Animal House
When I was starting my post-grad:

a) I was late starting, i.e. had missed the beginning of term and there was little in the way of accommodation left except for lodging with local families.

b) I had sweet FA in disposable funds.

So, in the list of local lodgings I managed to find something local and cheap (£45 a week all in, which was good value even 10 years ago).

Just how good value, I was about to find out.

The house was owned by the local hard-drinkin', fag-totin' post-mistress, her sozzled Irish boyfriend, and his dysfunctional daughter, who couldn't be bothered to go to school and didn't know how to get out of the end of the street (seriously).

My landlady liked to style herself as a mini animal rescue home: there were countless small birds in the back, a dog, 22 cats (all in various stages of old age, disability, or cancer), a family of ducks, 2 Canada geese, and 2 run-of-the-mill geese.

The smell of the place was something to behold - shit and piss all over the place. One day I forgot to close my bedroom door and found the one of the one-eyed cats curled up on my bed, and when I shooed him off there was a significant smelly wet patch. I should count myself lucky because he was well known for squirting liquid shit horizontally over everything - he even managed to get the TV square-on from the arm of the sofa once. But I digress...

The attack(s) in question came from the run-of-the-mill gander. His lady friend had a totally buggered wing, and didn't move from the front garden much, and boy was her feller territorial. Every day, every sodding day, I had to run the gauntlet of that fucker.

He'd come at you, wings flapping, head held low, hissing, going for your ankles. He'd nip away at your shins or calves (depending on whether you were backing away or running toward the door) and once he'd got a few bites in and got some purchase, start slamming those wings of his into your legs.

You can imagine what coming in with a couple of bags of shopping was like.

The best policy was to grab him round the neck and propel him down the side alley (listening to his little webbed feet going thwap-thwap-thwap at a somewhat higher-than-normal frequency) and then pelt it round the front and try to get the key in the front door before he'd caught up.

Oh, and they seemed to purely exist on a diet of cabbage and water, so skidding around on thin slimy green shit on the way in or out was also one of the perils to be contended with. It was always on the path and never on the grass, I reckon the beady-eyed bastard did it on purpose.

Length? About 2 months before I could stand no more. My leaving present was to slam his head in the gate several times before getting the hell out of there.
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Wed 30 Apr 2008, 17:55, Reply)