A bunch of terrible things can happen when you have a roommate and/or rent out your property.

The common thread is that some people have no shame. See why this terrible roommate is no exception.

Roommate broke my can opener, so I bought a new one that I knew I could figure out how to use.

I rent rooms out in my house. I generally do it with friends or friends of friends.

A couple years ago, I had this roommate who was the ex-husband of a friend of mine and I felt sorry for him so gave him a discount on rent (he still fell behind, but that’s a different story).

This was a BIG mistake.

He was the worst roommate I’ve ever had for many reasons. But, for this account, he was pretty much living off of canned food when he wasn’t stealing my food. And he used my can opener every day.

Well, he broke it. And he came to me and TOLD me that as landlord, I needed to get a new can opener!

He was very proud of his Harvard PhD. He didn’t use it in his minimum-wage job, but he never avoided an opportunity to remind me that my PhD was from a state school and his was from Harvard.

Note, I was working in the career that used my PhD knowledge, and the program I went to has several Nobel Laureates. I’ve worked with some of them.

So he knew how to get back at the awful roommate.

My roommate was pretty much a failure in life and had slipped into leeching off others to survive. He had no marketable skills.

So I bought a new can opener. But, I got one that is really tricky to use. It basically works like an electric can opener but is manual.

I knew there was no way this incompetent roommate would be able to figure out how to use it.

He was right and he had the perfect response.

And he couldn’t. I’d find mangled cans in the garbage (not even recycling!).

He came to me and asked how to use the can opener.

My response: A guy with a Harvard degree should certainly be able to figure that out on his own, if I guy like me can.

Here is what folks are saying.

Getting a degree tends not to be the way to make an impact.

Haha like Frasier!

No, please don’t.

It’s SO rude and shameless.

I laughed out loud. I approve.

I hope it was easy to get rid of this guy.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.