New students always run the risk of being paired with random roommates from Hell, especially freshmen during Spring semesters. This is exactly what happened to me when I started school a semester late at BGSU. I applied to live in the Centennial dorm, which was one of the newer and nicer dorms on campus. However, I knew there would be a catch considering I would be paired with a roommate that lost his previous one from the Fall semester. In the best case scenario, the roommate that I would be taking the place of would have just dropped out of school making an open spot available. Worst case scenario, the roommate left because my new roommate was a nightmare.

This is a story about the latter...

1. They Can't Handle Their Alcohol

You know the sound a bag of chips makes when you unroll it? Well, one night I was asleep when my roommate woke me up with a crinkling noise. I figured he was trying to open a bag of chips but after he hadn't figured it out for a couple minutes I decided to get up and check out what was going on. There was no bag of chips or any snacks around at all. He was peeing on my filing cabinet with his pants around his ankles and then passed out on the floor of our room...

Moral of the story- if you have any say in picking your roommates, and if they like to party, make sure they can handle their alcohol.

2. Bad Hygiene

18-year olds starting college are in a weird stage between adulthood and childhood. A lot of times independence is a new thing to these man-children. When I first stepped foot in my new dorm a musky odor filled the room. Nats were everywhere and I checked to make sure a dead body wasn't hidden somewhere. It turns out my roommate left a tub of food in the dorm that rotted over Winter break. I soon learned that rotting food and my roommate went hand-in-hand after he left TWO jugs of milk sitting out in our room for a week. Either he knew something we don't or he just didn't like cleanliness. On top of all that, laundry wasn't his strong suit either since he left mounds of sweaty gym clothes on his top bunk for the whole semester as if he were trying to make an anti-room freshener.

Basically, make sure your roommate knows what soap is.

3. Returning Your Stuff in Worse Shape

In my experience, lending your things to irresponsible roommates isn't a great idea. For me, it only resulted in a dirty microwave and minifridge, but girls usually have it worse. I say this because they sometimes borrow each others' clothes which will almost definitely mean you're clothes will come back stained or ruined if you're rooming with a slob.

I'm not saying sharing is wrong but make sure you know who you're sharing with before you loan your stuff.

In my experience, I only had to live with my bad roommate for a single semester since I started my freshman year in the Spring of 2016. The advice I would give is to just wait it out and make friends that could be potential roommates in the future. Also, try communicating with your roommate to fix the issues. I had almost no interest in talking to my roommate after I got to know him, but in the end it probably made me seem like a bad roommate as well.

The lesson here is that even though people suck, communication never hurts!