So, I have three new roommates. The crazy old roommate who drove everyone batty and my two other perfectly agreeable roommates all finished their masters programs and have gone forth to other things. One of my three new roommates, M., the one who lives on the top floor with me, is just lovely. She is smart and funny and very enjoyable to be around. We tend to make fun of my other two roommates who came as a pair, and who are very young, and immature, and act like children, and are also, just, well . . . dumb. The two of them combined have less good sense than a dresser drawer.
These two dim people are also just crappy roommates - they leave shit everywhere and never clean up after themselves and let the mail pile up by the door because they just throw it on a chair and ignore dirty dishes for ages and if they make a mess they just walk away from it, etc. You may have had these roommates. They have, by any objective standard, the world's worst taste in music, and they insist on playing it as loud as fucking possible. Also, they must be the kids we were warned about who would grow up on youtube and thus develop ADD, or something, because they can't even finish a shitty song without switching to another shitty song. They have bitchy catty screaming fights with each other (I know the implications of using bitchy and catty, I am using them on purpose - last time they fought as LOUD AS POSSIBLE at MIDNIGHT, they were fighting over who was really flirting with a boy or not or something. They are backstabby to each other). Their favorite movie is John Tucker Must Die. One of them, her favorite books are the Twilight series; the other, her favorite book is The Secret, and she owns the movie (did you know there was a movie? Me neither. There is).
So. Ok. About a week ago, there started to be this awful, rancid-food smell in the downstairs. It would hit you as soon as you walked into the front door. It just pervaded the first floor (or ground floor, for you Europeans), and it was getting worse. It wasn't coming from the trash, and so the source was just kinda a mystery. M. wondered if the cats had killed something and left it somewhere, but we'd never had any mice or anything before. I decided it was coming from the drain in the kitchen sink, as it was really strong right around there, and M. agreed. After grabbing breakfast at the diner this morning, M. and I stopped by the market and picked up white vinegar and a lemon (because, clearly, if we didn't deal with this, the other roommates sure as hell wouldn't). We dumped the vinegar down the sink, waited a bit, and then I threw a lemon through the garbage disposal. The stench seemed to subside, somewhat, although that may only be because the kitchen now smelled like vinegar and lemon.
About an hour ago, I went downstairs to make dinner, and the stink was STILL THERE. Ok, I told myself, we just need to air out the house. It's just lingering. I went to make food, and decided I really wanted some steamed broccoli to toss in my salad. And because it was such a little amount, I figured I'd just steam it in a bowl in the microwave. I dumped the chopped broccoli in a little round tupperware and opened the microwave door.
The stench slammed me in the fucking face. I staggered back like I had actually been physically struck and started gagging. It was so disgusting, I thought I would retch. Inside the microwave was chicken breast, still in the package from the store but the plastic distended to its utmost due to the rotting, gone all liquidy and greenish and generally just decomposing in the most odorous manner it could.
Someone put that chicken in the microwave at least a week ago and forgot it.
Thank god I am a vegetarian; if I weren't already, I might have just become one.
And also, after law school, I am never ever ever ever ever having fucking roommates again. The end.
Update:
So as it turns out, now when the mircrowave is used, as I tried this morning, that foul smell left by the chicken just fills the kitchen again. I've cleaned the damn thing out with white vinegar, twice. Any ideas how I can get rid of the lingering smell? Will baking soda do the trick, you think? Or are we just going to have to wait this out?
Second Update:
One of those two roommates came to see me late last night, after I'd already wrote the post. It turns out the two roommates I wrote about are not speaking - the one who left the chicken in the microwave has a boyfriend, but has been cheating on him, and actively going after the boy that this lady who was confiding to me likes. The bad-chicken lady has been, in fact, saying TERRIBLE THINGS about this lady confiding to me, to the boy the confiding lady wants to date. Then I got a WAY too much information story about the bad-chicken lady getting pregnant with a boy while cheating on her boyfriend and then lying to her boyfriend and saying it was his and getting him to pay for the abortion several years ago.
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, YOU GUYS???
