Having trouble with roommates. Need urgent help. :[

Student Lounge College Life
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<h2>Is it illegal, or is it not illegal? ~ Baelor</h2>

<p>The person would be completely justified to use reasonable force in that situation, legally. They are drunk/stoned, puking on your couch, then trying to force you to clean it. No cop would charge you with assault if you just threw him out the door or something similiar, especially when you are in your own dwelling.</p>

<p>We?" Who is “we?” Incompetent law enforcement officials? Brutes? Who? ~ Baelor</p>

<p>Men. The kind who don’t sleep with stuffed animals and soil themselves at the mere idea of confrontation.</p>

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<p>Just request for a room change. You shouldn’t have to deal with a bathroom that smells like pot.</p>

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<p>False. The roommate told the OP to clean it. There was no physical action on the part of the roommate, at least in the post.</p>

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<p>I was referring to roughing him up. And you made it very clear earlier that it was also the roommate’s dwelling. Has that changed when convenient?</p>

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<p>That’s not the definition of a man.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure physical confrontations solve EVERY problem, but don’t let them make you their *****. Not saying you do, but the hell I’d be cleaning up somebody’s puke who wasn’t my best friend.</p>

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<p>RedMango- Hey man, I saw your reply to my post, and I think I re-evaluated my stance when you said your roommates told you to clean up the table when your roommate’s friend threw up on the table. Quite honestly if I was in your situation, I would never let anyone treat me like that, and you need to put some sense into your roommates’ heads. I mean if they’re partying on the weekend, let them be, but if they’re pulling you into the hot mess, then that’s their volition and that’s their fault. </p>

<p>Just make then stop treating you like that. Whatever you need to build self confidence to do that; go do it.</p>

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<p>Again, the OP is outnumbered in this situation. </p>

<p>OP, put in the request for a room transfer.</p>

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<p>I think I’ll share my story with the OP as a cautionary tale. Some background is I lived in an Apartment with 2 other guys and by April it was just me, a senior finishing up undergrad, and the other two guys, both sophomores, left. Being my last semester of undergrad and in a fairly difficult major I was generally either in class or working on my projects and often I would leave at 8 am and get back at 7 pm if I was lucky.</p>

<p>Well apparently during all the time I was out that semester they were smoking marijuana in the bathroom and drinking alcohol (they were both underage and our campus is dry in theory). Well I got back at around 8:30 or so as usual and not 15 minutes later 10+ RAs, 2 Assistant Hall Directors, and the Hall Director burst into our apartment and rip the place apart saying they had gotten a tip that illegal drugs were in the apartment and claiming they smelled smoke. Later when I read the incident report they claimed it was “smoke filled” (which was utter BS, more on that later).</p>

<p>Both guys fessed up, said the drugs belonged to them, they searched my stuff and obviously didn’t find anything. I should be in the clear right? Well yeah, it took a couple of days but housing finally figured it out. Well going back to that incident report, everything goes forwarded up to the student affairs office at our school. Less than a week later (and two weeks away from graduation) they charged all 3 of us with possessing drugs. Housing apparently had gotten a tip from someone ****ed at my roommates and had to contrive the smoke to get enough to conduct a search. Apparently they were tipped off it was a lot of marijuana and they were hell bent on not letting them get away.</p>

<p>My two roommates plead guilty and were given a slap on the wrist (some dumb 1 hr drug class and disciplinary probation for a few semesters) while I was left to spend my last weeks of undergrad suffering not only under several impending academic deadlines, but having to convince these boneheads I wasn’t involved. Housing didn’t want to admit they had lied on the report and it is virtually impossible to prove that smoke didn’t exist, especially given that they had found drugs in my roommates belongings and a bong. Even after housing told student affairs it was obvious I wasn’t involved they continued to try and prosecute me (apparently they were feeling bad about putting me in this position so they decided to “clarify” their original report).</p>

<p>Housing eventually found an administrative loophole which forced student affairs to drop the charges and turn me over to housing for my “punishment” (which as you can expect consisted of nothing and left zero paper trail whatsoever). Student affairs of course were trying to use the catch all rule that most schools have where if someone in your apartment violates a rule you are all responsible (despite the fact that it’s clearly intended for party situations where people try to pass the buck and when they entered my apartment myself and one roommate were the only people there and obviously nothing of the sort was occurring). That was their justification for continuing to try and pursue me over the objections of housing.</p>

<p>I think there are several important points to be made:</p>

<p>1) Even though you aren’t involved it can be VERY difficult to prove. I’ve seen other posters claim they can’t enter your room LEGALLY just based on this or that. That’s true, but it’s VERY easy for them to do things like invent smoke which they know will be virtually impossible for you to disprove. If they hadn’t found anything they would’ve simply just claimed we had flushed it or something. I was lucky my roommates owned up and went through great lengths to exonerate me, you can’t necessarily count on yours doing that. Some people will say well there wasn’t enough evidence to convict me in a hearing and so forth and that’s probably true but this stuff takes a long time and a lot of work to do which can be horrible if you are already neck deep in school work. My school has an “innocent until proven guilty” policy by the way, I can tell you that a lot of the stuff they put on paper falls apart at student affairs and you will have to actively prove your innocence. My school has some fairly good looking protections, but even their standard for a conviction is the ridiculously low “more likely than not you did it”.</p>

