The VillainHis name was william. He ate toilet paper. lots of it.
(,
Sat 22 Nov 2003, 21:19,
archived)
My HouseI studied in Bristol for 3 years, and I used to help out my landlord with bits and bobs around the house - putting carpets down etc., and eventually he stopped charging me rent, which was nice.
So I've been living here a few years past the end of my degree.
I've seen some pretty mad stuff in the 6 years I have been in the house - ceiling collapses, live elctric wires bursting through thin polyfillered walls, drunk people hanging off the 4rd story roof, a hidden room full of 50s porn mags and cine reels, mice infestations, and a ton more that I have forgotten about.
The darkest thing that happened was in my first year. There was a student that lived in the room above mine who was always really preoccupied with the phone being free. If ever you were on it - he would always come into the phone while you were chatting to someone, asking "how long are you going to be?".
It wasn't so annoying, as he was a bit of a laugh, but towards the christmas at the end of my first term, we were getting alot of phone calls for him from his mates, saying they were really worried about him and they didn't know where he was, but we hadn't seen him for a few weeks. Now - our house always stank, but a new putrid and eggy smell had pervaded the flat and I simply attributed it to the old sofa someone had stuck in the hall, though it came from around his door, which puzzled me.
One phonecall I took from one of his mates made me realise with horrifying clarity what was going on - he said he wasn't in touch with either of his parents back home, and he never went there, and I began to panic a bit - I put all the pieces together, checked his electricity meter and saw it had run into emergency credits about 2 weeks previously. That, all the phone calls, the smell from under his door, and I realised he was probably dead.
I rang the Landlord and he came down to the house (took about an hour the old teabag) and opened the door to his room. Sure enough, he was dead on the bed with lots of blood on the wall next to him. An hour later, we were all in shock and were standing stunned in the hall watching police, coroners, paramedics and allsorts of folk going back and forth. One of our flatmates had commited suicide.
This went on for a few hours, and we had all provided statements to the police when they brought the body out and down the stairs to the hall where we were. The landlord, fag in hand casually watched his ex-tenant carried out on a stretcher under his nose whilst all stared somberly, some were crying (girls). As the stretcher went past him, he cooly proclaimed, "Ashes to ashes.... dust to dust" and the tension broke and we all burst out laughing. Even the police were laughing.
A day or two later, after the Blakelock had established it wasn't murder, I was charged with cleaning the room with the guy who did most of the building repairs to the house (imagine Sid James and you are halfway there), We bagged the mattress which was now 3 weeks drenched in blood (he had haemmorhaged quite badly) and stuffed it in a large plastic semi-opaque mattress cover, the kind you get when you buy a new mattress, and threw it temporarily in the front garden.
When we came back out to dispose of it, it had gone - and we looked down the road, and 4 students were running off with it. I ran after them shouting "Oi, wait, come back!!" and obviously they thought I was going mental because they were stealing a brand new mattress, which it wasn't.
Lord knows how long it took them to realise it wasn't new - maybe they got it back to their house and pulled it open. I doubt it though - it was such a terrible smell.
Me and the builder had a good laugh at that.
Needless to say we had the last laugh.
(,
Sun 23 Nov 2003, 13:57,
archived)
So I've been living here a few years past the end of my degree.
I've seen some pretty mad stuff in the 6 years I have been in the house - ceiling collapses, live elctric wires bursting through thin polyfillered walls, drunk people hanging off the 4rd story roof, a hidden room full of 50s porn mags and cine reels, mice infestations, and a ton more that I have forgotten about.
The darkest thing that happened was in my first year. There was a student that lived in the room above mine who was always really preoccupied with the phone being free. If ever you were on it - he would always come into the phone while you were chatting to someone, asking "how long are you going to be?".
It wasn't so annoying, as he was a bit of a laugh, but towards the christmas at the end of my first term, we were getting alot of phone calls for him from his mates, saying they were really worried about him and they didn't know where he was, but we hadn't seen him for a few weeks. Now - our house always stank, but a new putrid and eggy smell had pervaded the flat and I simply attributed it to the old sofa someone had stuck in the hall, though it came from around his door, which puzzled me.
One phonecall I took from one of his mates made me realise with horrifying clarity what was going on - he said he wasn't in touch with either of his parents back home, and he never went there, and I began to panic a bit - I put all the pieces together, checked his electricity meter and saw it had run into emergency credits about 2 weeks previously. That, all the phone calls, the smell from under his door, and I realised he was probably dead.
I rang the Landlord and he came down to the house (took about an hour the old teabag) and opened the door to his room. Sure enough, he was dead on the bed with lots of blood on the wall next to him. An hour later, we were all in shock and were standing stunned in the hall watching police, coroners, paramedics and allsorts of folk going back and forth. One of our flatmates had commited suicide.
This went on for a few hours, and we had all provided statements to the police when they brought the body out and down the stairs to the hall where we were. The landlord, fag in hand casually watched his ex-tenant carried out on a stretcher under his nose whilst all stared somberly, some were crying (girls). As the stretcher went past him, he cooly proclaimed, "Ashes to ashes.... dust to dust" and the tension broke and we all burst out laughing. Even the police were laughing.
A day or two later, after the Blakelock had established it wasn't murder, I was charged with cleaning the room with the guy who did most of the building repairs to the house (imagine Sid James and you are halfway there), We bagged the mattress which was now 3 weeks drenched in blood (he had haemmorhaged quite badly) and stuffed it in a large plastic semi-opaque mattress cover, the kind you get when you buy a new mattress, and threw it temporarily in the front garden.
