General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Worst Roommate Ever

Worst Roommate Ever is an American true-crime documentary series on Netflix, produced by Blumhouse Television and ITV America, in which survivors, families, and law enforcement recount cases of roommates, lodgers, and landlords who turned out to be con artists, violent offenders, or killers.¹^•² Its first season premiered on March 1, 2022, and a second season followed in June 2024.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	March 1, 2022, on Netflix¹
Production	Blumhouse Television and ITV America; executive producers include Jason Blum, Mary Lisio, Domini Hofmann, Jeremy Gold, and Chris McCumber¹^•⁴
Format	Season 1: five episodes covering four cases; Season 2: four episodes, directed by Cynthia Childs⁵^•³
Rating	TV-MA (15 in the UK); genre listed as documentary and crime⁴^•⁶
Reception	100% Tomatometer from 5 critics and 74% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes; a Guardian review called it "the worst true crime show ever"⁴^•⁷
Franchise	Spawned Worst Ex Ever (2024), Worst Neighbor Ever (2025), and the ordered Worst In-Law Ever and Worst Friend Ever⁸

Spoilers

Season 1 cases

The four cases of the first season all took place in North and South America.¹⁰ The final story, told across two episodes, concerns Jamison Bachman, a "serial squatter" who moved in with a succession of housemates, conned his way into their homes, and then refused to leave while intimidating them.¹¹^•⁷ In 2017, Bachman took his own life in a jail cell while awaiting trial.¹²

Another episode covers the case of Maribel Ramos, a 36-year-old college student; Kwang Chol Joy was convicted of second-degree murder in her killing and sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison.¹⁰^•¹⁸

Season 2

Season 2, a Blumhouse production directed by Cynthia Childs, returned with four episodes on June 26, 2024, covering the real crimes of Janie Ridd, Michael Dudley, Scott Pettigrew, and Tammy Fritz, with stories set in Salt Lake City; Palm Springs, California; Seattle; and Colorado Springs, Colorado.³^•¹³ The episodes follow a woman who used the dark web to obtain bacteria intended to kill her roommate and gain custody of the roommate's child, a landlord who preyed on a vulnerable couple desperate for housing, a man who falsely imprisoned his roommate before being caught on tape attacking another, and a woman who opened her home to her late husband's best friend and then resorted to deadly measures for a quick payday.¹³^•¹⁹

The Janie Ridd case. After buying vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA), a bacterium usable as a biological weapon, on the dark web, Janie Lynn Ridd was found guilty of the attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction as well as the attempted aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult. She had previously poisoned her roommate Rachel multiple times with substances including ketamine and insulin, and planned to use VRSA to kill Rachel in order to obtain custody of Rachel's young son. The FBI intercepted the attempted purchase and arrested her; she was sentenced to up to 15 years, served two years in prison, and was released on parole, with her current whereabouts unknown.¹³

Other episodes. In "Housemate from Hell," retiree Anita Cowen takes in the charming lawyer Scott Pettigrew as a tenant for her Palm Springs home, and the arrangement turns terrifying.¹⁴ In "The Lethal Landlord," a viral TikTok video sends detectives to the Seattle home of Michael Dudley, who rented a room to a young couple never to be seen again.¹⁴

Format and production

Each episode reconstructs one real case through interviews with the people who lived through it, their friends and family members, and the law enforcement officers involved.² The series was developed in a documentary format from the start; when Blumhouse first announced the project, Mary Lisio, then the head of alternative and docuseries for Blumhouse Television, was set to lead it.⁹ Season 1 was billed as a five-part series highlighting four harrowing tales of seemingly harmless roommates whose malevolent and sometimes violent intentions were revealed.⁵

Reception

Critical response was divided. On Rotten Tomatoes the series holds a 100% Tomatometer from 5 reviews and a 74% Popcornmeter score from more than 50 audience ratings.⁴ Stuart Heritage, a television writer for The Guardian, reviewed it harshly, arguing that a series dramatizing recent murders under a title suited to a gameshow needed to show more respect to the victims, and contrasting it with the BBC's The Hunt for Bible John, which placed its murders in social and economic context.⁷ The series nonetheless reached Netflix's top 10.⁷

The Worst Ever franchise

Worst Roommate Ever became the first installment of a Netflix true-crime franchise. Worst Ex Ever, also from Blumhouse Television and ITV America, premiered on August 14, 2024.¹⁵ Worst Neighbor Ever, a four-part series, followed on July 1, 2025.¹⁶ Netflix has since ordered two further series, Worst In-Law Ever and Worst Friend Ever, produced by Blumhouse Television, part of Blumhouse Atomic Monster, and ITV America, part of ITV Studios.⁸ Each previous installment has reached the top 10 on the streaming service and in Nielsen ratings for TV shows, and producer-director Cynthia Childs has said the franchise remains victim-driven, giving the people who suffered through these situations the chance to tell their own stories, a process usually not allowed while cases are in the court system.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › True crime and investigative docuseries › Premiered 2006 to 2022

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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