One way not to deal with a roommate who tosses your leftovers: setting him on fire

By Leigh Kamping-Carder | October 23, 2014 - 2:59PM

We can pretty much all agree that touching your roommate’s food is a surefire way to sow discord in a shared household. (No less than Andrew W.K. copped to alienating his roomies by tossing their stinky cheese.) But here is one way not to deal with a flatmate who throws out your leftovers: douse him with nail polish remover and set him on fire.

That is allegedly the exact course of action that Melissa Dawn Sellers, 33, took after learning that her roommate, the 42-year-old Carlos Ortiz Jr., chucked her spaghetti and meatballs, according to news channel Bay News 9. "She was setting little objects on fire, then that turned into pouring nail polish remover all over him, and then all of a sudden, the lighter sparked and he lit on fire," one witness, a friend of Ortiz, tells the station. Ortiz reportedly took in Sellers—who has past arrests for battery and robbery, and has been charged with aggravated battery—after she was evicted.

Three completely unsurprising facts about this case: both Sellers and Ortiz had been drinking, the incident took place in the wee hours of the morning, and these people live in Florida.

For info on how to avoid this nightmare altogether:

Bonus: Gawker, which picked up the news, has turned the comments section on the post into an impromptu compendium of roommate horror stories.

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