When you first come to college you’re scared but you’ve got so many expectations swirling inside your head. You’ve seen the movies; you know how this is going to be.

Now it’s two years later and you realize college is nothing like the movies.

For starters you didn’t have to share a room smaller than your closet back home with a stranger that was fated to become your best friend after a dramatic fight over a boy. You didn’t have to fight the evil queen on campus because your roommate was the evil queen.

Welcome to The Bad Roommate Chronicles.

You’re sitting at home, you just finished your homework and now you’re hungry. Time for some KD. You go upstairs and find that the big pot, the only one big enough to cook a whole box is dirty and has been since last week when your roommate used it, before retreating to her bedroom like a hermit.

It’s not that it’s hard to clean, or crusted with unsavoury and deterring burnt food; your roommate is just lazy. Sure there’s tons of homework, a job and a social life – but that’s no excuse.

And it’s not the first time this has happened, or the second, or the third. So it’s time for a plan. You decide to call a house meeting, get the other roommates in the house involved. Chances are, unless they’re lacking sight, a sense of smell and whatever gene allows you to feel embarrassment because your home is such a mess, they’ll be fed up too.

So sit the messy roommate down and tell it to them straight. But be nice, as she may not realize her condition: chronic messiness. But don’t be so nice that they don’t realize the seriousness of the situation. You’re paying the same massive amount of money to be living in the house as they are. You deserve to be happy with your environment and your gag reflex deserves a brake.

So the house meeting is adjourned and it seems to have gone well . . . boy, were you wrong.

Not only are there more dirty dishes now – the house is dirty in general. Granola bars and their wrappers mashed in to the couch and dirty socks left on the table. Your house is turning into a biological wasteland where HAZMAT suits are starting to look like a good idea.

It’s gotten so bad guests are starting to faint at the door due to the smell and the flies alone.

It’s time for a new, more forceful house meeting. Even though holding a meeting didn’t go so well last time, don’t rule it out completely. While it’s still not a good idea to gang up for a bash and dash—telling them their being a bad roommate without telling them why—things have got to change.

The house is starting to make Charlie Sheen’s reputation look clean. Tell them this is the last warning, there is no “three strikes you’re out” leniency.

Expect arctic-cold stares and the silent treatment. Expect things to be tense. Whatever you do don’t expect compliance or maturity. College kids aren’t that mature to begin with so, how much do you think you’re going to get out of someone who has the cleanliness of a five-year-old?

And reporting the roommate won’t fix the problem. Every five-year-old knows how to say, “I didn’t take the cookies.” The meeting will go splendidly, with everyone acting pleasant and mature.

Too bad it’s all a ruse to extend the amount of time she has to create something that looks like it belongs on Hoarders.

It’s not like another supervised meeting is going to happen in the near future. Trying to get college kids and a supervisor together is like Christmas; it only happens once a year—it’s a miracle. Before the next meeting rolls around you may be buried under a sea of trash, hoping next year’s tenants bring fishing poles.