Enduring a bad roommate is as essential a New York experience as a Yankees game. Everyone has a horror story, often a few of them. But imagine your bad roommate turned out to be about a grifter of historic proportions who rose to power while reportedly lying about nearly every aspect of his biography as well as allegedly stealing from a homeless veteran’s dying dog. This is the turn of events in which Yasser Rabello, a pharmacist living in Florida, finds himself after living for a few months in 2013 and 2014 with George Santos (who went by Anthony Devolder at the time) — as well as Santos’s sister, Tiffany, and mom, Fatima — in a Queens two-bedroom. During his stay, he would lose an Armani shirt and an Ikea dresser. Now he’s glad it wasn’t more.

Bridget Read spoke to Rabello about that strange period in his life and the version of George Santos he knew as a very bizarre roommate.