My worst roommate (and I've had some bad ones) was on my semester at Tel-Aviv University. It started on the group flight there, with this obnoxious surfer looking guy who was seated next to me (I was on an aisle, he was in the middle). On the ten hour flight, he had me put something in or take something out of the overhead for him at least fifteen or twenty times. He just wouldn't leave me alone, and was constantly begging me to change seats with him, and grab a pen, and put this card in his bag... When we got to the dorms and had our orientation meeting, it turned out that I was in the same apartment as him, though thank god not the same room (each apt was 2 double rooms with a common kitchen and bath).

This guy was unreal. He was a bleach-blond surfer, rowed crew, was well over 6' and very muscular (I'm 5'7" and thin), and just a total jerk. He constantly ate the food belonging to the rest of us, claiming that he had no money, nevermind the $100 packages full of crap he'd send back to his girlfriend in CA. After two weeks or so of his constantly disrespecting the other three of us, things got a bit tense. The first turning point was when he used an entire pack of my roommate's razors to shave part of his head, and from then on he seemed to be in ever-lessening contact with reality.

About a month into his stay, he decided to adopt a stray dog that he found near the beach while surfing. This, of course, couldn't happen, because you can't have dogs in the dorms, and the rest of us weren't too keen on having a stray dog around. Jason, the psycho, completely lost it when he was told he couldn't keep the dog ("if he goes, I go, because he's the only one who understands me"). He got right in my face and threatened to kill me if I turned him in (remember our size and strength disparities...), since I was the only one who was home when he came charging in with this poor mutt. Later that day, after the security guards and the program people told him the dog had to go, he took off, and wasn't heard from for a couple of days.

A few days later, he showed up and was hanging out in a room down the hall, when someone called security, as we had been instructed to do should he return. From what I'm told of the incident, he went out onto the balcony (4th floor) and threatened to jump when the police arrived on the scene. After a tense confrontation, they charged him and were able to subdue him after he punched at least one officer. He was then carried - literally kicking and screaming - off the University's property and was taken into custody. He spent about a month or so in a mental facility in Israel before he was deported back to America.

When my roommate got back to the apartment, he discovered that Jason had left us a final message. Using a razor, he had cut open his finger and painted a message in his own blood on our bathroom mirror ("you all lied to me, blah, blah, blah"), then tied the bloody razor to a rose and left it on the kitchen table.

Now that is a roommate from hell.

www.roommateexpress.com