Third Update (I KNOW):
I was just gmail chatting with a friend of mine who has met my roommates, albeit briefly. I sent her this post, and this is how the conversation went:
R: i have to know if pregnancy girl was "twilight" or the secret
me: twilight!!!R: HAHAHAHA OF COURSE
Chicken breast in the microwave? Still in the package? For a week?!
ReplyDelete... the idea of the stench alone makes me not want to eat chicken for the next two lifetimes. D:
I have lived in two really gross places and after a while... I became a shitty roomate too. There're only so many cockroaches, dirty floors and ruined possessions you can take before doing the washing up ceases to be a priority. My first place, the stovetop was black and after cleaning it I realised it was meant to be silver.
ReplyDeleteIn another place, my underwear went missing for a while and then showed up again when I was living with just the one guy.
Kick them out, chicken is just beyond the pale. Waste of food aside from anything else... Who the hell is paying for these kids?
Bad vegetables just don't go as bad as bad meat. Shudder.
ReplyDeleteYeah baking soda should do it. You might have to actually unscrew the cabinet; chickeny melt-liquid might have seeped into the works.
Also, put a little container of vinegar (or water with lemon slices in it) in the microwave and turn it on high for 5 mins so it evaporates and coats everything and gets into the vents.
and then leave the baking soda open in there when you're not using it to absorb.
A new microwave's only $40 though, to be honest that'd be my choice... but that's because the time I unscrewed the microwave cabinet it was filled with cockroaches and I'm not willing to put myself through that. Don't think you really get them in VA (I haven't seen any? actually that's surprising, it's certainly warm enough for them. Mysteries!)
Good luck!
This reminds me of this thing that happened when I was living with some friends. There was this slightly weird smell in the kitchen. I went to visit my parents for a week, and when I came back the smell was a whole lot worse. I asked my housemate what the smell was and he said, "What smell?"
ReplyDeleteAugh.
Also, here via Feministe, hai!
Hi Gemma! You have a blog called "Nerd Rage!" We are so going to be friends.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Girl Detective, I tried the lemon water in the microwave, and it seems to have helped a bit. Thank you! The thing about buying a new microwave is: I can't. I am living really hand-to-mouth right now, and if I have 40 bucks, it is going to things like food, and shampoo. I guess I can try to get my roommate to pay, but as mentioned, she's a pretty heinous person, so . . .
Also: COCKROACHES. NO. I am not even looking.
I have boiled vinegar on a stovetop to get rid of the pervasive smell of stale cigarette smoke (it works!). I'm having a stink problem of my own (although it is not nearly so gross). The washing machine smells like mildew, as some people forget they've done their laundry and leave it sitting for a week. I ran a cycle of bleach through it, and that helped, but the stink is still there. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteOoooh, Debbie, I have the hardest time getting mildew smells out of things. I would have suggested bleach, so . . .
ReplyDeleteAnyone else have any ideas?
My God. That's disgusting. I've definitely done the whole stagger-backwards-and-gag thing--it was almost like the stench knocked me back! I saw so many disgusting roommates in my time as an RA, I wrote a post on how to be a good roommate. I swear, Good Roomates 101 should be a required class.
ReplyDeleteI hope these girls learn soon, for your sanity!
Oy vey. Roommates from hell. They will probably provide you with stories forever, which I suppose is the one positive. Other than that ... ugggghhh!!! I hope all the microwave-doctoring WORKS.
ReplyDeleteI've got a similar story (although not as bad): in grad school I lived in a house with eight other guys. These guys were your quintessential absent-minded nerds: smart as hell, could do multi-variable calculus in their sleep, but couldn't boil water or write a check. We were in southern California, which is overrun with Argentine ants, and the landlords had let the house get infested so they were a constant presence. This is a breed that is hardy and breeds like whoa, and they like fatty, strong-smelling substances like used women's underwear and meat. (This is relevant to the story, I promise.)
ReplyDeleteEarly on in my first year, I was sitting in the kitchen making oatmeal before a morning class, when I realized I was seeing more ants than usual. I began following them back to a larger vein of ants, which led into the cupboard above the microwave. With a growing sense of dread I opened the cupboard, and found the inside seething with them. They were after a raw pork chop that someone had left in a bowl in the cupboard overnight. I didn't have time to do anything about it, so I sprayed the inside with Lysol to kill some ants and kill the smell of meat, and left a post-it note on the cupboard door with "OMFG ANTS" on it*.
