<p>My roommate is intelligent but he seriously lacks common sense and common courtesy.</p>
<p>You can read the rest if you want to know the details.</p>
<p>EX 1- I will have the door closed because I go to sleep "early" 12am, while others in the hall including him blast music until like 2am. He will walk into the room to get something, and leave without closing the door back. ( Note that the lights are off so there is a stark contrast between the dorm room and the hall</p>
<p>EX2- We have been here all of 3 weeks and his girlfriend (who does not attend the college) has slept over for 2 weekends( Fri, Sat, Sun), which is fine but what is not fine is they stay in the room, in the bed together making noises-- giggling to moans... (insert assumption here), the entire day. In addition she is rude. When I first met her I said "Hello" and she completely ignored me and walked into the dorm room. (I was at the door to the room). He will also talk to her in a normal volume and she will whisper back to him, whether they are in bed or just in the room standing up, she ALWAYS whispers.</p>
<ul>
<li>IN ADDITION, He is in air force rotc. He wakes up at anywhere from 4:45am -5:30am most days of the school week. Which is OKAY. What is not okay is when he makes unnecessary amounts of noise, turns on his laptop with the brightest settings and types loudly on it for 10 minutes before he leaves. When he finally does leave he insist on leaving the door wide open to the hall which is a safety hazard since I am "sleeping" .</li>
</ul>
<p>BTW: I have a theory he is stealing my drinks/snacks ( but i dont have any official proof, yet....)
Conclusion:
How should I approach my RA.?
I cant expect my roommate to change , so I need to go and get a single dorm ASAP.</p>
<p>If any snacks or drinks go missing ask him. Just try to disturb him as he does to you and see how he likes it. Or simply ask him to close the door or try to keep his laptop down. Have you asked him? If he *****es about it then disturb him just as he does to you and see how he likes it </p>
<p>I am not into the whole fight fire with fire thing. </p>
<p>Just because he is uncouth should not mean I should stoop to his level. I can not ask him without proof otherwise that will be too blatant that I think he is a thief lol.</p>
<p>I also want to try to handle this problem on my own first, because if my parents get involved all hell will break loose.</p>
<p>We discussed all the rules when we first moved in. We were given a worksheet that covered EVERYTHING, yet he continues to break them. And yes, I have reminded him, which works for the rest of the day but the next day he goes right back to his old habits.</p>
<p>OK lets say he did close the door. There are more problems than that.</p>
<p>I can not ask him to leave rotc just so I can actually sleep for longer than 3hours w/o being interrupted.</p>
<p>Mouse or rat traps work great in where you keep your snacks hidden. I grew up with 2 brothers, and had to resort to desperate measures to keep my chocolate safe growing up. It is most effective when kept hidden deep in a drawer.</p>
<p>I would just change rooms now, because your roommate, or his girlfriend will not change. Some people are just oblivious to how obnoxious they are, and they aren’t worth the time or the energy.</p>
<p>Besidess the obvious problems that war with a roomate would raise, never compromise who you are for anyone else. No matter what the situation. I suggest you try to talk to him first. Tell him what your problems are and ask him to stop, because it really won’t take that much on his part. (Stop leaving the door open, maybe he can stay with his girlfriends every now and again, etc.) As far as the snacks go, if you don’t want to confront him do you have a place where you can lock your stuff up? My mini fridge has a lock on it so I can make sure my roomate never takes any drinks out of there and I put my snacks in my closet, which also has a lock. (Closets come with the dorms) </p>
<p>If that doesn’t work or if you don’t wanna bother with him, go talk to the RA about changing rooms. Dozens of people change rooms every year so he won’t be suprised by it.</p>
<p>Before you go a more official route, I would keep talking to him about his bad habits and remind him EVERY SINGLE TIME he forgets. He may not be inconsiderate on purpose. (I am saying this because my former roommate had to remind me of the same thing at least 10 times before I actually changed my habits. It’s not that I was trying to be rude or ignorant, I just forgot.)</p>
<p>@Marco117
I wish I had locks. Okay lets say he does correct that stuff.
He comes in the room to go to sleep from 12am-2am and wakes up from 4:45-5:30am most days of the week.
