I have a suitemate who I have lived with since last year who is, needless to say, very particular. She is a senior nursing major and I am in my 4th year of pharmacy school at a 0-6 program so we both have very demanding majors. Last year, I didn’t have any issues personally with her, however she can be passive aggressive and rude at times and acted that way to some of my other suitemates.
However, this year, she has become increasingly sensitive to noises in a way that wasn’t the case last year. She seems to be particularly annoyed towards phone calls. I call my parents once every week, sometimes twice if I am in a bad mood, and my grandparents every other week, on the same day as my parents. I never call early in the morning or late at night, in fact they are usually in the afternoon, and they aren’t long. One day in October, she complained to me, crying, stating that she could hear every word of my conversation and it was very uncomfortable, and she was trying to take a nap (this was around 4:30 pm). Our walls are very thin, so sounds can easily travel, even if they are quiet, and I have a particular timbre to my voice that makes my voice seem loud regardless of volume. Because of this, I am extremely conscientious of my voice volume when on the phone. After this complaint, I told her I would try to keep my voice down and moved on. However, later in the semester, I received two noise complaints/RA visits, one being preceded by obnoxious banging at the wall and pounding from her room. I am friends with some of the Res Life staff so I was not written up for either complaint, but I know she was the one that tried to rat me out because she happened to be in her room when the complaints took place.
Before her, I had never received a complaint about my phone calls (in my 3.5 years at school), and I had lived in dorms with thinner walls than this one. The boys next door to me on the other side of my wall are about 3x as loud as I would be on any given day and host people about 4 times a week and can be very loud, but it does not bother me enough to complain because I realize this is a dorm and I can sleep fine with noise. I can also hear my suitemate and her roommate’s conversations from the other side. The other roommates say I’m pretty quiet so it’s only her. The only thing that helps is if I make the phone calls when she is not in the room, however I don’t know her schedule. I would make my calls in the (closed door) lounge, but my roommate studies in there and she needs to be completely alone in there to study so I feel I would be disturbing her if I called in there. I also like being alone when I make calls. My roommate will be moving out at the end of the semester (I’m gonna be in a single room due to lack of upperclassmen move-ins/transfers), so she won’t be hogging the lounge anymore, however in the case that I can’t go to the lounge, what can I do? I’m too nervous to talk to her because she is extremely defensive and moody, and if I hit her at the wrong time, I’m screwed. She is pretty resistant to changes.
Besides the phone calls, she will get antsy if I don’t remove my hair from the shower basically seconds after I get out of the shower (and texted me to remove my hair when my clear intent was to come back in to do so and blow dry my hair). She does not contribute to cleaning the bathroom, in fact I am the only one that cleans despite me posting a cleaning schedule. She’s a light sleeper and wakes up at every little thing- a friend who graduated last year visited for homecoming weekend and yelled at her for typing before midnight on a Friday night, and basically forced her roommate and the friend to sleep in the study lounge, though weirdly enough they had the windows open and the wind blows enough that the doors frequently shake and slam and she apparently slept through that.
How can I get through this next semester without basically resenting her? She graduates at the end of the year (while I have 2 more years to go) so I will not be living with her next year.
Can you call in the bathroom, or while walking around campus? I know a lot of people who do that. I know you said you like to be alone, but if you’re just walking down the sidewalk, no one will be able to listen.
However, I think that any roommate who expects you to not call your own parents & grandparents must be insane. So, you’re not wrong there.
I live in a dorm with the thinnest walls ever, and while it’s super annoying, it’s just what happens. Do you have set quiet hours in your dorm? For us, unless the noise is completely excessive, you basically don’t have a “right” to total silence until after 10 pm. I’d talk to your RAs about the issue to make sure you don’t get any more visits for noise complaints.
She might just be really stressed with school, which could be why it’s suddenly starting this year & escalating throughout the semester. Could you buy her some noise-cancelling headphones/earplugs? Chip in with your other roommates maybe? I know she might take it the wrong way, but you could potentially put it with some other “comforting” things like snacks and fuzzy socks & pass it off as a spa-day holiday gift or something.
Tell her to ask Santa to bring her some noise cancelling headphones and tell her to chill out a bit.
Wow. It sounds as if this young woman has had enough of group living. I get it. It can be rough especially when you add in the stress of demanding majors!
She really needs to chill but you can’t control her. Keep on doing the best you can and remember spring semester will go quickly. Hopefully you will both be friends, or at least friendly by the end of this.
My D doesn’t ever make calls from her room if the roommate is around. She typically calls between classes on campus or will FT from a music practice room.
Suggest she get ear plugs and also use a White Noise app on her phone.
Ask her when is a good time for you to call.
Try to take some calls at other places if that works.
I’m sorry you’re having this issue. I have a DD who was in basically the same situation. DD pretty much tried to lay low and avoid confrontation till it was over. Basically it had to look and sound like no one lived there in order to avoid a “roommate meeting” being called. I would just try to put as much distance/closed doors between you and her during calls as you can, be as tidy as you can, as friendly and nice as you can, hope for the best and shrug off her complaints.
I like Bopper’s suggestions.