This is the story of 4 strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives blogged about in order to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. The Real World: Chicago!

For the past 5 years, I’ve lived by myself, even choosing in college to live in a single room for a year and a half. That means I took out my own garbage, washed my own dishes, and put away everything. When I got my job in Chicago, I knew it was a financial necessity to have roommates; I also thought it would be a great idea to make new friends since Chicago is a new city to me. Overall, it’s been pretty good. My roomies and I all get along well, with only a few hiccups in the past six weeks.

We certainly couldn’t make good television, but we can make for a pretty darn good blog post. Here’s what’s happened so far that just might make producers pick up their cameras:

*The second night of living in my apartment, I was sitting on my couch enjoying my first-ever DVRed show, when in storms one of my roommates. She was a sobbing mess. She’d just caught her boyfriend sleeping with someone else. I consoled this stranger, supplied a hug, and gave her advice on getting over losers. Bonding moment!

*A week later, I’m peacefully sleeping at 1:30am, when into the house busts roommate #2. She’s screaming at her boyfriend, “I can’t believe you flirted with her! And by the way, you owe me $300. If you don’t pay me, I’ll take you to small claims court, Judge Judy style.”

*My landlord is the oldest, randomest man I ever did meet. His house was 96˚ and his wife is a chimney. He told me that the only way to get over the squeaky floors that were waking me up was to imagine sleeping through it; after 10-14 days I’d be cured! Welp, he was wrong.

*Heard this one the other day: “Why the f*ck would someone send me a Christmas card of their baby? I want a picture of my friend, not their f*cking baby!!”

*I’ve lived in a foreign country and I know what it’s like to be in a room full of people speaking a language that I don’t know a lick of. In Asia, it’s not rude because I was the foreigner, but in the comfort of your American home, it’s rude when there are others around who don’t know the language. It makes it seem like they’re talking about you and usually not nice things. I’m sure that’s not the case, but you just don’t know. Please speak in English, you know how.

*The notes, oh the notes! It was too late one night to take the empty toilet paper roll to the recycling downstairs, so I left it on the bathroom counter. The next morning, I woke to a handwritten note ON the toilet paper roll: “Please take this to the can downstairs <3”

*I was warned of this before I moved in, but we have a chore list. One of the roommates made it, never cleaning the bathroom. “I’m just really good at cleaning the kitchen.”