The joys of housesharing

[mayfever]

"Flatmates are the reason every sane person wants to live alone by the end of their twenties."

Inspired by another discussion and a rewatch of "Living Conditions", I thought we should have a thread about flatmates. So spill the beans, have you lived with someone of Kathy's proportions? What horrible things have you done to your flatmates?

I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'm gonna dish the dirt on my cohabitants later, but I'mvery curious to hear your stories!

 

[caitaintdead]

I have so many stories to tell but before I do... Is the Bronze still a members only section?

 

[Kean]

Can I just say that triple rooms are EVIL. Especially when you are sharing with Freshmen!

My roommate and I really hated each other so we would be really horrible and rude. One day she spent the whole afternoon talking about me in "code" to another of her house mates. And by talking I mean shouting across the hall at each other. So, in my infinite maturity, I reacted by speaking in Irish to my friends (who were also Irish) whenever around her. She really hated that. :hehe:

As I said in the other thread, she took all our pots and pans and hid them so the rest of the apartment couldn't cook. She wouldn't pay for toilet paper (4 of us were buying it every week...7 lived in the apartment) so she just brought it from home and hid it under her bed. She moved in before me so she got half the room while I, and another girl, had to divide the other half between us-which included having to share a desk and wardrobe.

On a couple of occasions she straight up mounted her boyfriend while I (and several others) were in the room. Ask us to leave already! Jeeze...I don't need to see that! The one that really sticks out is her friends re-inacting The Little Mermaid in our room at 2.A.M.

 

[This Year's Girl]

Oh my god. Get ready.

Here are some of the stuff one of my roommates has done:

- Payed all the rent except 30 dollars (wtf), not told anyone for 2 months and ignored all the bills and gotten the girl who's on the contract in huge trouble

- Disapperad for a whole day and gotten her mum so worried she'd call me at 6 in the morning. Then showed up and tell us she has gotten a hold of the keys of her sisters house and decided to stay there while her sister and the sisters husband were one vacation

- Smoke on the balcony everyday several times a day and never close the door so the whole apartment smells like crap

- Peed in the tub. Numerous of times.


Yep. Did I mention I'm moving out february 1st? 😀

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

One of the things that really pissed me off in the house I most recently lived in was that certain people never opened the window after they showered. The floor was completely wet, humidity everywhere in the air, and still, they keep it closed.
Then like with Kean, it was always the same people buying toilet paper. One time I got particularly angry because I bought new toilet paper, put it all in the bathroom, and when I came back like half an hour later, one roll was already missing. So not only didn't they buy new toilet paper, they also just took some of the one I bought in case it's all empty in the bathroom, so they can wait out while others once again give in and buy new one. Seriously, that still gets me all mad now.

In the place where I used to live before that, I got along considerably better with my housemates. However, we always had the kitchen that was sort of a conflict area.
There was ths guy that always left food in the sink, which I think is just very very gross. Of course that also always clogged the whole sink and the water wouldn't flow off anymore. So that always pissed me off when I saw it.


I'm already curious what it's gonna be like in the States when I actually have to share my room with someone.

 

[sisterofmercy]

I'm currently living with 10 other people on my floor in halls and I hate it. They leave the kitchen in a mess EVERY night, put their stuff in my section of the fridge and never shut up. I have the room that's opposite the kitchen which means I hear them all talking and getting drunk really clearly until the wee hours of the morning. Plus I don't really get on with any of them so I try and pretend they don't exist, but it's bloody hard when they're like they are.

 

[Goldilocks]

Omg I'm gonna have a flatmate when I start at college this summer.. so Im pretty excited. Gotta check her nails, check if she irons jeans or writes her name on the food 😀

 

[brinkster130]

Oh my, I have had my fair share of horrid roommates.

