Crime Docuseries ¡®Worst Roommate Ever¡¯ Is A Nightmare Come True For Those Who Live On Rent

For the uninitiated, Worst Roommate Ever is a true-crime documentary series that focuses on the unbelievable stories of housemates that are nothing short of a nightmare. It has first hand accounts of surviving victims and the law enforcement officers that were involved in the cases and eventually caught them.

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For most of the young generation, affording a house of their own is a big and unfulfilled ambition. With the cost of living reaching new heights, it¡¯s a far-fetched dream for many. In such a scenario, renting a house to live in seems like a feasible plan. However, with it comes several stories of hellish experiences of living with complete strangers-turned-roommates. It¡¯s a part and parcel of living on rent.

This series narrates four such harrowing tales that will scare the living daylights out of you. The reason why it hits hard is because it can happen to anybody!

The first case revolves around an old lady who seemed anything but predatory. Dorothea Puente was accused of killing at least 9 people. She was known as the ¡®Death House Landlady¡¯ in the 80s.

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Her initial impression of a kind grandmother is exactly where the deception lies. Apart from narrating her heinous crimes, we also get to know about her past life and glimpses of her childhood that could have been the root cause of it all. We are also made privy to her criminal acts that started from as early as when she was 19.

She accepted mentally ill patients and addicts as tenants and stole their social security checks after burying their bodies in her backyard. Yikes!

The second one was a classic case of an obsessive lover who couldn¡¯t handle rejection. KC Joy murdered his roommate because she didn¡¯t reciprocate his romantic advances.

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Maribel Ramos survived the Iraq war only to be slain by her obsessive and volatile roommate. The most unfortunate bit is that she had alerted the police of her doubts about Joy. However, help didn¡¯t reach on time and she met her ill-fated end in the most brutal way possible.

The third case revolved around Youssef Khater, a marathon runner cum con artist who frauded many people for money. Things turned for the worst when he attempted to murder his roommate Callie for alerting her friends of his crimes.

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Khater was a marathon runner who had been sponsored to run the length of Chile in order to break a record. He not only took the money without fulfilling the task, but also defrauded his housemates of cash. But it was his crimes against Callie Quinn, his roommate, that turned out to be the most heinous. Khater allegedly struck Quinn over the head with a toilet seat and buried her alive after offering to show her a new flat. This was because Quinn had told a friend that Khater owed her money. Quinn managed to save herself, and Khater was imprisoned.

They saved the worst and the most scary one for the last - a serial squatter who would move in with people and then refuse to leave or even pay the rent!

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It was this case that inspired the title of the series. Jamison Bachman had a scary modus operandi - he would move in with others and subsequently try to evict or cause problems by refusing to pay rent or leave.

He was a serial squatter. His prime goal wasn¡¯t to live rent free or derive materialistic gains, he seemed to get sadistic pleasure in displacing his roommates and making them suffer. He would demonstrate urgency as an excuse to move in and then use tenancy laws to his advantage and make the lives of his roommates a living hell. Four such cases were brought to light in this series.

Not his roommates but Bachman killed his brother Harry, stole his sister-in-law Caroline¡¯s car as well as her American Express card, and rented a room far away as a hideout. When the police found him, he surrendered and was charged with first and third-degree murder.

The court never heard the case because Bachman committed suicide in his cell at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in December 2017 before the trial.

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In conclusion, the takeaway isn¡¯t just a binge-watch session or a topic of discussion between friends but consider this as a learning. It¡¯s almost like a handbook of what to look out for when getting a roommate for yourself. Just like the recently released The Tinder Swindler portrayed - if it's too good to be true, it probably is!

(To read more such stories related to movies and shows releasing on OTTs, keep reading Indiatimes BINGE)