<p>I started my sophomore year of college about a month ago, but it's not going as well as I hoped. Last year, I had a lot of problems with my roommate and none of them were ever fixed until I changed rooms later in the year. For some reason I thought I wouldn't have as many problems with my roommate this time, but that's not the case. To start off, she's not in the room much because she's busy with her sorority. However when she is in the room, her friends are always over. She never tells me if someone is going to come up and visit (even though we agreed at the beginning of the year that she would). Her friends just come in the room without knocking and it scares the crap out of me every single time. Most of the time, her friends are over on school nights and stay late (until like 1 or 2am). My roommate knows that I need quiet to fall asleep and that i need to get a good amount of sleep each night because of a medical condition. No matter what I do or say, her friends don't leave. Even saying "i'm going to sleep now" doesn't work. I end up going to the floor above me and sleeping in my friend's room. My roommate's friends are also over when i'm trying to study and do work, and it's incredibly distracting. I do almost all my work in the study lounge or the library because of that. Like last year, I feel like my roommate is inconsiderate and is taking advantage of me. I'm scared to talk to her about it, because last year, when I calmly and politely talked to my first roommate about similar problems, she blew up at me.
In the following two months, she threatened to hurt me, stole my things, kicked me out of the room more than 3 times a week, and made her boyfriend stalk me around campus.<br>
I'm worried that if I bring up these issues to my current roommate it will just make things worse. I'm also hesitant to speak with the RA because she's best friends with my roommate. How can I gain the confidence to confront my roommate about these problems, and what should
I say?</p>
<p>I know you’ve had a bad experience previously, but I think you should try to talk to your roommate about it. Even if your RA is friends with your roommate, she may still be able to mediate the conversation in a way that your roommate is amenable to. If your RA isn’t able to be objective about the situation or isn’t able to help you, is there another RA that you could talk to? Perhaps, someone from a different floor in your building?</p>
<p>If your roommate does any of the drastic things that you described, definitely report her to the RA/housing/campus police, etc. If she was threatening you, stealing your things, or stalking you, you should really go to the police about it.</p>
<p>Perhaps, you could set up an agreement about how late her friends can stay during a school night (or when you have to walk up early)? Just ask to talk about it. Say that you know it’s kind of annoying, but you really can’t sleep with them in the room and you need to wake up for class in the morning. Would it be possible for them to go into the living room/lounge/whatever after a certain hour or could she hang out in her friend’s room late at night rather than your room?</p>
<p>Maybe she thought that she only needed to ask if someone is going to spend the night and didn’t think to ask if a friend was just going to hang out in your room randomly. She might not have planned it in advance and wouldn’t think to ask your permission.</p>
<p>Just be reasonable and polite, and ask for help if she’s not listening to you. Don’t be overbearing about it, but be clear and direct.</p>
<p>Also, if you’ve had such bad luck with roommates before, perhaps you should consider getting a single room so you don’t have to deal with this.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your advice. I looked in to it, and you can talk to any RA in the building about problems with your roommate (or anyone), so that’s helpful to know! We did set up an agreement at the beginning of the year where I told her if she could ask me if she was going to have visitors in the room regardless of whether they were staying overnight or not. I tried to explain as clearly as possible, so she shouldn’t be confused about it. The main problem is that she’s not willing to compromise or agree with me about anything.<br>
I talked to her earlier this week about it, and it did not go well. I came back to my room after falling asleep in my friend’s room around 1am, and there were her and her friend sitting on her bed. In case you were wondering, her friend is female. I politely asked them if they knew what time it was and then said “it’s late, I’m very tired, and I’m going to bed”. That didn’t do anything because they continued talking quite loudly as I was trying to sleep. I sat up and told them they were talking loudly and I couldn’t sleep, and I asked them if they could take their conversation somewhere else. My roommate and her friend blew up at me, yelling at me and getting in my face. My roommate kept saying “this is my room, my friends can be here whenever I want them to be”. Her friend was being extremely rude and disrespectful to me, and said “you better invest in some ear muffs, because I’m going to be here however late I want”. They kept yelling at me until I couldn’t take it, and I told them both to get out or I was going to the RA. I’ve been sleeping in my friend’s room upstairs ever since then. I talked to an RA, and she suggested mediation, and if that doesn’t work, I’m going to ask about a room change.<br>
