Freshman marketing major Avery Petzke shared her roommate horror story.

“It all started in the beginning,” Petzke said. “She was always having guys over. There were multiple nights a week where I would be kicked out of my room at like three in the morning so she could have her alone time in the dorm.”

The problem didn’t stop there.

“One time my RA literally found me asleep and had to let me into my room because she was in there doing her own thing,” Petzke said.

Petzke said her living situation became so chaotic that she joked about having a third roommate.

“We always had a third roommate because she always had a guy in the room,” Petzke said. “It was to the point where there was another person on our chore chart because they were always in the room, and I was never in the room.”

But the lack of privacy wasn’t the only issue. Petzke said her roommate also helped herself to her clothes without asking.

“She would post on Instagram and TikTok in my clothes and I would be like, ‘Wait, that’s mine,’” Petzke said. “I felt like there was no sense of boundaries or privacy. She thought that all of my stuff was her stuff too.”

As the semester went on, Petzke said things only got worse.

“She stopped going to class or even leaving the dorm,” Petzke said. “There was a week where she didn’t leave at all, and we didn’t even have a dining hall in our dorm, so I don’t know what she was doing. She would have to-go boxes stacked up on her bedside table, and it made the room smell so bad all the time.”

When Petzke finally decided to move out, tensions boiled over.

“That’s when she started getting mean and would purposely try to bring me down,” Petzke said.

Despite the challenges, Petzke said she learned something important from the experience.

“My biggest advice for anyone going through this would be communication,” Petzke said. “Setting those boundaries very early on and not bottling it up would have probably prevented things from getting worse.”

According to the Iowa State Department of Residence, Petzke’s advice is spot on. Communication is the key to any successful roommate relationship.

“To increase the likelihood of forming a strong relationship, roommates should engage in a conversation early on,” the department’s guide states.

Some students even choose to develop roommate contracts to set clear expectations.

Here are a few of the topics the Department of Residence recommends discussing:

Get to know each other

• Hometown, hobbies, and reasons for choosing ISU.
• Major or career interests.

The room

• How to arrange the space and decorate.
• What level of cleanliness makes both roommates comfortable.

Study style

• Study times and habits.
• Whether background noise like TV or music is okay.

Relationships

• Comfort levels with guests.
• When visitors should be off-limits.

Emotional style

• How to recognize and handle frustration.
• What each person needs during conflict.

The department encourages roommates to revisit these topics throughout the year and to seek help from their Resident Assistant if things start to go south.

Because while a bad roommate can make your semester miserable, the right communication and a little honesty might just save the situation before it turns into a horror story.