I had one roommate who reminded me a lot of Kathy, in the sense that she kept track of everything in our refrigerator. Initially we had decided that we would buy our own food and share the essentials (take turns buying) like eggs, milk and bread. I wasn't crazy about this since I don't eat eggs or bread much but she really liked that plan so I decided to go along with it. One morning I decided to have an egg for breakfast and I open the container to find that she had sharpied a "K" on six eggs and a "H" on the other six. :unsure: A little odd but ok; she just wants to make sure we are splitting everything equal right? Well it didn't end there, she made a chart and hung it on the fridge so we could take note of haw many slices of bread we had ate and how much milk we drank. A food log? She really wanted to keep a food log! Well long story short, I wasn't very good at updating the food log and she eventually called the whole sharing thing off since I didn't eat my share fast enough. And, can you imagine how crazy she was when it came to buying the toilet paper?! I half expected a bathroom log, but thankfully all she did way make a double sided note with our names on each side and she would flip it when it was the others turn to buy the tp.

she took all our pots and pans and hid them so the rest of the apartment couldn't cook.

I had a roommate do that too. So annoying. Although I did laugh a little when she would come home and would have to go into her room to get pots and the cooking utensils she needed.

On a couple of occasions she straight up mounted her boyfriend while I (and several others) were in the room.

Ick. This happened to me a couple times too. Oh and try walking into the living room to find to coffee table pushed to the side, pillows scattered on the floor, a bottle of honey, a bottle of KY and several tea candles laid around. Complete with mysterious stains on MY beige carpet. 😱 Is cleaning up after yourself to much to ask?


And this is only the tip of the iceberg! Surprisingly enough I've never done anything to get back at any of my less than pleasant roommates.

 

[mayfever]

Loving everyone's stories so far 😀

As I said in the other thread, in my first semester at college I shared with a Lithuanian girl who grew up on a farm in some backwater, and she had never lived in a large(ish) city before. Here is a list of things she did:

- bring home half a dead pig after Christmas break and throw out all my food so she could store it in the fridge (I'm a veggie, imagine my reaction when I opened the fridge door and that thing was staring at me)

- bring home a kitten and try to raise it on bread and milk in her room and complain that all it wants to eat is meat (after all, their cats on the farm were never fed from cans and they managed to grow up alright. Had nothing to do with the fact that they could go outside and hunt)

- have a massive Easter party in my room while I was at my parents' house and berate me for not helping with the cleaning when I got in three days later (after a 6 hour train ride)

- taking baths every second day and using the washing machine for a load of two t-shirts and a towel and refusing to pay more than 1/4 of the water bill

There are loads more, but luckily for me, she met a Palestinian, converted to Islam and got married after four months of dating him. I'm not making this up, I wish I was.


When I lived in London, one of my housemates rented out her room for a month to a girl who said she just needed an address to apply for a visa. It ended up taking a lot longer than she expected, so we let her stay on our couch for three more weeks without making her pay extra even though none of us really liked her (she was shallow like you would not believe). And once it was clear that we would not chuck her out on the street, she turned into a right little Nazi, wouldn't let us watch telly after 10 because she "needed her sleep" and her stuff was everywhere. Needless to say, she refused to chip in for essentials and didn't pay any of the bills that came in after she left, and when I confronted her she told me "not to give her attitude".

I think the dead pig story is still my favourite, though.

 

[Ianigsy]

About 15 years ago I lived downstairs from a guy who, on reflection, had some serious problems. He had a massive chip on his shoulder about life in general, caught religion, lost it, spent a few months getting drunk and playing his electric guitar all day (until he smashed it) and fortunately then moved away to live with his brother. At one stage he was seeing a woman who had a young daughter with another man, and one Friday night (after he'd already kicked off at me because apparently I was supposed to be minding his pan full of chips which burnt because he was drunk and forgot them) the police ended up being called by a neighbour because the girl fell over and screamed her head off in the small hours of the morning.

Another memorable housemate had a culinary repertoire which went as far as fried pork steaks and no further (cue stinky kitchen and pork fat everywhere) and one New Year's Day he got so drunk that he dropped his keys on the step and slept in the hallway outside his room because he couldn't find them...

 

[mayfever]

one New Year's Day he got so drunk that he dropped his keys on the step and slept in the hallway outside his room because he couldn't find them...