When we came back out to dispose of it, it had gone - and we looked down the road, and 4 students were running off with it. I ran after them shouting "Oi, wait, come back!!" and obviously they thought I was going mental because they were stealing a brand new mattress, which it wasn't.
Lord knows how long it took them to realise it wasn't new - maybe they got it back to their house and pulled it open. I doubt it though - it was such a terrible smell.
Me and the builder had a good laugh at that.
Needless to say we had the last laugh.
Cran-Tastic!!!That is by far the leading story! No one elses flatmate from hell actually dies in these stories...do they???
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Sun 23 Nov 2003, 14:32,
archived)
Funny you should ask that....About 8 years ago I was working for a national UK charity who dealt primarily with the care and rehabilitation of offenders (You work it out...!), although we also did an awful lot of work with the unemployed and people deemed to be 'special needs'...having read all this thread, I'm sure most of you will be familiar with at least one of the above....
Amongst the projects we ran in our area, was a housing scheme. One of these houses at the time had three guys living in it, who, for the sake of argument, we'll call A, B and C. Both A and B had been in prison for a short while for minor offences, while C came under the 'special needs' umbrella...
We employed various people to run this project, one of whom, Jack was a general co-ordinator, and another, Alf was a qualified joiner, builder, and basically a jack-of-all-trades. Two nicer blokes, you couldn't hope to meet.
Anyway, getting to the point....one day we got a call saying that nobody had seen A, B or C for a week or two, and there seemed to be a funny smell coming from the house. So, off trot Jack and Alf to check things out. They get to the house, and to all intents and purposes it seems that everyone has done a runner (with most of the fixtures and fittings too, which wasn't unusual - some people have some VERY strange habits to fund...), but they just can't seem to track down the source of the smell....
About a week later, we get another call from one of the neighbours, again complaining about the smell. Once again, Jack and Alf are despatched to investigate. This time however, they manage to pinpoint the source of the smell...a feat made easier by the number of flies emanating from a footwell in the hallway providing access under the floors for electrical work etc.
Upon removing the cover of this footwell, they can see a black bin liner about 2 or 3 feet below the floorboards. As they can't quite reach this with their arms, they have a look around and manage to locate an old walking stick with which to have a 'bit of a prod'. Upon doing this, an even greater number of flies appear, and it was at this point that the contents of the aforementioned bin liner reveal themselves to be the body of C....
It transpires that after some argument with A and B, he had been beaten to death by at least one of them. Obviously, they were both aware of what had happened as they both did a runner fairly pronto. The police picked both of them up in a relatively short space of time, and I know one of them is currently serving life at Her Majesty's pleasure, but I'm not sure whether the other one was convicted or not, as the last thing I heard, he'd been remanded for psychiatric reports....
Aside from the obvious, the other really sad outcome of this whole sorry tale was the effect that the discovery had on the guys who found his body, particulary Alf, who was still off with post-traumatic stress when I left months later.
I appreciate that this isn't strictly MY housemate from hell experience, and to be honest, most of mine pale into insignificance when measured against some of the others here, but maybe it will serve as a reminder to anyone who's thinking of nicking someone else's milk from the fridge......
(,
Sun 23 Nov 2003, 17:41,
archived)
Amongst the projects we ran in our area, was a housing scheme. One of these houses at the time had three guys living in it, who, for the sake of argument, we'll call A, B and C. Both A and B had been in prison for a short while for minor offences, while C came under the 'special needs' umbrella...
We employed various people to run this project, one of whom, Jack was a general co-ordinator, and another, Alf was a qualified joiner, builder, and basically a jack-of-all-trades. Two nicer blokes, you couldn't hope to meet.
Anyway, getting to the point....one day we got a call saying that nobody had seen A, B or C for a week or two, and there seemed to be a funny smell coming from the house. So, off trot Jack and Alf to check things out. They get to the house, and to all intents and purposes it seems that everyone has done a runner (with most of the fixtures and fittings too, which wasn't unusual - some people have some VERY strange habits to fund...), but they just can't seem to track down the source of the smell....
About a week later, we get another call from one of the neighbours, again complaining about the smell. Once again, Jack and Alf are despatched to investigate. This time however, they manage to pinpoint the source of the smell...a feat made easier by the number of flies emanating from a footwell in the hallway providing access under the floors for electrical work etc.
Upon removing the cover of this footwell, they can see a black bin liner about 2 or 3 feet below the floorboards. As they can't quite reach this with their arms, they have a look around and manage to locate an old walking stick with which to have a 'bit of a prod'. Upon doing this, an even greater number of flies appear, and it was at this point that the contents of the aforementioned bin liner reveal themselves to be the body of C....
It transpires that after some argument with A and B, he had been beaten to death by at least one of them. Obviously, they were both aware of what had happened as they both did a runner fairly pronto. The police picked both of them up in a relatively short space of time, and I know one of them is currently serving life at Her Majesty's pleasure, but I'm not sure whether the other one was convicted or not, as the last thing I heard, he'd been remanded for psychiatric reports....
Aside from the obvious, the other really sad outcome of this whole sorry tale was the effect that the discovery had on the guys who found his body, particulary Alf, who was still off with post-traumatic stress when I left months later.
I appreciate that this isn't strictly MY housemate from hell experience, and to be honest, most of mine pale into insignificance when measured against some of the others here, but maybe it will serve as a reminder to anyone who's thinking of nicking someone else's milk from the fridge......