I live in an apartment complex in which people can lease a room in a four room apartment and share the kitchen and living room with the other tenants, which they may or may not have met previously. I moved in with two friends but for a long time there was an empty room in our apartment. Until, out of the blue someone opens our front door. There was our new roommate, an Australian international student who was going to attend to our university for a semester. Although surprised we decided to be nice. After all, we are international students as well and we knew it can be difficult the first days. It turns out that for him it was not difficult at all, since the first night he asked if he could have “some friends over.” We complied because we were trying to be nice and because when we have some friends over we usually just chat for a while and do not bother anyone. However, this was not the case, his “friends,” which he had only met that day, and himself got wasted and loud. At some point my roommate went out to retrieve the tv from the living room since we feared they would break it in their drunkenness (the tv belonged to the my friends and I). Next day everything was a mess. He tried to “clean” it, but you do not clean spilled beer with only towel paper unless you like the smell of cheap bar. My roommate and I had to clean everything because he was too busy in the pool area. Anyhow, this must give an idea of how living with him felt like.
Now, answering the other part of the question. One day he had one of his usual “surprise” parties, in which he just invited people over to trash the apartment without asking for permission or anything. I was in my room, pissed off as usual and I decided I would take revenge. I could not sleep that day because of the noise.
Next day I woke up earlier than usual and connected my pc to the tv in the living room, which was conveniently just in front of his room. I searched one of my favorite anime, ‘fairy tail.’ If you know the original Japanese voices, you may know where this is going. I began making breakfast, with my friends which unlike me are early birds. While making breakfast, what is more satisfying that turning the volume all the way up and listening to the sweet voice of ‘Happy,’ the high-pitched talking cat from fairy tail?
Imagine waking up hang-over, after having slept probably two hours to something like this
Video of ‘Happy’ from You Tube.
Oh God he was pissed. He woke up and came out telling me to turn the volume down. I said: ‘why?’ but my pronunciation must have sound like ‘what?’ for him. He said: ‘Why is this so loud? You cannot even hear me! Turn it down! I answered: ‘why?’ again smiling a little bit. He screamed the same thing and I turned the volume down a little bit to hear better what he was saying, to which he turned away and proceeded walking to his room probably believing it was over. I turned the volume even louder as soon as he did this. He came back and said: ‘didn’t you hear what I said? I cannot sleep with that noise!’ I laughed and said: ‘well, I did not sleep yesterday either.’ He looked at me with a frown: ‘So because I did not let you sleep yesterday, you are not going to let ME sleep today?’ I smiled once more: ‘Oh, I did not say that. I just want to hear my tv show.’ He went back to his room frustrated.
Why he did not do anything? My two roommates, one of which is my boyfriend were standing there without saying a word. They both are quiet and really passive people who have probably stood out for themselves handful of times in their lives. However, they both work out… a lot. I am , on the other hand, a little 1.50 m girl which is very less passive and much more aggressive. I could say this is the most ‘passive’ thing I have done when someone was actively messing up with me. However, I only said something because my roommates were there since that guy looked like the only thing that prevented him from smashing my face in the counter top was their presence. He was frustrated, but I was utterly satisfied.
Edit to clarify: This was not my go to #1 solution. We talked to him since day one. As I mentioned he had a party as soon as he moved in. After my bf and I cleaned his mess, we talked directly to him and told him that we did not like what he did and he said that he would ask us next time. He never asked us. We talked to him countless of times after this. He just ignored our words even after my roommates and I talked to the manager to change apartments just to run away from him. We did not change apartments because by the time our infinite patience was over it was November and he was moving out in December, so we just counted the days.