AHAHAHA that reminds me of two of my better-liked housemates... two of my flatmates in London were teachers and they never partied very hard - on a normal "night out" they'd go for thai, share a bottle of wine and be home by 10, but that one time the other girl and I (there were four of us in the flat) took them to our local and took their keys. We knew one of the bar staff so we started talking to them, and since we were quite pissed, we didn't notice that the two girls snuck off after a while (without their keys). When we got home, we found them spread-eagle on the stairs outside the house, fast asleep... it wasn't even 9pm, and still bright outside.

 

[Harley]

Ive never had a roommate but my boyfriend did and one night I woke up to some intimate activities happening IN THE HALLWAY. They didnt even bother to shut our door. It was dark enough to not see anything but the noises made me gag.
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[Big Damn Hero]

I had the BEST time whilst living in halls! But I would never do it again!

For reference, this is the layout of my halls:

Each building was comprised of four seperate blocks that you could enter from outside - basically each stair-well. If you wanted to visit someone that was on a different stair-case from you you had to go out and come back in again. Each stair went up four floors, so there were eight flats connecting to each set of stairs. Each flat had six rooms, en-suite so no sharing scabby baths or showers which was a blessing, and a communal kitchen/living room type area.

I lived in block A.

I got on really well with all of my flat mates (and they got on with me equally as well, otherwise I'd be worried that I was the annoying one 😛). In fact, we got on so well that we started having a water-fight in our kitchen one day. Mid-March time. Still quite cold outside. The only rule was that we couldn't throw water INTO people's rooms, cos of electrical equiptment and stuff. As often happens with these things, eventually my gang of three got bombarded out of the flat, so I went to go and recruit my friends that lived in block B. Whilst the other gang saw what we were planning and got block C involved.

As I mentioned above, there were a lot of people living in those three buildings. (3 buildings x 4 blocks each x 8 flats/block x 6 people/flat). I would say that most, if not all, of them got involved. People were slinging water-balloons out of their top windows at people in the court-yard, standing at the tops of the stairwells with sauce-pans waiting to tip it on the people bellow, it was truly LEDGEN.... wait for it.... DARY.

And the best part was that the supervisors couldn't punish anyone because so many people were involved, and people were still considerate whilst having fun.

THAT'S what halls should be like!

 

[caitaintdead]

My housemate (and also best friend) got drunk and kicked our front door in.

I got home with a friend at about 2am and there was a trail of my housemates things down the driveway, when we got to the front door it had been kicked in and was covered in blood. Automatically I completely panicked, but I soon found her in bed covered from head to toe in blood and vomit. Turns out she had done it because she couldn't find her keys...

Of course that meant that we all had to try and sleep that night unable to even close our front door. Thank God we were in units so we weren't right on the road. We weren't living in the nicest area at the time so I was really thankful I had a burly boy there with me to crash on the couch.

That's just one story I have.

 

[fly on the wall]

The only legal roommate I've ever had is my best friend James. I've lived with him since July 2008, and as far as roommates go we're a match made in heaven. Sure, we have our differences and we argue sometimes but he really is an ideal roommate and I'm extremely lucky to have him. I REALLY lucked out.

I have had "unofficial" roomies though. Once when I let my friend (who was going through some really rough things personally) live with me rent-free while she took a semester off school...and that ended TERRIBLY, she was completely disrespectful of my home and on top of that talked about me behind my back. After I kicked her out we had a complete falling-out and don't speak any more.

I've pretty much lived with my boyfriend since we started dating in November '09. We've actually only spent a handful of nights apart, going back and forth between our apartments. And that's worked out great. This summer, he and my other friend are going to move in with my current roommate and me.

Which leads me to my situation now, which is that "other friend" who stays at my apartment part-time. Her parents' house is hours away by bus and she's sick of commuting so far to college (she's a junior) so she stays here a few nights a week. It's sort of a trial run, or at least I see it that way, due to what happened with my falling-out friend. So far so good, although it's a very new arrangement.

All this means is that there are FOUR PEOPLE spending a lot of time in my tiny two-bedroom apartment and although I've been (mostly) incredibly lucky on the roommate front, I'm excited to move somewhere bigger. And better?

 

[LoveLoveLovix]

I have never had to deal with roomies or flatmates for a "permanent" period, and you may think that would mean it would be bearable. But just going to camp... well it's nothing compared to some of these, but it's definitely annoying.

