 3 times and the last time she stopped talking to me.
@project21 I’ve thought about that but it won’t work. It’ll make things worse. Her and I have had something similar where I retaliated and it didn’t work out (I had my music on out loud and instead of telling me to turn mine down, she turned hers up with her speaker to the maximum level and I did the same and well it was something)
Don’t retaliate. That’s petty and juvenile, and it doesn’t solve any problems - just escalates them, as you mentioned.
First I would try talking to her again, as has been suggested, making sure you are being polite but firm and straightforward. “Julia, you often talk to your friends really early in the morning - 7 am - when I am still sleeping, and you play videos at night when I’m sleeping as well. I get that you want to talk to your friends, but you can’t do it in here while I’m sleeping. Could you use the common area if you are going to talk on the phone or listen to videos before 8:30 in the morning or after 11:30 at night?” or whatever sounds reasonable as a time. See if she agrees.
If she doesn’t agree, or if she does and then doesn’t adhere to it, then you can get an RA involved.
It seems you’re not confrontational, so go the passive-aggressive route.