The one hangup I have about the mediation thing is that my RA is actually one of my good friends at the school. They know this. Sometimes A chides me about it. Even though he is incredibly professional when it comes to actually doing his job, and even though he would handle this situation in an unbiased way, A might not see it that way. She may think that he's siding with me.. and she may think that he'll do things in my favor because we're friends. She has never spoken to him either. There was one time that she was having a different issue and I told her to go talk to him about it and she said "I don't know him"... and I said to her "He's your RA, it's his JOB to help you" but she still refused and still hasn't spoken to him.. ever.

When she said the room smelled I did ask her what the smell was. I actually did argue that it wasn't my space, that I would clean anyway, but that it was not contributing to the smell. She still found a way to say something to the extent of "oh, it's probably holding it in or contributing to it".. I smelled it, it was 100% not the source of the smell and not even entirely laundry, which was clean. I did mention the stacks of bowls.. which she eventually cleaned up.

There was another day that was unusually humid and warm.. which made the dumpster smell really horrible. The dumpster also happens to be located outside of our window. She blamed that smell on me too. When I mentioned that it was probably the dumpster, given the fact that it smelled the same OUTDOORS within a 100' radius of that thing.... she STILL tried to make it about me. She agreed that it could be mostly the dumpster but there had to be something of mine that smelled. She can never be wrong, or fully agree with me.

I also challenge what she says. If she's insulting me.. I ask her why she said that.. and then she gets really defensive and tries to justify the need for me to be told whatever she told me.