Killing 'Guests'
There are several successful ways to dispatch your average rodent, one of the most effective is by using a frying pan. (They are fast, but so is a quick slam) Other tried and tested methods my flatmate has used include:

1) Dropping a wardrobe on top of one,

2) Stabbing one with an arrow. (He used to do archery)

3) Drowning one in the bath. (They're excellent swimmers, but using a upturned bowl will soon rid them of life)

4) Sticky traps / Snap traps. These rodents are city rodents, they aren't stupid. We have only ever caught one with a snap trap. If you put food in them, they will take it without triggering the trap. As for the glue paper stuff, it works well but is fucking horrible to clean up afterwards.

I haven't seen any for a while. Wait whats that rummaging by the bin...
( theniwokeup has been awake since, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 22:10, 4 replies)

Gonna pea this
Many many moons ago, I was at Uni (why are all the best/worst stories from uni?) in Bristol. The first year, I was in halls. And at Bristol Poly, there were two student villages on the Coldharbour Lane campus. Each village consisted of a bunch of houses with about six students to a house. They all started out as single-sex houses, but that lasted about a day...

Anyway, I was seeing this lass who shared a house with five other girls, one of whom we shall call Kirsty, for that is her name. Kirsty was a bit of a bike, and she did like to get ridden. She also liked her variety, did our Kirsty. She eventually managed to shack up with a hapless loser called Mark. I say "shack up"; "shag more-or-less-exclusively for more than two weeks" would be more accurate.

Anyway, Kirsty was a screamer and a moaner, and she liked to be a bit bossy. One summer's evening, she had her window open, so we could hear everything, as could most of the student village. In fact, the lamp in the girl below's room was swaying and little flakes of Artex and paint were gently falling in an almost christmassy fashion.

Well, during this marathon session, we (in the lounge downstairs) had to turn the telly RIGHT UP so we could sort-of drown her out. Well, eventually the noises from upstairs died out, so we turned the telly down. Just in time to hear a truly blood-curdling scream. Honestly, a true adrenaline-squirter. None of us could tell whether it was male or female, and it wasn't repeated, so we weren't sure where it had even come from.

The next morning, Kirsty's duvet appeared in the bathtub, covered in blood. Having been on the piss the night before, I don't think any of us immediately connected the scream with the duvet, and just assumed that she'd had an "accident" or something. Well, she left the duvet festering in six inches of water for two months 'til it went mouldy, but that's another story.

The TMI bit came a few days later, when we happened upon Mark in the student union bar. At that point we realised that we hadn't seen him around Kirsty for a while, and we just assumed he'd been given the heave-ho. Well, over a pint or two, the whole sordid story came out.

Apparently, their marathon evening of lurve had ended with Kirsty performing a bit of manual upon Mark. Unfortunately, Kirsty was a little too boisterous, and on a downstroke managed to unzip Mark's little man entirely from his helmet (the scream), occasioning much squirty blood (the duvet) and agony whenever he even THOUGHT about getting stiff (his absence).

Then he dropped his kecks and showed us the 22 (yes, 22) stitches that were holding his old chap together.

Apologies for length, but I did ask Mark why he didn't ask for a little "extra" while they had the needle out...
(lustfish, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 22:00, 2 replies)

A little off topic...
..As he isn't my housemate.

But he must be somebody's housemate as he is on my course.

Anyway after a night out the other week, this guy looked in his wallet to see if he could remember the night before and found a receipt.

Turns out he had spent £180 at Spearmint Rhino (strip club for the uninitiated) when hammered.

Poor bloke.

He then realised there were two other receipts in his wallet.

One stated £720 and the other £576. Again at Spearmint Rhino.

They wiped him out of £1476 in a little less than 90 minutes.

And what did my whole course do when we found out? Laughed.
(Foz, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 21:53, Reply)

When you're at a Senior Military College,
you always leave your door unlocked. Every Cadet was to follow the honor code, and leave their door unlocked. Nobody ever got their stuff stolen, and it was never a problem. It actually made things a lot easier, for inspections, communication, and petty pranks.