Should I approach my roommate after this episode where she was incredibly disrespectful and inappropriate? I want to work things out, but I’m scared to talk to her, and I don’t think she’s willing to agree to anything.</p>
<p>Don’t let her step on you, it’s your room too. Go to the RA, explain the situation, that you don’t even feel comfortable sleeping in your own room. This isn’t something you should be passive about, and the sooner you do something about it the better it’ll work out. If you just slink off to your friend’s room when your roommate acts like this, she’ll assume she can get away with it whenever she wants. Go to the RA, get your roommate, and sit down and sort things out. From what you’ve told us, chances are the RA will side with you on the sleeping/talking/guest stuff.</p>
<p>That said, it doesn’t sound like you’re necessarily approaching issues as directly as you should either. If all you do is passive aggressively say “I’m going to bed” and flop down and try to sleep, that’s not good communication. If you started more along the lines of “I was hoping to go to bed in a few minutes, could you maybe hang out somewhere else?” you might get better results. But it’s really hard to judge from here, keep in mind we’re strangers on the internet only getting one half of the story.</p>
<p>Bring in an RA soon, talk it out with them there. If it’s just a communication issue, they should be able to help. If it really is your roommate being disrespectful, they should still be able to help. You do need to be willing to compromise though, so if the RA says that you should try doing ____ and roommate should try to do ___, remember that you’ll need to compromise and put in some work too. Things’ll be better if you both try to get along though.</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend having an RA (preferably one that’s not friends with either of you, so that they can be objective) act as a mediator between you two. They may be able to come up with compromises that you can’t think of, or they may be able to get your roommate to listen to them when she won’t listen to you. If that doesn’t work (or if she makes nice with the RA and then doesn’t do anything she says she will when the RA is gone), look into changing roommates. At least then, you’ve gone through the appropriate channels, you’ve tried to make it work, and now you have someone (the RA) that will hopefully be willing to advocate for you.</p>
<p>Just set up a meeting with an RA (and make sure you’re checking with your roommate, as well). Say something like you think that you’re both having trouble communicating with each other, so you think it’d be a good idea to chat with an RA about some of the disagreements you’ve been having. Make sure you’re polite and reasonable, and if she refuses, then meet with the RA and tell them that you’re having trouble with your roommate and she refuses to meet with an RA about it. And then just go from there.</p>
<p>Don’t just hide out in a friend’s room, and don’t let this go on forever. You’ve tried talking to her in person, and it didn’t work out. It’s better to bring in another person at this point.</p>
<p>@dukejohn442 well I don’t see you suggesting anything, how about you dispense some advice if you know so much?</p>
<p>@dukejohn442 :-@ Oookkaaaayyy…
OP, regardless of what some people might say, your RA is your best bet. Maybe they won’t be able to help you, but if that’s the case, you’ll know you did everything possible to resolve the situation before requesting a room change. That said, sooner is better in this situation, I think, so that you can resolve this or get a switch ASAP.</p>
<p>First of all, accept that you deserve to be able to sleep in your room. When typically do you need to go to sleep?
Also accept that you have to be more assertive in talking to your roommate.</p>
<p>You are saying “I am going to bed now”. I think you are trying to say “…and you need to leave.”
You are using a passive aggressive method to try to get them to leave. Be direct…friendly but firm.</p>
<p>Go back to your roommate agreement (if you have one) and talk to her about it… and say to your roomie that you have a medical condition and need to go to bed by 11:00/12:00/whatever. Say that you will be asking them to leave but that is awkward so it would be better if she lets them know they have to switch to the lounge at X:00.</p>
<p>Then when when she has friends over, You need to say “It’s midnight…I have an early class…can you take this out to the lounge please?” Go to the door and open it up and look expectantly. If that doesn’t work, then say “Seriously, you guys need to get going.” If they ignore you, then go get the RA right then.</p>
<p>If your roomie gives you a hard time then say “sorry, i need to sleep…maybe it would be good to hang our at Ashley’s dorm sometimes too.”</p>
<p>Also, lock your door so they have to knock to get in.</p>
<p>Guys? This thread is over a year old, I’m pretty sure the OP has worked out her roommate problems, whether that involved the RA or not.</p>
<p>@dukejohn442 Saying advice is useless doesn’t mean much if you don’t add other ideas, right now you’re all talk. I’d say going to an RA is a good first step, if the problem cannot be resolved through them they’ll at least be able to point students to good resources and next steps.</p>