Bad experiences with roommates and floormates have managed to create tension for some students during their time at Eastern.

Carley Szopinski, a senior psychology major, had a lot of problems last year as well as this year with her roommates.

“Last year, I was living with a girl who never came out of her room and always went home on the weekends,” Szopinski said. “It wasn’t too bad, until she started waking up at 4 a.m. every day and started slamming doors and listening to her TV really loud.”

Szopinski said her roommate never cleaned the bathroom and expected the room to look nice but never bothered to help with the costs.

“One night, she came back from home and knocked off my fish tank,” Szopinski said. “It shattered and spilled water everywhere. She apologized and agreed to help pay for a new tank, but I never saw the money.”

This year, Szopinski said she lives with roommates who never clean, and she has to leave notes around her suite to get them to tidy up.

“One of my roommates leaves so much hair in the shower that it looks like a dog blew up,” Szopinski said. “Also, I always have to replace the toilet paper, because they leave the empty roll just sitting there.”

Jovan Williams, a freshman music performance major, had his share of issues with a roommate he lived with last semester.

“My roommate last semester caused so many problems,” Williams said. “I would catch him looking at my personal information and going through my things.”

Williams said his roommate would eat his food in the room without asking, which prompted him to move out and get a room of his own.

A roommate that Noah Chubb, a senior music composition major, had last year was so bad that it caused him to move into his own room, much like Williams did.

“I don’t want to get too personal,” Chubb said. “Let’s just say he was very explicit with the things he did and inconsiderate of the extent of his ‘personal’ activities.”

Siobhan Doherty, a sophomore sociology major, had a roommate last year who would leave food everywhere.

“I would find half-eaten food just laying around the room and rotting,” Doherty said. “She even left a cucumber in my fridge that ended up rotting.”

Doherty said she did not notice it at first because she spent a lot of time at her girlfriend’s place, but eventually it got to be too much to handle.

Amber Svoboda, a junior foreign languages major, is new to Eastern this semester. She has not experienced any particular issues, but some things on her floor in Stevenson Hall have bothered her.

“I have my own room, which helps a lot,” Svoboda said. “One thing I have noticed, though, is that one end of the hall is always significantly louder than the other, especially on weekends.”

Svoboda said she has never lived in a residence hall before, so it is something she is trying to get used to.

“It is more of a surprise than anything,” Svoboda said.

Andrew Paisley can be reached at 581-2812 or at abpaisley@eiu.edu.