Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Worst Roommate Ever

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 290 posts

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#61

Post by zxcmx »

chrischen wrote: post #58
whack wrote: post #53

The kind of tenancy laws I read in articles like these, sound absolutely idiotic. If you let someone into your home, and they aren't on the lease, you should be able to kick them out anytime they overstay their welcome. If you do sign a lease with someone, and they haven't paid their rent, you should be able to throw their stuff out and change the locks as soon as their security deposit has run itself out. As a forme…

SF has pretty lenient tenancy laws but even then, if someone stops paying rent, you can evict them.

Its a bit more complicated than that.

If you are both leasing from the landlord you have equal rights and actually only the landlord can evict.

If you are the master leaseholder and your roommate is subleasing then you have many of the obligations of a landlord.. which means you actually have a lot of regulations to comply with that will probably trip you up if your lessee is both malicious and litigous. Especially if the sublease was established without a contract.

Usually you can get away with it bcause the kinds of people who just stop paying rent are deadbeats and won't challenge.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#62

Post by adrianN »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

There was also the chance that you kill somebody. Hitting people is riskier than movies make you believe. Occasionally people die even from a single punch.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#63

Post by smelendez »

0x7f800000 wrote: post #5

One of the most important tools we have for social encounters like interviewing a stranger as a potential new roommate is our "gut" reaction, which is our hard-won evolutionary instincts warning us of potential danger -- warning that something is off about the person or their situation. Trust your gut.

One rule of thumb that's served me well: the sooner someone brings negativity and hard luck stories into your interactions, the more negativity they'll bring into your life.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#64

Post by mrunkel »

jessaustin wrote: post #9
IntronExon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, gut reactions to sociopaths and psychopaths are a thing. Too often though people take your view of it, and try to rationalize that feeling away. I’d rather trust my gut and ignore the pretty mediocre studies about unconscious bias that seem hard to replicate, thanks.

Yes in this instance false negatives are very bad. It's better to reject ten perfectly acceptable roommates than to accept one crazy ax-murderer roommate.

not for those ten potential roommates it's not. :)

Is it really rational to reject those 10 roommates for no good reason to avoid the 1 in a million hellish roommates?

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#65

Post by mrunkel »

Huh, as I started reading I was thinking "I've had some pretty bad roommates, I wonder if this is worse." About a quarter of the way through I realized this is way worse.

About three quarters of the way through I was filled with dread as I was pretty sure it wasn't going to end well.

Excellent writing..

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#66

Post by anonytrary »

siddharthdeswal wrote: post #36
throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

Dude you seem to have a problem. Beating folks into one inch of their life looks to me a significant overreaction. I understand your frustration, I've wanted to behave similarly many times in life, but actually doing it is a different thing altogether.

Looks like a shitpost, by someone purporting to be a psychopath.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#67

Post by megablast »

whack wrote: post #53

The kind of tenancy laws I read in articles like these, sound absolutely idiotic. If you let someone into your home, and they aren't on the lease, you should be able to kick them out anytime they overstay their welcome. If you do sign a lease with someone, and they haven't paid their rent, you should be able to throw their stuff out and change the locks as soon as their security deposit has run itself out. As a forme…

Are you serious? So no tenants rights at all? Just because of an incredibly rare and unique situation?

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#68

Post by megablast »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #24

I just lived for my last semester of undergrad with two people like this who really got on each others' nerves (all three of us just needed a semester of housing to finish school). They'd both brought their own toasters and just wanted theirs out and the others in a cabinet. I think they had less than 5 conversations in person, instead putting all their incredibly minor complaints in a group text so I'd have to see i…

> I just lived for my last semester of undergrad with two people like this

Did you even read the article?

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#69

Post by megablast »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

> I beat them within an inch of their life and then drove them to the hospital.

Um what? You don't understand why the women in this article didn't beat up the larger man, once who had a knife?

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#70

Post by fizwhiz »

zxcmx wrote: post #61
chrischen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF has pretty lenient tenancy laws but even then, if someone stops paying rent, you can evict them.

Its a bit more complicated than that. If you are both leasing from the landlord you have equal rights and actually only the landlord can evict. If you are the master leaseholder and your roommate is subleasing then you have many of the obligations of a landlord.. which means you actually have a lot of regulations to comply with that will probably trip you up if your lessee is both malicious and litigous. Especially i…

Jian Yaaaaaaang
Post reply on HN