The Big Bang Theory, at least in the initial seasons, is a show about that time in your life just after college, when marriage still seems like a distant milestone, and hanging out with your roommates is your whole life. To that end, the show features some of the best parts of living with your roommates, including extended game nights, daily take-outs and the full freedom granted by a carefree bachelor’s life with friends.
But things were not always hunky-dory. In fact, sometimes, the characters on the show were a royal pain in their roommates’ necks, as evidenced by the following incidents.
The Roommate Agreement
Few things have made Leonard’s life as unbearable as Sheldon’s roommate agreement. While it might seem that the agreement simply puts in contract form the equitable distribution of apartment resources between Leonard and Sheldon, in reality, the agreement is cleverly designed to divest the majority of roommate powers with Sheldon.
He gets to decide the room temperature, the schedule of which sci-fi shows or movies to watch, what food to order, when to go to the bathroom, and when to hand out strikes to offenders and even ban them from the apartment. Time and again, Sheldon has used the contract to make Leonard and everyone else’s life miserable.
Sheldon Plays The Bongos
When Sheldon developed a sudden, passionate desire to learn to play the bongos in the middle of a work-related breakdown, he thought midnight would be the perfect time to work on his music. With Leonard sleeping in the adjacent room.
When Leonard and Penny were rudely awakened, Sheldon showed no remorse for the inconvenience caused and continued to play the instrument until Leonard had to physically stop him.
Howard Refuses His Chores
Howard and Bernadette were married, which technically made them roommates for life. It has been repeatedly made clear that Howard is not a helpful husband around the house. Raised with a mother who did everything for him, Howard passed on the role of his caretaker to an unknowing Bernadette.
She frequently has to threaten him or blackmail him into doing his chores, which he then proceeds to do with very ill grace. Howard has gotten a little bit better in this department since becoming a father, but flashes of that old laziness still make themselves known from time to time.
Stuart Takes Over The House
When Stuart lived in Howard and Bernadette’s house after he became homeless, he was a great help around the house. But he still rubbed the couple the wrong way with some of his habits.
The most discomfiting one was bringing his girlfriend over to the house, and actually proceeding to get intimate with her while Howard and Bernadette were sitting in the room below. It was one of the incidents that led to both Howard and Bernadette strongly hinting to Stuart that it was time for him to move out.
Desecrating Sheldon’s Spot
One time Sheldon was away from his apartment, and Leonard and Penny were making out on the couch. That was when it occurred to Penny to really heat things up with the ultimate taboo act: make out in Sheldon’s spot on the couch.
They then proceeded to do so, something that would have almost certainly caused Sheldon to have a heart attack were he there to witness it until the sound of the doorbell mercifully interrupted their depraved act of wanton debauchery. Then there was the time the gang spilled fluid on Sheldon’s spot and went to great lengths to hide the fact from him but to no avail.
Blackmailing Leonard Over Priya
Priya moving in with Leonard was seen as a betrayal of trust by Sheldon since it went against the roommate agreement, and Priya was clever enough to find ways to circumvent the conditions set by the contract. Sheldon finally resorted to threatening to tell Priya’s parents that she was dating Leonard if he did not sign a new agreement giving Sheldon even more power over what went on in the apartment.
Priya then had to threaten Leonard with a breakup if he did not cave into Sheldon’s demand. And thus Leonard was forced to comply. Can you imagine having a roommate who would threaten to undo your relationship in such an underhanded manner? Sheldon was lucky Leonard didn’t walk out on him and the rest of the gang didn’t ostracize him.
Howard Yelling At His Mother
Howard and his mother were technically roommates up until Howard finally decided to move out to live with Bernadette. While living with his mother, Howard was famous for his long, involved shouting matches with her.
During the course of those loud arguments, Howard repeatedly made fun of his mother’s weight in front of his friends, called her a crazy lady, and told her no one was interested in meeting her or being with her. This despite his mother doting on him and catering to his every need. Really, it was terrible behavior, any way you look at it.
Taking Leonard’s Toy
When Penny bought a transporter toy for Sheldon, she bought one for Leonard as well. Sheldon promptly broke his, and after a brief struggle with his conscience, switched his broken toy with Leonard’s working model.
The rest of the episode played out like a scene from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-tale Heart, with Sheldon struggling with a desire to come clean to Leonard about what he had done against a desire to hold on to the toy.
Penny Throwing Away Leonard’s Stuff
When Penny and Leonard finally moved in together, Leonard was over the moon. Until he realized that Penny had been secretly throwing away his most prized toys, like his cosplay costumes and collectible figurines. When Penny found out that Leonard knew about it, she was unmoved.
Instead of apologizing for throwing away stuff that Leonard had paid for and prized highly, she merely stated that she was going to continue throwing away stuff from his possessions that she did not deem worthy of their apartment.
Raj And Sheldon’s Prank War
For a brief period when Sheldon and Raj were working together on a project at the university, they got into a heated argument that devolved into a prank war over who got to take up more space in their office room.
Insults were thrown at each other, petty remarks were scrawled on the boards, snakes and giant tables were brought into the equation, and the two generally behaved like a couple of grade-schoolers instead of scholars at a prestigious research facility.