I came back from class to find one of the math grad students sheepishly washing out the cupboard. He apologized profusely.
* This sounds passive-aggressive, but it made the most sense because we had such different schedules, and my housemates didn't speak great English. Written English was easier for them to understand, especially since I talk very quickly.
I think bleach not good for microwave as poisonous fumes? Ecchh, though. Yeah 40 bucks is a lot when you don't have it. I've been at the stage of frying rice in the pans my flatmates have just used, so it absorbs the flavour. It took a long time to get out of the poverty mentality, I still wince when I see my partner washing delicious flavoured oils out of a frypan, even though we now have a cupboard full of spices.
ReplyDeleteThe only flatmate I've ever kicked out was a guy who turned out to be keeping an unlicenced gun under his bed (this in Australia where guns are not really acceptable unless you're a cop or a farmer)
Oh, Mildew! It's expensive I think (but goes a long way), but australian tea tree oil kills mildew but good and smells wonderful. Can't remember correct dilution proportions though. You don't rinse it off. It's anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. You can put a few drops in with your laundry to kill dust mites, too.
ReplyDelete(I am very into the home remedies school of medicine and house-maintenance)
Also, tea tree oil? You can put it on acne (it's what's in the Body Shop's anti-acne products), put a few drops in shampoo to fix dandruff, cure athlete's foot, make coldsores heal way faster (although it doesn't taste great), if you have a cold, you can put drops in a bowl of hot water with a towel over your head to clear your lungs (and get into the pores in your face to reduce acne), put it in a humidifier if you have one... I will stop, but it is wonderful. If I married it I would happily take its surname. Also it cures thrush! But you def have to dilute it for that!
Ok I'm done
AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA! The "OMFG ANTS" note made me laugh so hard!
ReplyDeleteAnd who leaves a fucking raw pork chop in the cupboard overnight? Well, that dude, apparently, but GOOD LORD.
Ahaha. I'm still chuckling.
Gayle, never underestimate what college students can do to their living spaces.
ReplyDelete((and never work in college dorms!))
Ahahaha, I BELIEVE YOU. So, when do you get sainted for that RA gig?
ReplyDeleteomg, i have the same (almost) freaking story, thus why i haven't had a roommate since i was 21. one of my former roommates (who i love dearly when not living with him) left an effing steak in the microwave for a MONTH. surprisingly there was no stench, but we had this awful fly infestation and no one could figure out the source. this was also louisiana in july, so very very HOT, with lots of flies. one roommate kept trying to convince everyone it was my turtles' tank (flies do not manifest out of water, dumbass). anyway, we rarely used the microwave so this went on for a month before it was discovered. i think there was a stink to begin with but after a while the larvae were consuming it. as you can imagine, totally disgusting - rotting steak and larvae, ugh. we cleaned it out and put the microwave out on the porch. the culprit roommate denied it forever until finally conceding that it might have been his steak (considering everyone else in the house was a vegetarian, this seemed obvious). this same roommate once had the brilliant idea to leave a dead rat that was stuck in a rat trap (couldn't pry it out) in a bucket of water on the porch (he thought this would "soften" it?), which he then left for several weeks. as i was once told by a mechanic outside of new orleans who consoled me as i cried over roommate troubles (another roommate): "roommates is the worst shit that'll ever happen to you."
ReplyDeleteGROSS GROSS GROSS, did she at least help you clean that shit?! If not I'm going to vomit in a box and post it to your roommate. GROSS!!!!!
ReplyDeleteNo, she wasn't home.
ReplyDeleteThere are updates to this whole story, but that will be another post. I am, indeed, living with 12 year olds.
Also, watch: you'll send her vomit, she'll leave it in direct sunlight somewhere in the house for a week.
Oh my. Wow. Just wow. Puts my housemate troubles into perspective. I thought the green potatoes (those are poisonous, right?!), sprouting/rotting onions, mouldy fridge, and bag of mould that used to be bread (like two months ago) were bad.
ReplyDelete