Last year's session of camp (and my camp is held at a univeristy) had a rooming situation, so we had 4 girls in a two-bed room with one threatening to leave if she didn't get a bed to herself. In the end, she did, along with the youngest girl (she was ten to our fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen).

She still made camp hell, though, to the point where I kind of wish we had just let her leave. She regulated EVERYTHING a la Kathy. Lights out was at eleven for our floor, she imposed a nine thirty lights out. Nobody could even leave the room without telling her. And she "needed" an entire wardrobe to herself because she had a special uniform to wear. That special uniform was just a sash.

And due to the camp, we get the same roomies every year unless they stop coming... DX

 

[InsaneMystic]

Can anyone top the flatmate who stopped taking his meds against doctor's orders, developed an acute psychosis and stands in the corridor in front of a shrine he built, while mumbling to himself and cutting the heads off of paper flowers with a pair of scissors? (A day after that, I came home to find the keys to our new door lock in the mailbox, as the cops and orderlies had broken our door open in order to take him to the funny farm.)

And yes, that is a true story. :sigh: I'm so glad to be living alone now.

 

[Natasha1988]

Im in halls with 5 other people at the moment and I find it easier just to stay in my room when Im not at uni or working! But its pretty annoying when I work shifts and there constantly up making more noise than I thought was humanly possible!
Went into the kitchen for the first time in weeks to find theyve been using my bowls and cups (Im a germ-a-phobe so have now bought new ones) and loads of stuff is missing....moral of the story dont move into halls i will just be doing the hour long drive next year lol

 

[Zeppo]

I had one roommate from Belgium who never seemed to leave his room. He was always asleep or something. He'd come out to shower and would be in the shower for 45 minutes. No joke. Everyday. There were 3 other people in the house! So no hot water for anyone but him, he'd go until it got cold. Then an additional 45 to do whatever he did in there. Then, he'd come back out in the same clothes he went in with and go into his room. Occasionally he'd play techno at like 3 AM too. Once, he brought this strange girl home and her boots were at the door for like a day, didn't really see them.

I find out later, after my other roomies left and new ones came in and prodded him, that he was doing party drugs and going out all the time. He would just stand in the shower for 45 minutes doing nothing, haha. That girl he brought over was, I think, a hooker.

He had told me once that, since he was studying in Canada, he was in deep trouble cause he had blown a lot of his money on partying and could barely afford rent so his aco****s were frozen or something. Dunno how he got outta that one or how he paid the landlord.

I left the house and since have learned he was kicked out for having a spaz in the house, punching a door or something. No one has heard from him since and the girl who took my room installed a lock on her door because of him.

Crazy! He was a nice guy, very lost, though.

 

[mayfever]

Ooooh I just remembered a story which luckily didn't happen to me, but kinda rivals IM's...

Last year I was on a language course in Russia for a couple of months, and I lived in one of the halls for international students in St Petersburg. Because it was off-peak, most of the other students were Koreans who pretty much kept to themselves, so the rest of us (mostly Canadians, a few US-Americans, some Finnish people and me) hung out a lot. Two of the Finnish guys were sharing an apartment with 4 Koreans who spoke no English and their Russian wasn't very good yet, so they barely communicated. One day there was a knock on their door and a French bloke was outside, asking if he could come in. The Finnish guy assumed he wanted to talk to the Koreans because he and the other Finnish girl didn't know him, so he let them in and he and his friend left the apartment.

When they got back that night, they found the kitchen in an absolute shambles, all the food stuff had been thrown around, the doors of all the cupboards had been wrenched off the hinges, all the china and glasses were smashed and someone had apparently jumped up and down on the oven door. Nothing was stolen. Needless to say, the Koreans didn't know the French guy.

About a week later, same guy shows up in class (we were all sorted into new groups that day so it didn't seem weird), asks the teacher if he could write something on the blackboard and writes INJUSTICE in Russian, then starts this big aul' rant about how life is the pits etc etc, then gathers his stuff and leaves, never to be seen again. Scary stuff, to forget your medication...