Weird Mythical Creatures
Montgomery County
ByLorenzo Tanos/
It may have happened in college or during your unmarried years as a young adult — you take in a roommate, and they turn out to be the worst kind of slob imaginable. They don't do the dishes. They leave the toilet seat up. They spend all day watching TV or playing video games instead of getting a job to help pay the bills. "Worst Roommate Ever" is not about those people. It goes without saying that the people featured on this Netflix docuseries all ended up committing acts far more illegal — and violent — than those you'd expect from your average irresponsible roommate.
Episodes 4 and 5 of "Worst Roommate Ever" highlight the misdeeds of Jamison Bachman, a Pennsylvania man who conned his way into rooming with various people before he would make their lives miserable through threats, gaslighting, bullying, and his uncanny knowledge of the legal system. He also murdered his brother Harry on November 3, 2017, and died by suicide one month later while awaiting trial. That said, the real heroes of these episodes are the three brave women — just three of the many people Bachman roomed with and victimized — who agreed to appear on the docuseries. Arleen Hairabedian, Sonia Acevedo, and Alex Miller all had harrowing tales to share on "Worst Roommate Ever," and they lived to tell them in full detail.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Arleen Hairabedian was once in a relationship with Jamison Bachman
Netflix
Unlike the other two victims interviewed on "Worst Roommate Ever," Arleen Hairabedian of Queens, New York, was in a romantic relationship with JamisonBachman for some time.She revealed that she met Bachman in 2005 and was captivated by his fun personality and sense of humor. At that time, the would-be serial squatter had just started teaching history at New Rochelle's Thornton-Donovan School (via NY Mag), and he had told Hairabedian that he had a law degree but didn't pass the bar. All was well until about three to four months later, as Bachman's young students started complaining about his difficulthomework and apparently difficult personality.
Hairabedian left Bachman after he angrily reacted to her suggestion that he take it easy on the kids and tone down his ambitions to be the "next dean" of Thornton-Donovan. But she accepted his profuse apologies a few weeks later, and when Bachman was fired in June 2006 and evicted from the faculty apartment, she took him in, agreeing to let him stay at her place for two months until he got back on his feet. "I just wanted to help him out as a friend. I cared about him and his dog and Ikind of felt bad for him,"she said on "Worst Roommate Ever."
As NY Mag pointed out, two months eventually stretched out to about six years, and throughout that period, Bachman paid only one month of rent.One month.
Hairabedian has a 'nice apartment in a nice area' now, but she's done with roommates
Netflix
As bad as it was that Jamison Bachman paid so little rent while overstaying at Arleen Hairabedian's apartment, his actions toward the end of 2010 were much worse.While the two ex-partners were arguing about the bills, Hairabedian slapped Bachman, and he retaliated by grabbing her by the throat; they later filed protection orders against each other despite living under the same roof. She and her landlord, Peter Cernauskas, then filed to have Bachman evicted, but he would go to the police and falsely accuse her of threatening him with a knife. The cops believed him, and Hairabedian was forbidden to go near her own apartment — effectively, Bachman was now Cernauskas' tenant, and he allegedly reacted by running up the water bill, throwing kitty litter into Cernauskas' yard, and filing myriad complaints against him. He also took some of Hairabedian's cats to kill shelters while she was away.
Bachman was finally evicted in February 2012, and when Hairabedian asked to have her two surviving cats back, he refused. He would take these cats with him as he moved from house to house. Toward the end of "Worst Roommate Ever,"Hairabedian said that it took her a while before she got over the fact she lost her home to the person she was sharing it with, adding that she decided to appear on the docuseries because people don't believe something like that happened to her. "I want people out there to know that this can really happen to the strongest person,"said Hairabedian, who concluded by saying that she has a "nice apartment in a nice area," but is, quite understandably, no longer open to the idea of having roommates.
Sonia Acevedo chose 'successful lawyer' Bachman over a young couple with child
Netflix
Early in 2012, Sonia Acevedo had just ended a relationship with her partner of 10 years, who had been helping her with her mortgage payments. With her partner having moved out, the Queens resident was at risk of losing her home, so she put up an ad on Craigslist, which got two responses, one from a "successful lawyer." That individual was Jamison Bachman, and Acevedo chose him over a young couple with a small child. Bachman wrote her a $1,400 check on the spot, and his first three months as her roommate were "perfect,"as she related to NY Mag.Acevedo was also impressed by Bachman's "deep connection with animals,"noting in Episode 4 of "Worst Roommate Ever" that this was the main reason they got along.