Now every so often, somebody would get caught in the act of self-pleasure. No big deal, most people learned to be careful after they got caught once. Unfortunately, not one of my friend's roommates.

He got caught once. By my friend. When he woke up to find his roommate choking the chicken. Watching horse porn.

We called him Stickyfingers.


*pop* goes my cherry
(alfa9er, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 21:37, 1 reply)

He rented the room next to mine ..
There were just the two of us sharing the small kitchen and the bathroom.

His room was furnished with a mattress and nothing else. He lived on a diet of hard boiled eggs and nothing else.

He was vague and his handshake was like squeezing a jellyfish.

I quickly decided to avoid him. This was easy since he spent most of his time in his room behind a closed door. Shunning humanity. Eating eggs. Fwapping with the jellyfish. Whatever.

After three months he was kicked out. This was a day of joy and glory.

Only twice did we have anything resembling a conversation. The first time was when I first met mr. jellyfish handshake. The second time was one day when he looked into my room, and upon spotting my CD collection asked me when I would go on holiday.

I think he may have been some kind of former drug addict trying to edge his way back into society. Or maybe he was shooting smack on the other side of the wall. Dunno. Hated his guts.
(spinoza, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 20:02, Reply)

Dances with mice
Pill Popper's post:

www.b3ta.com/questions/housemates/post379777

sparked lively discussion about the fluffy little housemates that seem so unusually prevalent in Edinburgh. Which reminded me...

My mate Pippa and I had a flat in central Edinburgh during the festival in 2005. We were 21, carefree, and easy on the eye. We got drunk and made new friends quite easily.

We knew we had a lodger in the cupboard under the sink, but we despaired of catching the bugger.

One morning we stumbled home with a young architect we met at an all night party. (Was that you?) We drank whiskey with him between 5 and 8 am, then he went off to work.*

Went to toast some bagels before turning in for the day; noticed the pathetic scritching noise coming from the toaster.

Gottcha.

Out of the flat into the street with a magazine held over the toaster. We tipped him into the gutter and watched him scurry off. Glowing with booze and a sense of karmic oneness with our animal brothers, we attempted to return to the flat.

Hadn't put the latch on, hadn't brought the keys.

We were both wearing little pajama shorts and vests, barefoot. No phone, no money. And it was morning rush-hour.

Being festival time, we took this in our stride. We had a toaster and a copy of Marie Clare. No worries.

We crafted hats and tu-tus from torn magazine pages and improvised little dances and sketches involving the toaster until we sobered up.

By which time we had been given most of the money to pay for a lock-smith by impressed passers by.

Complete result.

*we were not *total* sluts.
(HaHa!Snakes! was last seen on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 20:01, 8 replies)

Yogi
AKA Chris. The day I met him, rooting through cupboards on the day I moved to uni, I genuinely thought he was a little retarded.

How is this man at uni? I thought. Of course, this was art college so they pretty much let any bozo in, myself included.

Chris looked like a lanky, dark haired chavvy version of Eminem. He wore baggy hip-hop style tracksuits, giving him the appeareance of a child in it's parent's clothes. Yogi was his self appointed nickname and I'm really not sure why. They did share similar dopey voices I suppose. He acted like a hard nut from the slums but was clearly well off and had regular calls on the house phone from mummy asking to speak to 'Christopher.'

Having an intellectual conversation with Chris was a bit like trying to get a Turkey to help you with Sudoku. He had a goofy 'hur hur' type laugh, talked constant dribble and once bought Casablanca on dvd because he thought it was a gangster movie. He possessed the eternal look of someone who literally just walked into a glass door and is reeling in shock and wondering around dazed and confused. It dawned on me after about 35 minutes of knowing him that he wasn't (that) thick, just perpetually stoned.

Now I would be a hypocrite to judge people smoking dope, but I'm sure some would agree that those who smoke it constantly end up being a bit boring to hang out with, unless you are in a similar state of comatose.

