You arrive fresh-faced and bright-eyed at your dormitory, offering your friendship and futon to a complete stranger. Opposite you is your new roommate, poised to be your next best friend or the biggest headache of the semester. In the coming months, you might become too acquainted with his or her snore, your closet might be raided and everything you thought you knew about hygiene might be questioned.

Roommate horror stories are easy to come by, and the following MSU students couldn't find common ground with their bunkmates. They might have come from similar towns and probably ate the same dorm food and slept in the same lumpy beds, but it made no difference. From the cruel to the unusual, here are some of their roommate misadventures.

The silent spy

Supply chain management senior Chris Dunn had a roommate while he was a student at Hope College who didn't want to miss a thing while he was away at class.

"He would go to class, and he'd put on a Web cam and tape me doing daily activities — of me walking around or having people over," he said.

Dunn can only guess why his roommate wanted to watch him, he said.

"I think it is just because he enjoyed seeing what other people do," he said.

"He told me this the day I moved out — I didn't know the entire semester he was doing it."

The underwear lounger

Genetics sophomore Kristy Tomasko's roommate spent more time in her underwear than she did fully clothed during her freshman year in Emmons Hall.

"We got along at first, and then she started habits that she probably did at home," she said.

The most disturbing of these habits, she said, was her roommate's tendency to lounge in their room and walk through the halls in just a bra and underwear.

Tomasko said many of her friends first sighted her roommate during her underwear lounge time.

"They would just give me a look like 'Is this normal?'" Tomasko said.

"And I was like, 'Don't worry, she does that sometimes.'"

But Tomasko said she adapted quickly.

"In the beginning, I was uncomfortable, but then I just got used to it because that's just how she rolled."

The architect

No-preference sophomore Chad Britten shared his freshman dorm room in Akers Hall with a student who made robots out of cardboard boxes.

"I'd walk in and he would be doing this weird stuff, and I would go into my own section (of our room) and ignore it," he said.

"I came in and he was cutting up a box and was like 'Yeah, I'm just making robots.' I didn't see what he did with them."

His roommate also made use of Starburst candy wrappers.

"I'd come in to use his printer and I would see his Starbursts in his Ziploc bag, color-coded," he said.

"He made each separate Starburst wrapper into a crane and kept them on the windowsill."

Britten never warmed up to his roommate's hobbies.

"It gave me a funny story to tell, but I didn't consider living with him after," he said.

The e-hater

Chemistry sophomore Megan Fidler shared a room with a female student last year in Holmes Hall who threw out her belongings and accused her of stealing.

"She accused me of using her shampoo and watered down mine as a punishment, and took her TV home because she didn't want me to watch it."

Fidler said her roommate also insulted her on Facebook.com.

"One of the Jewish holidays fell on her birthday, and on her Facebook profile she said it was the best present, because it meant I was going home," said Fidler, who is Jewish.

Fidler said she took the experience as a lesson in dealing with an unpleasant situation.

"It wasn't a great year, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," she said.

The escape artist

Hospitality business senior Patrick Rodemeyer admitted he was the bad guy in the dorm room he shared two years ago in McDonel Hall.

A month into the semester, he moved out in less than an hour, unannounced, when his roommate briefly stepped out.

"I'm the worst roommate ever," he said.

With the help of five friends and three trucks, Rodemeyer tore down his loft, loaded up his appliances and emptied his belongings out of the room — a scheme his sister suggested.

"I was like, 'How can I do this? I'm not confrontational,' and she thought it would be funny if I just disappeared," he said.

Rodemeyer had decided to move out because he couldn't stand his roommate's phone calls to Hong Kong in the middle of the night.

"Shouting into the phone at 3 a.m. got old, but I'm sure I was just as charming," he said.

Guilt set in, however, and Rodemeyer returned a few weeks later to apologize for his unannounced departure.

"I felt so bad, he was a very nice guy," he said.

The shower rebel

During the 2005 spring semester, economics sophomore Eziaha Adibe found natural remedies for a problem in her room in Akers Hall.

"My first roommate smelled really bad," she said.

"I ended up telling her to take a shower, but after that I guess she just rebelled."

Adibe said she tried several ways of making the room smell better.

"I started dumping eucalyptus on the floor everywhere, and I would boil tea," she said.

"But she still smelled really bad, it was really hard to get through. But she's a really nice person, she's in my Facebook."

The band butcher

General business administration and pre-law sophomore Aron Jankowski lived with a saxophone player in Phillips Hall last year who fiercely guarded his marching band uniform.

"He would freak out and threaten people," Jankowski said.

"He threatened to stab a kid with a knife because he touched his band uniform."

Jankowski said some people in their hall were afraid of his roommate because of his sudden mood swings and angry threats.

"He would come in late at night, incoherent, and come toward my bed and tell me to get out of my own room, or try to pick a fight."

Still, Jankowski said he didn't take his former roommate's mood shifts too seriously.

"He said a lot but didn't do any of it — they were fun and safe mood swings."

Amy Oprean can be reached at opreanam@msu.edu.