With Acevedo lured into a false sense of comfort, Bachman stopped paying the rent, and when confronted about it, he would assure her that he understood ... or make up some wild excuse, such as his tutoring check getting sent to the wrong address. This forced her to work extra hours to pay the rent Bachman wasn't paying, and by September 2012, she'd had enough. Acevedo filed to have Bachman evicted, only to be told that "he has the right to stay at that apartment for three [more] months until he is legally evicted."
Acevedo lost her apartment to foreclosure and is now working on rebuilding her credit
Netflix/YouTube
In another attempt to make ends meet amid her issues with JamisonBachman, Sonia Acevedo rented out her living room to a woman with two dogs. Feeling threatened by Bachman, the new roommate soon moved out, and when Bachman was served his eviction papers, he allegedly became more unpleasant toward Acevedo, making aggressive threats and acting as if he could "snap at any time,"as she shared on "Worst Roommate Ever."
When Acevedo confirmed that Bachman had indeed been going into her room while she was at work, she politely knocked on the door of his room and revealed what she knew. Bachman responded by swinging a chair at her and goading her to fight, but Acevedo stood up for herself, emphasized that she knows how to defend herself, and left the house to go to church. Hurricane Sandy threw a spanner in the works, striking just as Bachman's court date for his eviction was approaching, but when Acevedo returned from her mother's house in Brooklyn some two weeks after the storm hit, she discovered that her troublesome roommate had quietly left the apartment with all his belongings.
Not long after Bachman moved out, the bank foreclosed on Acevedo's apartment, and she was emotional as she admitted on "Worst Roommate Ever" that it still hurts to think about how she lost the place she once called her "forever home." Nowadays, she's still trying to rebuild her credit and is "trying to be better about healing [herself]"; she also mentioned that she now lives by the motto, "don't take care of anyone else until you can take care of yourself."
Alex Miller meets 'Jed Creek,' the roommate from hell
Netflix
After Alex Miller's roommate suddenly moved out in early 2017, the Philadelphia resident needed help paying the bills, and fast. Enter Jed Creek, a New York-based Pennsylvania native looking for "affordable housing" while taking care of his elderly mother and a brother who, per Miller, had "problems with lawsuits." (NY Mag notes that Creek's brother was supposedly dealing with Hepatitis C complications.)
He seemed friendly, intelligent, and well-spoken, and everything seemed to check out — Creek was a lawyer by trade who was working as a tutor at that time, and he had a legitimate-looking website. Miller admitted feeling uncomfortable with Creek's direct approach at first, but since he was willing to write her a check, fill out the paperwork, and move into her apartment on the same day that they met in person for the first time, she agreed.
It didn't take long, though, before Miller started to notice something was amiss with this Jed Creek fellow. For one, he didn't just move in with his dog — he brought his cat with him and said nothing about this beforehand. Not an issue for most people, but definitely one if you're allergic to cats, as Miller admitted she is. But the real issues started when he repeatedly avoided signing documents required by the property management company. Then, he rearranged her furniture without permission and used all her chairs to create a makeshift "desk and table" for his room. Pressed for an explanation, Creek purportedly gaslighted Miller by saying that it was "ridiculous"to have six chairs for an apartment shared by only two people.However, the worst was yet to come from this strange, increasingly difficult man ...
Miller felt guilty for the Bachman brothers' deaths, but has since moved on
Netflix
With the help of her mother, Alex Miller found out that her bizarre new roommate "Jed Creek" was actually named Jamison Bachman, and that he had a history of squatting in strangers' properties and using his legal knowledge to lay claim to their homes. On May 1, 2017, Miller and several friends tried to drive Bachman away by holding a purposefully wild party, one with lots of drinking and smoking and loud rap music — Bachman hated the latter two things with a passion (as your typical cranky old boomer would), and the goal was to troll him so badly that he'd be forced to move out.
The next morning, an irate Bachman allegedly attacked Miller while she was brushing her teeth and attempted to choke her. When Miller confronted him in his bedroom, Bachman responded by continuing the assault, slamming the door on her leg at least 10 times and cutting it with a knife. He was later arrested and charged with aggravated assault and sent to jail twice, but in both instances, his brother Harry bailed him out. Meanwhile,Miller lived in fear despite her protection order against Bachman, knowing that her roommate, once free, could potentially kill her.
On December 8, 2017, while awaiting trial for HarryBachman'smurder, JamisonBachman was found dead in his cell. The ordeal was finally over, and while Miller told NY Mag that she felt guilty over the brothers' deaths, she ultimately moved on — this was something she reiterated when she was interviewed for "Worst Roommate Ever." Interestingly, NY Mag noted that she moved to a new apartment in August of that year, and wascarefully vetting potential roommates on the day she was interviewed, making absolutely sure she won't ever end up sharing another place with someone like Bachman.
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