If your roommate is harassing you, the move is to get physically safe, start documenting every incident in writing, notify your landlord in writing, and then escalate to police, a protective order, or a civil or Fair Housing claim depending on what the behavior looks like. Each step builds on the one before it, and skipping the early ones weakens everything that comes after.
Make Yourself Safe First
Legal strategy is useless if you aren’t safe enough to carry it out. If your roommate has threatened you, destroyed your things, or become physically aggressive, treat physical safety as the first task.
Keep copies of your ID, lease, and financial records somewhere outside the home — a trusted friend’s place, a secure digital backup, or a bank safe deposit box. Pack a bag with essentials you can grab on the way out. Line up at least one person you can call at any hour who can either come to you or take you in for the night.
If violence, threats of violence, or stalking are involved, call 911. For ongoing situations that haven’t hit a crisis, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788) connects callers with advocates who help with safety planning, including when the person harassing you isn’t an intimate partner.
Keep a Written Record of Every Incident
Documentation is the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself. Every remedy below — landlord action, criminal charges, protective order, civil suit, Fair Housing complaint — turns on evidence.
Start a written log and update it after every incident. For each entry, write down the date, the time, the location, exactly what happened, what was said (direct quotes when you can), and who else was there. Store the log somewhere your roommate cannot reach, whether that’s a cloud account they don’t know about or a physical copy outside the home.
Save every threatening text, email, voicemail, and social media message. Screenshot full threads rather than isolated messages, and capture the sender’s name or number along with the date and time. Photos and video matter when there’s property damage or physical intimidation.
One warning before you record audio or video of your roommate. Federal law lets you record a conversation you’re part of without the other person’s consent, and most states follow that approach.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 – 2511 Roughly eleven states require every party to consent. Recording in violation of your state’s law can make the evidence inadmissible and expose you to criminal penalties. Check your state’s rule first.
Put Your Landlord on Notice in Writing
Most residential leases prohibit tenants from interfering with other tenants’ peaceful use of the property. Harassment usually violates that clause. Reporting it to your landlord in writing activates those provisions and creates a record that the landlord was told.
Send a written complaint — email is ideal because it timestamps itself — laying out the incidents with dates, descriptions, and copies of your supporting evidence. A clear written complaint gives the landlord both the information and the legal basis to act, whether that means a warning, lease consequences, or eviction of the offending tenant. Vague verbal complaints are easy to brush off. A documented written report is not.
Keep every exchange with the landlord in writing. If you speak by phone, follow up with an email summarizing the call. That paper trail does two things: it proves you reported the problem, and it shows whether the landlord responded. In many jurisdictions, a landlord who knows about harassment and does nothing can bear some legal responsibility for letting it continue. That matters even more if the harassment is based on a protected characteristic, as explained below.
When to Call the Police
A police report does something your own records can’t: it creates an official law enforcement file. Criminal harassment generally means a pattern of conduct intended to alarm, threaten, or torment another person, judged by a reasonable person standard. Rudeness and annoyance don’t clear that bar. Repeated threats, following you around the home, destroying your property, or any unwanted physical contact likely do.
When you file, give officers a clear factual account and hand over your documentation. They’ll decide whether the behavior meets the elements of a criminal offense under your state’s law. Even if no arrest follows, the report itself strengthens protective order petitions and civil claims, and it puts your roommate on notice that law enforcement has them on record.
If the behavior involves tracking your movements, repeatedly showing up where you are, or monitoring your devices, ask that the report specifically identify stalking. Stalking is a separate criminal offense in every state and often carries stiffer penalties than general harassment.
Getting a Protective Order
A protective order (also called a restraining order) is a court order that limits what your roommate can do. The court can order them to stop contacting you, stay a certain distance away, or vacate the shared residence. You file a petition in your local court, explain the harassment, and present your evidence.
Courts can usually issue a temporary order quickly, often within a day, without the other person present. That temporary order holds until a full hearing, typically scheduled within a few weeks, where both sides present their case. You’ll need to show that the harassment happened, that it’s likely to continue, and that it poses a real risk to your safety or well-being. Judges weigh the severity of the conduct, how often it occurred, and the impact on you.