It transpired that Chris was the local petty dope dealer of the campus, which in turn led to hordes of his pretty fly for white guy chums gurgling in the kitchen like Beavis & Butthead clones, and general strangers traipsing through our house most of the time.

This wasn't as big a problem as you might think as Chris spent a lot of time picking up drugs in London. It did get a bit annoying, however, when his dim-wit friends would crow "Yogi!" up to our house at 2am (it was a tower block and the kitchen/living room was on the top floor) and I, as if starring in some warped rendition of Romeo and Juliet, would shout back, "He's not in! He's gone daan taan!"

Eventually things went sour. He got in a row with one of my housemates, moved into another flat and eventually dropped out of uni. I'm sure he once nicked £20 from me too. And so began my unintentional habit of living with drug dealers. Next stop, Ketamine addicts, but thats another post.
(Eldoofus, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:57, 3 replies)

Brian Molko you cunt.
In the late 90's I lived just off Holloway Road. He was not my flatmate but I suppose my housemate due to living in a maisonette.
Steve Hewitt the drummer from Placebo lived above me.

He was actually a lovely guy. Even if he was so coked up that he though I was the sister of me landlady.

Brian Molko was on the other hand a complete twat. Not even going into the tales I got from the techs that I worked with at the time, I'll just go on personal experience of the cowardly shit.

When they were in the UK Brian used to love to scream and chunder his womanly tits off out of the window above my bedroom.

On one occasion I had to be up at about 4am to do guitar tech gig for a much more talented 'artist' than he was and I shouted out my window (after his vomit had spewed onto my front gardon, 'SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU PATHETIC LITTLE GOBSHITE!!!'
Cue 'bom bom bom bom bom bom' of mini rockstar descended the stairs.

'WHACK WHACK WHACK' went my front door.

Starkers I open it. Brian Molko looks down, looks up (he only reached my chest in height).

'bom bom bom bom bom bom' straight back up the stairs again without a word.
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:41, 7 replies)

What he ate and what he wore!
Only 2 problems with the new Zealander bus driver who lived with us for a very short period of time!

He ate raw broccoli on toast

He wore his towel like a girl i.e. up under his armpits instead of round the waist (and laughed when chandler did the same thing in friends)

As a bonus we received exceedingly dull facts like "Did you know it is less than 50 steps to Tesco?"
(mermaeve is very trying, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:39, 1 reply)

I've been wondering what to put in here
And I have a lot of stories. But for now, I will share my favourite. Unlike a lot of people in 2nd year, I stuck to halls. As is the way of things, we became a tight-knit little group, going to the gym, drinking together, sharing odds and sods and the occasional bifter. Life was very good. Apart from the time the bunch of knobsacks stripped me naked and put me out on the fire escape on a very cold day.

But, moving on from that. So, we used to do stuff together. However, one time topped all of this, when we decided to have a massive fryup. Some contributed bacon, others eggs, others beans. You get the idea. And so, it was cooked, and we all got furniture out of our bedrooms to set up a long table, and chairs, laid the table, and set up a small sound system for background noise, and we all ate there, in the hall. It has always remained one of my favourite memories- a group of friends, engaging in the most human and social of activities, on a lazy Sunday morning, just being together.

Of course later that night, we all got thoroughly
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:27, Reply)

i had a landlord once
when i was an estate agent, who looked exactly like marley from scrooge. white flowing locks, beard dripping to his gut, mad scientist eyes, and thick heavy metal chains wrapped around his waist with keys to all his flats rattling and clanking off it. and his flats, in the arse end of stockport, were fricking disGUSTing. tenants were forever ringing to complain about each other, and one of them came in one day with a jar of cockroaches, slammed it on the counter, and said: "from flat 3. i thought we weren't allowed to keep pets?"

anyway, one day, i rang the landlord and said, "bad news jim, you've got a squatter in flat one, completeshithole avenue."