It would not be fair on my part to ask him to go to bed earlier or wake up later lol.
This is a problem that can’t be compromised away</p>
<p>@ b@r!um
I agree a new roommate would be too much of a risk, so I plan to pursue a single.
However, I am not his parent. In corporate America you are told things once. Go ahead and “forget”, just be ready to join the unemployment statistics.</p>
<p>^ That’s a lame excuse. It wouldn’t be too much effort on your part to put a note on the door saying “close me”, for example. I doubt that he is planning on leaving the door open, so he might just need a reminder at the right moment (especially at 5am in the morning, when he might be half-asleep and functioning on auto pilot). You are saying that when you have talked to him in the past, he did adjust his behavior temporarily; that shows to me that he is generally trying to be considerate of your needs.</p>
<p>In fact, he might be more considerate than you think. You mentioned that it bugs you that he puts his laptop screen on the highest brightness at night. Have you considered that he might be doing that in order to see the keyboard, so that he can type without turning on the light in the room (which would probably be more disruptive than his laptop screen)?</p>
<p>I would also encourage you to take a look at yourself. Why does it bother you so much that his girlfriend whispers? Or that they are having fun in bed on the weekends? If you need the room for something private at the same time, tell them. If they are keeping you up at night, tell them. Otherwise, I think they have every right to giggle in bed on a Saturday afternoon. If that bothers you, you can take your own work elsewhere.</p>
<p>The longer I think about it, the more I am convinced that it might be best for you to request a single. Maybe your roommate really is a jerk. Or maybe you are not assertive and flexible enough to live with a roommate at this point. Maybe it’s a combination of both. Either way, it might be healthier for both of you to go separate ways.</p>
<p>This is how it would go down with my roommate if he left the door open…
<em>walks out and leaves door open</em>
me: hey **<strong><em>…close the mf door.
*walks back and stares at me for a moment</em>
him: **</strong> you ***** go back to sleep.
<em>politely close door and we both laugh it off</em></p>
I am not his parent. I should not have to hold his hand until he learns to close the door when he leaves, pick his dirty boxers off the floor, lower his volume when I am sleeping.
There is a lounge where he can type on his keyboard,5 foot steps away from our dorms
-It is rude to whisper in front of someone, and it is inconsiderate to stay in the dorm room 24/7 the entire weekend.
-I already established I am pursuing a single.</p>
<p>@Vanechka </p>
<p>If I do not get a single by Monday, I am telling my parents.</p>
<p>@studentengineer</p>
<p>We do not have that close of a relationship. Who honestly feels like using their voice at 4am.</p>
<p>The girlfriend should not be there all weekend. A couple of hours, ok, you can find somewhere else to be. But you didn’t sign up to be in a triple.</p>
<p>Ok, I was on your side until you mentioned he could go to the lounge to use his labtop. I’m just wondering, how exactly can you see the light from it? 1)Can’t you just turn away from it if its facing you? The room’s just as much his as it is yours. There’s no reason for him to leave the room to use it when he’s only using it for like 15 minutes before he leaves for the day.</p>
<p>As far as the door goes someone said earlier you could just put a sign on it that said “Close me”. I think thats a pretty good idea, because that early in the morning he really might not be all there lol</p>
<p>@LeftLou
I agree which is why i try to stay out of the dorm as much as possible when she is here. But I do need to go to the dorm to sleep, organize my things, etc. I should not have to see them every single time I go in the room.</p>
<p>@marco117</p>
<h2>If a room is pitch black, and a light is on, it will light up the entire room. There are mirrors in the room so turning wont really help. Point being I should not have to compromise my sleep.</h2>
<p>My question is how should I approach my RA, not how can I negotiate with my roommate.</p>
<p>The girlfriend thing is a problem that might be settled if you talk to him. You can’t move the mirrors? How bright is his light? The light from my labtop doesn’t light up the entire room. And as another poster said, he could easily turn on the light for the room everyday but he doesn’t. That proves he’s not trying to interrupt your sleep on purpose. When you’re trying to sleep and someone’s moving around, every sound they make just sounds louder and more annoying than it actually is.</p>
<p>You should find a way to work with him on this.</p>