As I write this, he has no shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, body wash, or cologne of any sort.

This story starts my freshman year at Cornell. I move in, meet my roommate, and instantly, we're best friends. Now, I know what you may be thinking. This is not a "good roommate turns bad" story.

He (we'll call him Greg) and I are good friends to this day, and we plan to live together for all 4 years we're at Cornell. Anyways, we hit it off, then we meet another guy, we'll call him Karl, and we get to be good friends with him. Finally, we meet up with Tim, our fourth friend. We got to be friends with him, and despite the occasional story about him not showering for a couple days, or the fact that his room was somewhat messy, we decide to live with him our sophomore year.

I suppose the problems really began when we signed a lease requiring $450 rent and $450 security at the time of signing. The people we were renting from were very nice about giving us time to sort out our finances, but within a week, me, Karl, and Greg had all signed the lease and handed over $900.

Tim, on the other hand, took a month to sign the lease, with us bugging him every day, and only ended up paying the $450 security deposit. The landlord was very nice and let him slide and said he could pay the rest when he took possession in the fall. Remember that, it'll be important later.

During the summer, he called me out of the blue to ask if he could bring his dog. I wasn't a big fan of the idea, but I (as well as Karl and Greg) am nice, so I said okay, as long as he took care of the dog, fed it, walked it, etc. So we move in.

First off, he didn't bring anything to the house in terms of dishes, basic cleaning supplies, even basic hygiene supplies. As I write this, on Oct. 31st, he has no shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, body wash, or cologne of any sort. So, as you can imagine he smells.

However, that doesn't even begin to describe it. He leaves food all over his room. There are a number of Karl's and my dishes that have been in his room for months, that I don't even want back now.

He once didn't shower for NINE DAYS and his average now is one every five days. His room has a disgusting reek of BO that is so powerful that your eyes start watering when you enter the room. His smell has started to permeate to the rest of the house, and he refuses to even close his door to stop the spread of the smell.

He hasn't even fully unpacked, and his room has never once been cleaned. His dog is barely housetrained, and judging by the number of times it has taken a crap on our bathroom floor, there is probably some moldy dog poo in that room.

This brings us to the dog. He never takes care of it, and he has not taken it for a walk this year. His idea of exercise is to stumble back home drunk at 3 in the morning, and then send his dog out to go to the bathroom. That's the only time the dog leaves the house. Multiple times, he has been gone for almost 24 hours, and hasn't fed or taken the dog out in that time. Since we all don't want the dog to die, we end up taking care of it, and we have yet to get a thank you.

Here's where it gets worse though. His grandparents come up for a visit, and as he is leaving the house with them, he mentions that he needs to pick up a FLEA COLLAR for the dog. Karl, Greg and I have all been getting bites, but we were just chalking that up to mosquitoes. The kicker is that the only reason I find out about this is because my girlfriend happens to be in the living room and overhears Tim as he's leaving. HE NEVER TOLD ANY OF US ABOUT FLEAS!

Tim puts the flea collar on and bathes the dog once in anti-flea shampoo. 2 weeks later the flea collar is gone. 4 weeks later, the fleas are back, and this time, again, Tim doesn't tell anyone until we confront him about the fact that we're getting bitten again. After this, we forbid the dog from being on the furniture or out in the house. Yet we constantly return from class to find the dog lying on the couch with Tim next to him. Our couches are probably flea-infested.

Now, it's important to note that M has pretty much stopped going to class by now. He's technically a member of a fraternity, so he drinks there all night and stumbles back in late, and doesn't wake up til 3 or 4 pm the next day. This means he's never around to clean the house, so we end up cleaning all of it and leaving him some little task like: take out the trash. He fails at that.

There are literally hundreds of other things I could go into, but here's the big kicker. It's October 31st. Remember when I said the landlord was very nice? Yeah.

Tim has been taking advantage of that kindness, and as of 10-31-07, has not paid a single cent of rent or utility money. NOT A PENNY. He owes the landlord over $1400, not to mention apparently owing money to his frat brothers, and to the University. Thankfully, we all signed individual leases, so we aren't legally responsible for his share of the rent, but the longer he holds out, the worse the landlord will treat us.

It's gotten to the point where we don't even talk to him, and we avoid him as much as possible. I never even thought such a bad roommate existed, but I have a feeling no matter who I live with, for the rest of my life, they will not be as bad as Tim, the man who singlehandedly sucked so much of the joy out of my sophomore year at Cornell.

P.S. At the end of the year, I'll probably post another story, detailing what occurs over the rest of the year. We're only two and a half months in.