"what?"

"a squatter. so what you need to do is, allow me to issue possession proceedings and get the bailiff to serve them. will cost you about £2k and as it's residential, you need to give him 5 days' notice."

"the fuck i do," the landlord growled, and about an hour later, the hapless hippy and his sleeping bag were out on the A6. he may have had the pattern of thick heavy metal chains on his head.

i really think the courts should adopt this attitude to squatters!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:07, 7 replies)

No story
Just Really really glad I've never shared a space with any of the selfish cunts who seem to populate these stories.
( Larry Death Anger Pain Fear Aggression, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:05, 2 replies)

I knew a hedgehog...
...he got run over. He's still my flat-mate though.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 19:02, Reply)

Some halls of residance antics.
Well last year I lived in a fairly small accommodation block and a fair few pranks and mishaps were bound to happen when filled with about 40 first year students.
Here are a few of my favourites.

The first and best is when we found out my flatmate Dave's key could open the little room outside that contained the power switches to each flat and CCTV camera monitor. So as was bound to happen we turned off power to a couple of flats and watched as they came out of their doors into the hall way. Power comes back on. They go back in. Power goes off. Repeat until bored.
To spice this up we tied the handles of two opposite flats doors together (as they opened inwards) and then turned the power off again. And watched them struggle to get out on the monitor. hilarious as they got so close to discovering us in the little room but never found out.

The second occurred when we used a screwdriver to get in to the loft and found alot of spare bedside tables. We had a bit of fun piling them up outside peoples front doors knocking and hiding in the opposite flat. At 2am. Needless to say one occupant was not amused and threw them at us. Our response? A rape alarm minus the pin through the letter box half an hour later. I don't think she liked us after that. The tables kept appearing in lots of places (on my bed for instance) until we had to put them back before an inspection.

and a few more for fun.
(1) Bringing next doors picnic benches into our halls pissed out our faces at 2am and leaving them in the stairwells.
(2) Huge flour fight a few weeks after pancake day that covered the stairs and halls. (and us)
(3) CDC graffiti on peoples doors in various substances (still have a pic of a nice shaving foam one)

And finally the most annoying thing that ever happened had to be when some funny fellow decided it would be a brilliant idea to smash in one of the little red fire alarms. The fire alarm went off for about 3 hours from 2am onwards and refused to go off. No one found out who did it sadly.

I think thats about it for now.
( mr schteven In a staring competition with a squid on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 18:53, Reply)

Never had a housemate...
...just the lovely wife of the past 22 years.
She's ace but I wouldn't want me for a housemate.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 18:46, Reply)

Annoying Housemate
I once had an annoying housemate. He had a penchant for making up tall stories. He was pretty fun to be around at first, drawing us into his stories and then making us laugh with the outrageous payoffs. The problem was, he just didn't know when to stop and kept it up all the time. Eventually, we'd just roll our eyes when we saw him coming. Some of us even just completely ignored him altogether as if he wasn't even there.

Oh. Hold on. I remember now. It wasn't a house, it was a website. This one. Now.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 18:28, 7 replies)

It’s ok Robert it’s just us...
Allow me to introduce you to Cormac, 30 odd and from Meath, works in IT.* I lived with him in a shared flat in Dublin some years ago.

Cormac was living in Ireland and England working on a contract which was according to him making him millions of pounds/euros. He was constantly going on about how much money he was making. He was the only person I ever met who said ‘I work hard, and I play hard’... oh even writing that sentence makes me grimace, twat!

He bought a microwave to nuke the 14 chicken breasts that he used to eat every evening and put it in the middle of the kitchen table so we couldn’t use the table any more. Took a bit of talking and a relocation alternative before he would even consider that it wasn’t practical to have the bloody microwave on the table.

He drank those stupid WD40 smelling protein drinks...

I had friends over for a dinner party one weekend when no one else was around so I temporally re-arranged the furniture in the kitchen-dining room, and he had a go at me for not consulting him about the change in furniture!

