^^^
(actually I have strong reactions to smells also but the prior post sounded just like a commercial where the slob was “nose blind.”)
“I don’t think people realize when they or their stuff starts to smell.”
They may not smell it themselves, but there are considerate smelly people who know what they need to do to avoid offending.
Some people smell WAY more than others. Some people’s sheets would smell after 3 days, and another person’s wouldn’t smell that way for months.
Since we are talking sheets, I figured I’d admit that I threw my son’s sheets out after at least one year of college. At home, he changed and washed them most weeks. At school, not so much.
His roommate was pretty easy going, but much neater than my son. It must not have bothered him too much, bc they roomed together multiple years.
Is it possible this person is OCD or something?
What, those classes just all of sudden appear on their schedule, “Oh, I didn’t know I had Physics this morning.”
I’m pretty sure it was here on CC that someone talked about their S never washing his sheets for the entire first semester. I’m sure that person and 1214mom can’t be the only ones.
In the 90s, I read a book about simplifying ones life and one mom wrote her son didn’t wash his sheet for a whole month, while she was worrying about washing it every week.
I have a son. It would surprise me if he washed his sheets more than 3 or 4 times a semester and that could be a stretch.
Neither of my kids are OCD. Both change sheets weekly. Both clean their apartments weekly. Both cleaned their dorm rooms weekly. DS had a vacuum.
They are a lot tidier than I am sometimes. DD says it simplifies her life to have things orderly.
I joked with DS that if he doesn’t wash his sheets all semester he can gift wrap them and give them to the dog for Christmas because she likes stinky, sweaty, boy-smell. As I was telling him where his extra bottom sheet was as we were unpacking I repeated the joke about the dog. His roommate got a good laugh as well.
I had a summer apartment one year at college with a roommate like this . . . almost OCD about cleaning and wanted everyone on the same page. I just went along with her. That being said it was only a summer semester.
I had a college roommate who had to keep all toiletries and products lined up exactly so that the labels were facing straight forward, not a degree to the left or right, straight forward at all times. The bottles and products had to be placed equi-distant from each other, like all exactly 1.75 inches apart, not the shampoo 1.75 inches from the conditioner and then the conditioner 1.25 inches from the body wash!! Otherwise surely chaos and anarchy would ensue!
I will say she never tried to dictate how often I had to wash my sheets though…
Sounds like a potential Odd Couple remake. Both girls will have to compromise a little.
My D is messy. She does, at least, make her bed (in the sense of pulling up the comforter) and she is fairly meticulous about laundry.
I do think that roommates have the right to not have stuff on the floor, crumbs, litter, or dirty dishes. If there is a sink in the room it should be kept clean of hair and toothpaste gobs.
"had a college roommate who had to keep all toiletries and products lined up exactly so that the labels were facing straight forward, not a degree to the left or right, straight forward at all times. The bottles and products had to be placed equi-distant from each other, like all exactly 1.75 inches apart, "
That’s real OCD and it’s ridiculous on the basis of the info we have to suggest that the OP roommate has anything like this because she likes a neat bed.
It also occurs to me that you’ve got to be pretty darn sloppy for it to take only 3 days til your roommate “needs” to talk to you about it.
Disposable sheets! Maybe find a “deal” at $9.99 a set, buy 10 and that will do for a few months!
Ok, the “facing forward” thing cannot be aroommate’s problem! You are just asking for your RM to mess with them!
I’m not sure what my S is going to do. I hope the lesson of cleaning stays. But who knows? His mom is kind of a “nutty professor”, the wheels come off when domestic stuff is in the mix. My partner does all that. I am a genius at work. Dumb as a stone when I walk in my own front door. We’ll see!
My daughter was the one who would clean the real dirt in her suite. She can’t stand a dirty toilet or cruddy shower. But you could tell her side of the room in a quick glance. D’s floor was covered with clothing–and her roommates was perfectly arranged with the bed made.
However, her roommate and other suite mates would leave food and dirty plates all over the common room and kitchen. The filth was so bad that we literally moved out and left the microwave, toaster oven, and all the dishes, glasses, pots and pans that we had bought. D would clean the bathroom, but didn’t go near the kitchen at all.
D was the first to mov out, so we just ditched it all.
Ew. Poor kid.
PS: just to be clear, we are way off what @dustypig described, but still ew.
One of my kids had a roommate like this and it turned out to be a severe anxiety disorder for which she got help. It is a bit beyond your daughter’s role but I do think that going along with all of these demands, especially on a rigid timetable, is enabling the roommate and preventing her from getting help- if the impression I got is correct, which it might not be.
Read the OP. It says roommate asked for these things. It didn’t say roommate demanded them. The OP’s daughter appeared willing to compromise. It was the OP who added the “well, tough, roommate can deal” perspective.
S2 just texted and asked if he could wash his whites (socks and t-shirts) with his colored clothes. I texted back no, wash your sheets with them, that’s why I bought you white sheets. The thought of stripping the sheets and remaking the bed made him say he would do whites next week.
My daughter just moved into a place with a slumlord landlord. In back of the house is a 3 stall garage so I commented to her and her roommates that at least some of the cars will not be snow covered this winter. One of the guys she’s living with then lifted all the garage doors and it was a hoarders nightmare filled with junk to the top. She’s been there a week and hearing critters in the walls. Cleanliness and poison are going to be crucial to not having mice or rats scurry across the floor.
I think we are going to have to go back with clippers/chainsaw to clean up his overgrown backyard where they park. My husband says she won’t forget living in this place!
^ When DS first went to school I bought him color catchers because I knew for a fact he was NOT going to sort his clothes before washing.
I think the window cleaning is nuts. DS is now a Junior I have moved him from 2 different dorm rooms and 2 on campus apartments. We have never washed the windows before he moved. Dusting the window ledge yes but washing the windows? No they don’t get that dirty. Even in my house the inside of the windows are hardly ever washed. The outside yes but not the inside.