The German Sense of Humour
Bjorn and Matthias... Shared a room in my student house. On the first night out they regaled us with the funny story about how when exploring their new room as Matthias opened their cupboard for the first time it fell on him.

On our final farewell night out at the end of the year, they were still telling that story, still with tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks as they got to the end.

It had worn a bit thin for the rest of us by then.
(Stonkwood Pipes made me do it, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:48, Reply)

The Sons Of John Barr
at end of 1991 I came out of a long term relationship at the same time as a mate got divorced and turfed out of his house. Getting a flat together and living it up seemed like a great idea and another mate moved in to take the third bedroom. There were only actually two bedrooms though, the other room should have been the living room, which there wasn't one of, and you had to walk through it to get to the kitchen

it was ok at first, lots of booze and recreational drug abuse but within a few months had spiralled to a really bad atmosphere between me and the original flatmate. He was a nice guy when sober but an aggressive bully when drunk, especially on whisky. He dealt hash and had lost what you'd class as his real friends but had picked up an entourage of chancing hangers on. I saw him grab people by the neck and slam their heads through glass doors and cabinets but they were back the next day if they thought they could borrow money from him for booze and tic hash off of him

it ended up him and a hard core of about 3-5 other guys basically living in that one room completely out of their tits 24/7. People were being thrown through the windows into the street, ground floor flat, during the height of their drunken revelry and concrete slabs were being thrown through the windows from the outside by outraged neighbours

apart from the core group there was a large revolving group of other people who came and went, hells angels, professional moneylenders and assorted flotsam and jetsam. The flat got abandoned by our other friends who were into a drink and drugs but not to the extent our place had become. Hardly any females visited, I once had to step over him banging one on the hall floor to get into the toilet, both of them pissed as newts, her a drug connections wife

I had to go to my folks for a bath as the bath at ours was filled to overflowing with empty Buckfast and whisky bottles and the bathroom floor a minefield of cat shit

the other flatmate is a notorious cheapskate whose contribution to the economics of the flat was to eat our food, try to pay nothing to the utility bills and purchase nothing more than ten Club and two cans of Gilde Pils a week and say he was skint. One day he came in and said he was off to India for a year and would see us later, a clue to where his money had been going

another hardcore boozer mate moved in in his place and things just carried on. My room was at the front so I'd be awoken constantly with people rapping my window to get in to get drunk and buy hash at silly hours, my flatmates couldn't hear the buzzer over the noise of The Mac Lads blasting out of his room

things came to a head one day when they went to the local pub and one of the guys saw someone at the pool table who had ripped him off for a bit of hash a decade earlier. They decided they were going to stab him and came back to the flat for a knife and decided they were going to use a ghurka knife someone had given me. I refused to give them it, my flatmate was brandishing a scythe, threatened my then girlfriend (a complete nugget) with it, ransacked my room and eventually found the knife. We had a struggle for it and he held it to my throat and I told him to go and do his thang. I knew they probably wouldn't actually go back to the pub, they'd just talk about it and buy a bottle of whisky about halfway there and turn back. I was right, they came back, my flatmate was being feted by his minions as being a great guy and they'd showed the other guy what for despite not actually going back. I walked into the midst of this and punched my flatmate as hard as I could right on the button and he went down flat on his arse. I then took the dropped ghurka knife and held it under his cheekbone and asked him if he liked having a knife held to him by a friend. He replied "honour, you've drawn the knife and you have to draw blood with it" (we'll get back to this later) so I said ok and gave him a small nick on the cheekbone, they weren't expecting me to do it and I was relieved of the knife by the other people in the room incase I did worse damage with it

I decided if I didn't move out one of was going to come to a sticky end so I moved out the next day. I used to periodically visit though and the place went from bad to worse. The last time I went back the kitchen sink was on the floor in about fifteen pieces. He'd moved into my old room and the floor was littered with empty bottles, swords, knives, crossbows, air guns etc. They were drinking John Barr whisky by the gallon and had taken to calling themselves The Sons Of John Barr. They had this whole honour thing going, if a knife was taken from its sheath blood had to be drawn and on closer inspection they were all covered in cuts across their forearms and the back of their hands. My flatmate was using one of the knives to open tins of catfood, cut himself with it, probably got a bit of Whiskas into his bloodstream and developed septicemia