We had an argument once (one of many I am sure) where he told me that I needed to change my personality (yes really) because he didn’t like the fact that I am sarcastic, and when I am not being sarcastic I am facetious... I took it under advisement and then ignored him.

Anyway he was a git but seemed harmless enough, until Kylie moved out, and my friend P moved in, Cormac was unable to arrange to meet with P because of his ‘busy’ schedule, and he didn’t want him to move in because P might steal the ‘thousands’ of pounds worth of recording equipment he kept in his room FFS!...we arranged a phone call as times could not be arranged and Kylie needed to sort her deposit etc as she was returning home. P moved in and there was not a lot more to be said...a few incidents where we hear young ladies slam the door and shout at him while they left in the middle of the night, but Cormac basically kept to himself.

Until one quiet morning I get a text from P really early – ‘Did you hear that?’ Now, neither my then boyfriend, nor I had heard anything unusual however when I got up this is the story that P told. And it has scared him for life.

He was in bed, naked (mental note!) and his girlfriend had just left to go to work, the door to his room opens and someone lays on top of him, and whispers in his ear....’it’s ok Robert it’s just us’. It's Cormac! P attempts to get up can’t, hollers, and trys to shove Cormac off his bed, about to climb out of bed to forcibly remove him from the room, he realises that Cormac is naked too! Cormac then proceeds to sit at the edge of the bed and mumble a bit, P was somewhat reluctant to get out of bed as he didn’t want to get into a physical fight with Cormac, naked wrestling was not on P’s agenda! Then Cormac left the room, came back in to say sorry (or something) farted! And left. And that was the last time we ever saw him.

This story makes me giggle every time I think of it, poor P he is still traumatised and his face goes a funny colour every time I remind him of it. The funniest part is that P maintains that he hollered and yelled, and I heard nothing, I claim that he welcomed Cormac in just to wind him up.

I am not nice.

* details not changed to protect the 'innocent'
(LittleRock is planning her next meal, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 18:18, 1 reply)

Where to begin...
Well, it has to be University, doesn't it?

There were four of us sharing a house in North London, with a room each. Three on the top floor and one downstairs in what would have been the dining room (I'd somehow managed to snag the biggest, but that's neither here nor there).

Housemate 1 was a German jazz musician, who had (and I mean that in every sense) a series of loud and particularly enthusiastic young ladyfriends. This would have been OK, had he not chosen to have them when we were all desperately trying to sleep. The beds weren't in the best of condition anyway, and no-one really appreciated hearing his knocking against the thin walls all night when there were finals the next day.

Housemate 2 was a Greek fashion student - very nice and generally very quiet, though none of us were proper hellraisers, which is strange for students, I know - and had the small box room next to mine. Close to exam time, I am woken up at roughly 3am by a noise. The noise sounded all too familiar, having been subjected to Housemate 1's nocturnal activities. Oh yes ladies and gentlemen, she was letting everyone know in no uncertain terms just how much fun she was having. I turned over, tried to get back to sleep. Nuh-uh. Pillow over the head perhaps? Mine not hers, I hasten to add... Nope, not doing much to drown out the incessant moaning and groaning from next door.

By about 4.30 I have had it up to here /gestures to neck level.

I grab my dressing gown, and start banging on her door, to let her know it might be a good idea to shut the fuck up before irrevocable damage occurred.

It was only when she opened the door and half fell out, sickly, pallid, and vomiting, that the rest of us realised the poor girl had alcohol poisoning...

