Roomates

I have three roomates in my apartment; Pablo, the oldest who works at some sort of electronic/computer store, Alfonso Ricardo, who works as a bank teller to the best of my knowledge, and Estela, who is a nanny for a few children.  We have such different schedules from one another that I don´t see then very often.  When we are home at the same time we are either in our rooms or they are with their friends or significant others.  None of us is so buddy-buddy that we hang out together outside of the apartment.  Conversation is brief and little between us, usually, "Hello," "See you later," or "How are you?" are our most common phrases.  This doesn´t bother me at all though because we each have our own live and appear to be very different from one another.

My oldest roomie, Pablo, acts as if he owns the apartment.  I think he has been here the longest of all of us but not by much AND he pays the exact same amount of money for rent as the rest of us.  His hobby is art and the apartment walls are decorated with all of his paintings.  As an artist though I have never met someone SO obsessive compulsive about order and cleanliness in the communal areas of the apartment (kitchen, dining room, living room, terrace and hallway).   We have this small, white eraser board hung on the refridgerator.  When I arrived and was still learning about where things went in the apartment I would get messages written on the board such as, "Used paper towels should be thrown away in the natural waste bin, not the cardboard/paper waste bin."  I didn´t mind these messages because I didn´t know better and wanted to do things correctly.  Though as the months have passed I have noticed that the messages from Pablo (I know it´s him because of his handwritting) have gotten more and more anal. 

A few examples,  one day he wrote in Spanish, "There are crumbs under the kitchen table and a spoon covered in yogurt that has been in the sink for two days..." or once he hung a spoon with a dirty spot on it in the place where the dry-erase marker went with an arrow pointed to it saying, "Clean your dishes better."  It´s like every day there is a new message about some other complaint of his.  The other roomates and I will write messages such as, "The internet bill has arrived," or, "I am having friends over for dinner this Friday," but none as annoying and caddy as Pablo.  Yesterday I came home to a message written in English....so it was obviously to ME since my other roomies don´t speak English!  It said, "Keep the order and clean."  First of all this message isn´t grammatically correct but also I had NO idea in reference to what he was talking about?!  My sister has been staying at my apartment for the last week off and on but all her things are in my room.  In addition, every time we make dinner together we clean everything up and put things away.  My sister and I were so confused as to what he was referring to.  We still have no idea what he was talking about.

I´m not the kind of person to angrily confront someone but I am also not as passive aggressive as he is by writting notes instead of telling me something to my face.  If I find a dirty dish I simply reclean it myself.  I´m not going to make such a big deal about it!  In addition, Pablo´s girlfriend is over at the apartment ALL THE TIME.  He can hardly argue about me having my sister here for a week when she is gone during the day and she isn´t making a mess.  I wish I had it in me to go up to him and say, "If the other roomies and I are SO messy and disorganized to your standards than why don´t you move in ALONE with your girlfriend???....than you wouldn´t have any of these problems anymore."

It´s making me miss very much living alone or living with people that I can actually tolerate.  In this situation though I am going to be the better person and not let it get to me and not say anything to him about it either.  If I were to write some caddy message on the board directed towards HIM, than I would simply be stooping down to his level.  I am just thankful that I only have a little over two more months to deal with him!!!!