By  Christine Paradis
Are you suffering with a horrible roommate? Fear not, you are not alone.
Plenty of college students have had their fair share of horrifying roommate experiences and Fitchburg State University has plenty of problem solving remedies. Although, these techniques to solving your roommate woes may not work and can often create bigger problems for you and your less than desirable live-in companions.
FSU Junior, Lindsey Hunneman was told by the school to keep reporting her vomiting, drunk and disorderly roommates.
“I didn’t see anybody talk to them,” Hunneman said, “They still got let in when they were [drunk].  It didn’t really help at all.”
FSU Sophmore, Brooke Garnick was given a different tactic than Hunneman which was to “be up front” with the obnoxious party animals her freshman year.
“There were a few nights I didn’t sleep in my room,” Garnick said.
Garnick then sought aid elsewhere, which proved to be just as pointless.
“I ended up going to the building director,” Garnick said. And to her dismay was no further help, Garnick follows with, “I ended up going to Housing [Services] and they were like, ‘You have to go to your building director’.”
After being aimlessly sent from one staff member to the next, Garnick eventually moved out of her room after frequent and persistent requests.  But this was not the end of Garnick’s roommate nightmare.
Continuing into her sophomore year the roommate nightmare was not over.
“So we had the roommate agreement,” Garnick states, referring to the solution her Resident Assistant came up with, “It didn’t work because the [RA] didn’t intervene when my roommate started bashing me for random little things, most of them I’ve never done.”
Garnick regrets even getting the school involved this time because “it made it worse” and “increased the confrontation” between her and her atrocious roommate.
Former Resident Assistant and FSU Senior, Kat Strem found asking for help a futile task.  Her freshman year Resident Assistant was frequently unavailable, unapproachable, and did not take her job as a Resident Assistant seriously.
“It was a notch on the belt for her,” Strem said, “It was just for something that would make her look better on her resume.”
All three students were abandoned by the FSU staff involved and forced to deal with their impossible roommates on their own.  However, these students found salvation in the sheer luck that they were able to get themselves out of their rooms.
“Both times I kind of did it myself,” Garnick said, “The school didn’t help.  I mean, I had to take initiative and this year I got lucky.”
Hunneman refers to her relationship with her former roommates, “I ended up moving, I never solved anything.  It was still super awkward.”
Strem’s strategy for leaving her horrific roommate was to become a Resident Assistant.
“When I became an RA I didn’t do it as something to write on my resume,” Strem contemplates, “I didn’t have any societies that I belonged to on campus.  I was an RA.  I devoted all of my time to that.”
Not only was Strem inspired to become a better Resident Assistant than the one she had been given, she also managed to escape from her dreadful roommate woes by doing so.