<p>2) Even though you aren’t involved, the consequences to you can be just as bad or worse than what they face. My roommates got a slap on the wrist, I will forever have a shadow over my last month of undergrad having to put so much time into dealing with all of this and the stress that came along with it. A lot of the jobs I’m interested in require your disclosing of disciplinary records and this could’ve resulted in me being passed over for a job were an equally qualified candidate competing with me. Ultimately you may be able to fight your way out of it, get them for all the injustices, illegal actions, etc, but it takes a lot of time which is something most people don’t have an abundance of. Had this escalated much further I would’ve had to pay $$$ for a lawyer.</p>

<p>3) They are being disrespectful to you by putting you in this situation. It only takes one guy getting ****ed at them to start the wheels in motion for a search of your room (legal or not). Just because they take steps to not get found out doesn’t mean you are safe. If they want to do marijuana then fine, they can do it off campus. Surely they know ONE person off campus they can go smoke with. Or go to a frat party or something. As concerned with your education as you seem I’d be leery about them doing something which can end up on your record and potentially end up hurting the value of your degree.</p>

<p>I know that was long winded but hopefully that will help you. I’m not necessarily saying snitch on them, pack up your bags and leave immediately, etc. I’m just warning you that a lot of the arguments about how you need to “man up” make a lot of assumptions which can lead to some very undesirable consequences should they not pan out and that you should take this seriously. Knowing it’s a “stupid law” won’t be of much comfort should you guys get found out. I hope you find this useful and get your situation worked out.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the information.</p>

<p>Oh, and just to clarify, my roommate didn’t FORCE me to clean it up, he pleaded me simply because I was the only one who didn’t drink/smoke. They eventually cleaned the area though, but don’t know who did what exactly cause I was already sleeping by the time.
I guess it’s going a little better now. They just said we needed to meet up and set some ground rules. They’re cool with me switching dorms so I’m just going to do that.</p>

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<p>It’s cool that everything between you and your roommates are good. </p>

<p>Good luck with the dorm switch and I hope all goes well for you.</p>

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<p>Congratulations on getting the situation resolved, OP.</p>

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<p>You handled the situation with maturity. A room/dorm change is probably the best option.</p>

<p>If you feel like checking back to this thread in the future, let us know how the room/dorm change works out. Good luck to you and I hope your new housing situation is a better fit.</p>

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<p>"I guess it’s going a little better now. They just said we needed to meet up and set some ground rules. They’re cool with me switching dorms so I’m just going to do that. "</p>

<p>Sounds like a good idea. It’s unlikely you’ll end up with less compatible roommates than you have now. Let us know how things work out.</p>

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<p>I agree that people smoking weed in your bathroom and making the bathroom smell like weed can be very annoying. when at CC, someone on the floor below me did this and i could tell when they smoked weed bc it would seep up into our bathroom. idk probably better off to not take action tho. you dont want roomies that hate you. You could tell an RA and they would get in pretty big trouble but if they didnt get kicked out, you would be f’ed. Also idk why not go out and socialize with people and play beer pong. you sound introverted kinda in a bad way. I mean unless they make noise when you study, whats the big deal. Also study hard, party harder is totally fine if you know how to balance what comes first. I mean obviously a lot of people in college are idiots that don’t care about their grades but you do so that should be all that matters.</p>

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<p>@Concorde</p>

<p>I don’t know how hard it would be very hard to disprove that there was a smoke filled room. The only smoke filled rooms I’ve ever seen in my life are when there are a ton of people smoking cigarettes or cigars in the same room. </p>

<p>Even a hookah won’t cause a smoke filled room. The smoke probably dissipates after like 20 seconds from a hookah, and that is tobacco which is continuously boiling for an hour or so session. The amount of marijuana being smoked out of any common smoking device is going to be so little that the smoke will dissipate pretty fast. </p>

<p>For the RA’s to see a smoke filled room, your roommates would have either had to be burning a ton of marijuana or the drug paraphernalia would still be in clear sight…as smoke just doesn’t stick around all too long.</p>

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<p>Good to hear that you found a solution. Hopefully you’ll have better roommates.</p>

<p>Don’t be afraid in the future to go to your RAs though, their there for a reason :D</p>

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<p>(NOTE: I’m not picking on you, Concorde. You just brought up something that a lot in this thread are ignoring. This snippet is perfect to address an issue I’m seeing with information in this thread)</p>

<p>Actually, since the OP lives in the Towers at SFSU, their housing contract does allow entry without the student present if there is perceived good reason to. This includes anything from as innocuous as needing to turn off a really loud TV or alarm (often this is preceded by several failed attempts to have someone answer the door) to any kind of suspected violation of campus or housing rules. Warning does not have to be given regarding a future entry.</p>

<p>I quoted all of the relevant parts of the SFSU housing contract in a previous post in this thread.</p>

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<p>Vand…I have read several of your posts lately and I hope you will consider speaking to someone about your hostility. I do not want to cause you any pain but your posts sound increasing angry and inappropriate socially. It is not wise for most college students living on campus to take the advice you suggest because it would hinder their experience on campus. Again please forgive me if I am hurting your feelings but I really hope you can see that your posts are not helping those students who live on campus.</p>

<p>OP…Smoking pot in your room is a serious and typically freshman act. It is dangerous to your own college career and to your possible scholarships or financial aid. There is nothing wrong with asking your roommates to smoke elsewhere and not to leave vaporizes, bongs, paper and obviously drugs in the open. This is your own personal well being and reputation that you need to protect. Most students who do smoke pot have the sense not to do so in their rooms.</p>

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<p>When will you people realize to let Vanguard just say what he pleases and let it go. By responding to his posts you just feed him to continue his antics, but if you ignore him he will slowly go away or at the very worst provide a minor nuisance.</p>

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<p>I agree with viciouspoultry.</p>

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<p>I would rather live in my car than live with a bunch of ****-stains like the OP’s roomates.</p>