Mother Teresa I ain't.
(Kitimariana, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 17:26, 4 replies)

At uni I was forced to live
with this guy that no one else would. He got kicked out of one house because he absolutely refused to have meat in the house. They put him in a more lefty/hippy house, but he got kicked out of there for being racist. He was a veget-aryan.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:55, 5 replies)

Halls
Being a young and new B3tan (first post) I am still at university in my first year. Some of my flat mates are pretty creative at domestic terrorism, to illustrate some examples,
1) Putting Honey or shampoo on a door handle. Short lived but still rather annoying for the victim.
2) As where we live there is a communal bog, chucking a water bomb while someone is having a dump, whereby hearing a high pitched scream means a girl got hit or a oi Wanker! remark means a guy was the victim.
3) Figuring out that you can use a screwdriver to unlock the bathroom to steal someones towel, and taking pictures of this embarrassment as it moves at 20mph skidding accross the hall flooring with wet feet to their room.
4) Also using a screwdriver to take someones door handle off completely meaning they are firstly confused and secondly can't get in.
5) Various "decoration" of someone who has left there door unlocked and sometimes relocation of their room.

Of course these don't happen 24/7 only when people have a reason for rivalry which makes it fun and fair, as long as you're not an arsehole it is well fun to live here.

Oh and walls are so thin that you can hear the sex, snoring and even the dripping tap of anyone within a 3 meter radius of your room.

Gonna move into a nice 4 bed house this september, will be wicked.

Length you say? if your curious the bloke who's towel got stolen was shorter than this post.
(Burrishimo do an omishirrub and i will hug you, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:41, 7 replies)

Changing rooms...
We redecorated a housemates room with pages from porn mags. Walls, floor, even stuck them to the ceiling. We then filled his bed, wardrobe, drawers and anywhere else we could find... this was a lot of porn! Not an inch of wall was un-porned!
We finished it with a sign on his door saying "Dr Dirt, master of filth" He was finding porn for weeks... lucky bastard!
Oh, wait, that makes me the bad housemate!!!
(dampwookie failing to understand everything from birth up to, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:24, 4 replies)

I hate...
people who post an answer to the previous weeks question.
(Ginger_Whinger got in the newsletter!! =D, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:20, 1 reply)

I used to have this incredible flatmate

He was witty, charming, urbane, and also incredibly good looking, if I do say so myself.

I'd spend hours talking to him. He made so much sense.

Then one day he went, left without as much as a word.

Now I live alone.

Really must replace that mirror one day...
( SpankyHanky, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:14, 1 reply)

I just found out I have a flatmate.
I live on my own, and this has come as a big surprise.

I wasn't given any notice about them moving in.

I've even checked my tenancy and it doesn't say anything about sharing.

I only noticed when I went in the kitchen and noticed him.

He ran away and disappeared behind the bin.

.
(Pill Popper Thank you Sasha Shulgin, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:01, 17 replies)

Paradise
There's a great house just up the road from where I live. Everyone who lives there is constantly on drugs, no one seems to have a job and all they do is lounge round all day waiting for the next mealtime.

It really is fucking great, paradise on Earth.

I remember one time I was there I got chatting to this lovely lady. She was off her head on something but she was well up for it. After a bit of smooth talk we got down to some serious dirty, filthy, explicit loving. One of her housemates barged in on us, stuffing a load of pills down her gob, and asked if she could join in as she was desperate for some cock action.

Yay!

It was great having a threesome in the afternoon with two desperate, horny ladies buzzing off their tits on pills...

Of course, I'm not allowed back to the old peoples home anymore...

...which is a shame because I'm sure Mavis and Gertrude would be well up for another hot rod up the bum session.
( SpankyHanky, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 15:58, 8 replies)

I used to live
with themanwiththeplan. He is a cunt.
That is all
(Shitquest is as shitquest does, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 15:54, 5 replies)

Housemates various...
I've ben in quite a few shared houses and flats, sharing with a mixture of very nice and very weird people.

House 1
After an uneventul first year of uni in halls, I moved into a house with some new found 'friends'. I was not too happy about moving in with them as our friendship had been breaking down for a bit of time, but there was no one else to share with and it was all that was left. I moved in at the beginning of summer as I didn't feel the need to go back to the parents house (I'd moved out - why would I want to go back?) and it was great having a 3 bed house to myself for a couple of months at half price rent (per room!). Then they moved in. Now, I'm a fairly tidy person and like the place I live in to be clean. They didn't care about that and the house was soon disgusting. After christmas I moved out - a hard decision as I was in a contract to pay for the room until the end of term.

