Mad ChrisNot strictly a flatmate, but still... When I first moved to London at the end of 1995, twuntishness on the part of my landlady-to-be meant I couldn't actually start living in my new flat until three weeks after I started the job that had prompted me to move in the first place.
After an unpleasant few days crashing with a FOAF in Stockwell, my old mate Ed offered to put me up at his place in West Hampstead instead. Woo hoo, I said, and packed up and left.
Two days after I started kipping there instead, there was a ring on the doorbell. It was Ed's friend Chris, who I had met once or twice in the past and who had struck me as a bit odd, to say the least - it could be bloody difficult to get his attention, for example, and he would occasionally laugh to himself in a non-reassuring manner.
As it turned out, what was happening was that he was on his way into full-blown schizophrenia, and was already at the 'having quite animated conversations with Charlie Manson and Hitler' stage. Now, he wasn't too bad really, except...
(1) He smelt like he washed his hair in Münster cheese
(2) He regarded the bathroom as his special sanctuary, and was given to just sitting in it for hours on end doing absolutely bollock all, especially at useful times like when Ed and I were trying to get ready to go out to work. As a bonus, the fact that he sat in there for hours also gave the bathroom a semi-permanent ronk of goaty goodness.
(3) The first couple of nights he was staying, he decided to sleep on the very small landing. Which meant that you could only gain access to any room in the flat by stepping over the slumbering form of a smelly lunatic, who was given to yelling in his sleep if disturbed in any way.
(4) As is often the case with people who go over the edge, he had got quite into magic, and was given to working what he described as very evil spells in the kitchen, which usually involved breaking all the bottles and glasses he could get his hands on into the kitchen bin. This was a top-floor flat, so there were certain logistical difficulties inherent in trying to get a bin-bag full of broken glass downstairs to the bins.
(5) He liked a smoke, did Chris; in fact, if you were foolish enough to leave, say, a quarter in his immediate vicinity, he would generally pipe it within the space of half an hour.
(6) The one thing that made him tolerable was that he was obsessively clean, and would tidy and hoover the flat and clean the kitchen and bathroom with astonishing diligence. Unfortunately towards the end of his stay he took to doing this at three am. We were both sleeping in the living room, so I would occasionally wake up with someone I knew for a fact was getting more and more deranged by the second standing over me in his underpants, polishing a fistful of knives and cackling to himself over something particularly witty he had just said to Pol Pot.
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Mon 17 Nov 2003, 17:06,
archived)
After an unpleasant few days crashing with a FOAF in Stockwell, my old mate Ed offered to put me up at his place in West Hampstead instead. Woo hoo, I said, and packed up and left.
Two days after I started kipping there instead, there was a ring on the doorbell. It was Ed's friend Chris, who I had met once or twice in the past and who had struck me as a bit odd, to say the least - it could be bloody difficult to get his attention, for example, and he would occasionally laugh to himself in a non-reassuring manner.
As it turned out, what was happening was that he was on his way into full-blown schizophrenia, and was already at the 'having quite animated conversations with Charlie Manson and Hitler' stage. Now, he wasn't too bad really, except...
(1) He smelt like he washed his hair in Münster cheese
(2) He regarded the bathroom as his special sanctuary, and was given to just sitting in it for hours on end doing absolutely bollock all, especially at useful times like when Ed and I were trying to get ready to go out to work. As a bonus, the fact that he sat in there for hours also gave the bathroom a semi-permanent ronk of goaty goodness.
(3) The first couple of nights he was staying, he decided to sleep on the very small landing. Which meant that you could only gain access to any room in the flat by stepping over the slumbering form of a smelly lunatic, who was given to yelling in his sleep if disturbed in any way.
(4) As is often the case with people who go over the edge, he had got quite into magic, and was given to working what he described as very evil spells in the kitchen, which usually involved breaking all the bottles and glasses he could get his hands on into the kitchen bin. This was a top-floor flat, so there were certain logistical difficulties inherent in trying to get a bin-bag full of broken glass downstairs to the bins.
(5) He liked a smoke, did Chris; in fact, if you were foolish enough to leave, say, a quarter in his immediate vicinity, he would generally pipe it within the space of half an hour.
(6) The one thing that made him tolerable was that he was obsessively clean, and would tidy and hoover the flat and clean the kitchen and bathroom with astonishing diligence. Unfortunately towards the end of his stay he took to doing this at three am. We were both sleeping in the living room, so I would occasionally wake up with someone I knew for a fact was getting more and more deranged by the second standing over me in his underpants, polishing a fistful of knives and cackling to himself over something particularly witty he had just said to Pol Pot.
PettinessLast year there were four of us sharing a house. I'll call the two evil housemates fat and fatter. For a while it was ok, however at the beginning of the second term things went very sour. Fat and fatter didn't like our other housemate and were shits to him, i got sick of it and sided with him. They didn't appreciate this (at least this is why i think they decided to hate me too). Anyway, they thought it would be hilarious to turn the hot water and heating off when they went home one weekend, they also put the burglar alarm on with us in the house.
Fat would have phone calls to her boyfriend at 2 in the morning really loudly, her room and my room were once a single room, now separated by a very thin partition, she might aswell have been talking to me. This along with forgetting to write essays, and then doing them til 4 in the morning meant i was a tired man for most of a term. The noise of someone typing is not the easiest one to sleep with.
I could say a load more, but this would make it too obvious who they were. This is nothing compared to the other stories here, feel sorry for the rest of you.
(Fat would have phone calls to her boyfriend at 2 in the morning really loudly, her room and my room were once a single room, now separated by a very thin partition, she might aswell have been talking to me. This along with forgetting to write essays, and then doing them til 4 in the morning meant i was a tired man for most of a term. The noise of someone typing is not the easiest one to sleep with.
I could say a load more, but this would make it too obvious who they were. This is nothing compared to the other stories here, feel sorry for the rest of you.
polio,
Mon 17 Nov 2003, 17:15,
archived)
I like this guy!With such powerful friends, this guy should not be mocked!
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Cheeky Boy! loves horses...,
Tue 18 Nov 2003, 13:51,
archived)
heh"a semi-permanent ronk of goaty goodness"
will now be the title of my first novel.
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Thu 20 Nov 2003, 6:35,
archived)
will now be the title of my first novel.