Roommates, like hard-to-understand TAs, freakishly difficult multiple-choice questions and $100 course packets, are a ubiquitous part of the college aesthetic.

Though the above experiences are all bad, roommates can be a positive, enriching part of your college career. If you're lucky, your roommate is a friend or someone you get assigned by chance who ends up offering you relationship advice and helps you with your excel spreadsheets.

Or, you could end up with a roommate who steals your debit card and buys porn with it. Unfortunately, senior Erik Luthy had a friend of the latter variety.

Luthy and his roommate, who will be referred to as X, were randomly thrown together in a Lander double room, though Luthy doesn't know why, because in retrospect they had almost nothing in common. And although Luthy didn't have delusions that X would bake him cookies and fold his laundry, he thought their relationship would at least be amiable.

He thought wrong.

"I had 8:30 classes," Luthy said, describing one thing that bothered him. "I wanted to be in bed by 1 or 2, but he [the roommate] stayed out until 4 a.m. We didn't really see eye-to-eye."

Another thing they didn't see eye-to-eye on was dinner time. Luthy liked to eat at a normal hour. X liked to bring his entourage of buddies to the room and make hot dogs at 4 a.m. But these were just minor inconveniences compared to the night when X brought a girl to the room.

Luthy woke from a night of slumber hearing sloppy kisses and something else. He asked X and his lady friend to leave the room.

Luthy said X seemed mad. Later he would find out how mad.

It all went down hill from there. Two months into co-inhabitation, Luthy noticed a strange $40 transaction on his credit card statement.

"I'm not a well-paid individual," Luthy said. "When $40 goes missing, I really miss it."

He went to his bank to investigate his missing funds, where he had the teller call the number on his bank statement, and after asking the person who answered the phone what he bought, he was told he had purchased some gay porn. Thankfully, his bank was understanding.

"I told the banker it wasn't mine," Luthy said. "We got a chuckle out of it, and they refunded it. I filled out some paperwork on who I thought it was."

Luthy had an idea of who it was, alright.

He moved to a different floor in Lander that day.

Monique Lacoste teaches interpersonal communication at the UW, and said having a roommate presents you with the need to develop relationship skills that will be important for the rest of your life. She thinks roommates should set up ground rules upon first moving in. Though the no-stealing rule may seem like an obvious one, maybe better communication could have helped Luthy.

Sophomore Holly Herrick said she shared a lot of laughter and homework-procrastinating midnight chats with her roommate freshman year, and she said open communication was key to getting along.

She and her roommate, assigned at random, e-mailed each other basic questions before moving in, like bed times, study times and who was bringing the mini fridge.

"I'm glad I emailed her, because we were open and honest right from the beginning," Herrick said. "You can't be nervous and shy, because they're feeling the same way. Get everything out in the open and talk as soon as possible."

And though Herrick and her roommate don't talk anymore due to the fact they take different classes, "and she doesn't have Facebook," Herrick was thankful for the opportunity to get to know someone she otherwise wouldn't have.

"It was fun to meet someone new, even if we don't hang out now," she said. "The time that we did spend together was a lot of fun. I could have had a worse roommate."

If you want your roommate situation this year to end up more like Herrick's than Luthy's, Lacoste echoes the importance not only of honesty, but basic consideration. "As with any relationship, being a good roommate requires thoughtfulness and taking the time to communicate," she said. "Only through consistent and competent communication can you meet the challenge of adjusting to the habits of other people."

[Reach reporter Erin Hicks at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]