House 2
Having left the filth behind I moved into a lovely 4-bed house. At the time there were only two other people there. Big Phil is called Phil and was big (6'6", 18 stone) - smashing guy. Also there was Princess Fi. Stunningly gorgeous (hence the Princess) girl called Fiona. These people like the place to be clean and tidy! They new how to work a vacuum cleaner and did the washing up! I was in heaven! Then the last bedroom became occupied with Charley. An indian chap who only had one speed - about 100 mph. I long suspected he had undiagnosed ADHD but it wasn't a problem as he became a firm friend.

House 3
Third (and final) year of uni. I'd made some more friends (not easy, I'm quite shy) and they'd decided that a 6 bedroom house partly over a closed shop was a great idea. And for the most part, it was. The property was a bit of a shit hole, but it was huge. I said this to them, "Apart from it being huge and right by the main drag, what's good about it?" This left them stumped but we still moved in. There were a couple of legendary parties with the greatest cobbled together sound system in the world. Music would be played from one PC with the attached amp in downstairs bedroom. Stereo link the the main speakers in the living room from there and from the living room another link to the other ground floor bedroom, which had been cleared and had a sofa, beanbags, etc. From the PC the music was played on it was streamed over the network to a PC upstairs in another cleared room then another stereo link to a hi-fi in the kitchen completed the system. It was awesome - mainly 'cos I made it.
But in this house we had Kev. He started out as a nice bloke in the first year, with a wicked sense of humour. But by the third year he became a smelly recluse.

House 4
Uni over, me, my brother, our old friend from college days Shaun and Alan moved into another wonderful house. All was well for some time, despite Shaun's habit of removing his socks in the living room then leaving them there - he had no issues with us throwing them into his room. Shaun left after about 6 months and Alan's friend from work moved in. A short girl called Alana, she was bloody gorgeous (I'm short, I like short girls). She moved in at about the time Alan's sanity apeared to be waning. Despite being a little older than the rest of us, this was the first time he'd been away from home. It was becoming apparent that him no longer being able to dictate how things happened was having a detrimental effect. We'd be in the kitchen cooking something for dinner and he'd come down from his room (where he spent almost all his time now) give a small snort of derision and go back upstairs. 20 or so minutes later the doorbell would ring.
"Pizza delivery," said some spotty oik.
"Erm... OK. Hold on," I'd talk to the others. "Anyone order a pi-"
"It's mine!" Alan would come flying down the stairs, grab the food and dissapear again.
His professionalism at work would also have issues. He'd already lost one job for being late too often. The new job was near to my brothers job - Alan could give him a lift! After numerous times being late to work because Alan was still getting ready, my brother gave up on this. Alan would still blame him for being late even when he wasn't there.

House 5
Well, a flat. A nice flat in a nice part of town, sharing with a couple we (me and brother) had known for a long time. Again, all started well but her ladyship did want to be in charge of the flat (not the bills and such, just how all the communal areas were laid out and used). She had a hissy fit when I turned the living room round (we had the three piece, TV and coffee table crammed into the smallest area with acres of space unused).
"But I liked it like that!"
"Why? we were crammed in like sardines and couldn't get past each other. Now there's lots of space"
"Yeah, but there's light on the TV and I can't see it properly now."
"Pull the blind."
"Oh."
Still, they weren't that bad as we are still close friends with them.

House 6
Just me and my bro. We own it (well, the bank does, but it's not rented at least). He's not as tidy as I'd like, but understands when I ask him to take his stuff away. He cooks. I clean. We built a bar in the front room. It works well.

Sorry about the length and probable typos.
( gareth_alien will be human again at, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 15:52, Reply)

I used to share a house
with an incredibly belligerent shepherd.

He had angora management issues.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 14:49, 4 replies)