The piece worth knowing: violating a protective order is itself a criminal offense. Once the order is in place, any violation gives police a clear basis to arrest. Filing fees vary, and many jurisdictions waive them for harassment or domestic violence petitions.
Suing in Civil Court
When harassment causes serious emotional distress or financial harm, you may have a civil claim. The most common one is intentional infliction of emotional distress, which requires conduct that was extreme and outrageous, intentional or reckless, and that caused you severe emotional harm. The bar is high. A single name-calling incident won’t meet it. A sustained campaign of threats, intimidation, and degradation can.
You may also have a claim for interference with your right to quiet enjoyment — the principle that every tenant is entitled to peaceful use of their home. When a roommate’s behavior drives you out of common areas or deprives you of sleep, that interference has legal weight.
Tangible harm strengthens the case. Therapy or medical records tying anxiety, depression, or PTSD to the harassment make the damage concrete. Financial losses — temporary housing, destroyed belongings, lost wages — are recoverable. Successful claims can produce money damages and, in some cases, a court order telling the harasser to stop or to leave.
Civil litigation costs time and money. Attorney fees, court costs, and the emotional load of a lawsuit are real. For situations where the harassment caused measurable harm and other steps haven’t worked, it may still be the most effective path to compensation.
If the Harassment Is Based on Race, Sex, Disability, or Another Protected Class
When your roommate targets you because of your race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability, federal law adds another layer. The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in the terms and conditions of renting a home, and harassment based on a protected characteristic qualifies.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – 3604
Federal regulations define hostile environment harassment as unwelcome conduct severe or pervasive enough to interfere with your use and enjoyment of your home. Courts look at the totality of the circumstances: frequency, severity, and context. A single incident can qualify if it’s extreme enough, and you don’t have to prove psychological or physical harm to show a hostile environment exists.3eCFR. 24 CFR 100.600 – Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment Harassment
The piece that matters for roommate situations is landlord liability. A housing provider who knows or should know about harassment based on a protected class, and who has the power to act, can be held legally responsible for failing to do so. That is why the written complaint to your landlord matters so much — it establishes knowledge. If the landlord does nothing afterward, you can file a Fair Housing Act complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or sue in federal court.3eCFR. 24 CFR 100.600 – Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment Harassment
What a Shared Lease Means for Your Money
Shared leases almost always create joint and several liability. That means the landlord can hold any one tenant responsible for the full rent and any damage, regardless of who actually caused the problem. If your harassing roommate stops paying or trashes the unit, the landlord can come after you for all of it and isn’t obligated to sort out who did what.
Keep records of your own rent payments and the condition of shared spaces. Those records help if you end up in a dispute with the landlord or in small claims court against your former roommate.
If you need to get out, breaking a lease usually carries a penalty of one to three months’ rent, depending on lease terms and local law. Many states have passed tenant protection laws that let victims of harassment, domestic violence, or stalking break a lease without penalty, typically on proof such as a police report or protective order plus written notice to the landlord. For tenants in federally assisted housing, the Violence Against Women Act is explicit: you cannot be evicted or denied housing assistance because you are a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, or stalking, and the landlord can split the lease to remove the offending tenant while keeping you in place.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 34 – 12491
Where to Get Legal Help
An attorney who handles tenant rights or harassment cases can tell you which of these remedies fits and whether pursuing them is worth the cost. Bring all your documentation to the first consultation so the lawyer can assess your position from the start.
If you can’t afford a private attorney, legal aid organizations funded by the Legal Services Corporation provide free representation to qualifying low-income tenants in every state. Law school legal clinics often take on tenant harassment cases. LawHelp.org maintains a state-by-state directory of free legal resources, and many bar associations run referral programs that offer reduced-fee initial consultations.
Get advice early. A lawyer consulted before you act can steer you away from mistakes that are expensive to fix later, like breaking your lease improperly or recording a conversation in a state that requires all-party consent.