it eventually came to a close when he attacked his best friend with a whisky bottle and smashed all his front teeth out with it, although there are rumours that to put in a more convincing claim for criminal damages the victim pulled out a few more teeth with a pair of pliers to make it look even more of a catastrophe. When he went to the police they were full of sympathy until they asked for the address, upon his reply they put down the pen and told him it was his own fault for going there and told him to clear off. Not to be detered from his rightful claim for compensation for no longer having any front teeth he took out a private prosecution and my flatmate got eighteen months and the flat was promptly closed down by the environmental health and our landlord went to prison for using one of his flats to grow grass, which was discovered when the flat next door caught fire

my flatmate got out out of prison still a complete nugget except now with a penchant for smoking smack and touching other mens bottoms

I walk past the flat on a regular basis and think "it was a melting pot of beliefs and cultures"

ps, my flatmate lives round the corner from the original flat, I've been in once and it looked the same story being repeated and I'm hearing of regular visitors to it drinking themselves to death at 33
(albinomeatpod, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:48, 3 replies)

A tale of general anal retentiveness, lock picking and ill-advised accessories worn at a bakery
I moved to Macclesfield for a 12 month student job placement as part of my Computing degree a few years ago and it was the first time I'd lived away from home. 'Oh what freedom', I thought, I can finally do whatever I want at whatever I time I want (although thinking about it - I didn't do a fat lot different except learn to rollerskate)!

I lived in a house with 7 other people, and people living there tended to be just passing through, with the exception of one chap called Alastair in his 40's - he'd been living there for a long time... probably about a decade.

He was very anal retentive about people doing their washing up and putting it away ASAP, stuff like that never bothered me too much because I like things neat and tidy myself and I figured he'd probably gotten fed up of the varying standards of hygiene among the many different people he must have shared the house with over the years. But he was a bit of an odd duck... there was no lounge so the only communal area was the kitchen and he had this knack of knowing when someone was in there (no matter how quietly you crept down the stairs), this hadn't gone unnoticed by the other housemates who gradually became convinced Alastair had the place bugged.

He used to cook 1 chicken every day for the local cats in the area.

I guess he was just a bit of a lonely bloke and it was hard not to feel sorry for him, but then I got back one Sunday night after popping back home for the weekend and Alastair soon accosted me and said that I should turn my alarm clock off if I am going away for the weekend. I usually remembered to do that, doh!

Anyway, I went into my room and found that my alarm wasn't going off and had been reset by somebody, I phoned the landlord who said that they hadn't been into my locked bedroom as they would have billed me for it.

I mentioned this to a girl who lived in the house who told me that Alastair has a collection of hundreds of Yale keys. The bloke must have been trying bloody hundreds of different Yale keys to get into my room and turn my alarm off.

I had the lock on my door changed shortly afterward.

At the end of the year Alastair said he was sad to see me go as I hadn't caused any problems in the house etc and he gave me a wolves pin badge from about 1980 - 'Awww thats quite nice of him, maybe he's just a bit of a loveable old kook afterall' I thought, at which point he went back into his room and came back out wearing a red Nazi armband and started talking about how he collects war memorabilia, unfortunately one day he went out shopping and forgot he was wearing it and it 'caused a bit of a stir down the bakers'.

I collected the remaining stuff I had in the house, got in the car and made a quick getaway.
(nashie, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:45, 4 replies)

Scandinavian Housemate
Oystien conformed to many of the Scandinavian stereotypes we hold, being blond and sexually uninhibited. Sadly the lack of a second X chromosome held him back from being the perfect housemate. He's long gone now, but you will know him if you meet him because he will tell this story to anyone after a few drinks, complete with whimsical backstory...

Winter nights are long and cold in Norway, and drinking is the only way to get through them. Sadly a "small beer" costs about £4 for about 300ml so young people short on cash drink heavily at home before a night out at preparties/vorspiels(sp?), often drinking terrible but inexpensive home made spirits.

Lutefisk is a Scandinavian delicacy consisting of fish soaked in lye. If that doesn't sound bad enough, true gourmets believe it is more flavoursome when it has just started to ferment . Judging whether fermentation has gone too far is something of an art, and a task made considerably more difficult after the consumption of large amounts of home distilled vodka.

One evening sees young Oystien, suffering after heavy consumption of both of the above national delicacies, reeling his merry way into the dark Scandinavian night. Nature inevitably takes its course, and by the time he makes it into town the gut rot and rotten fish are exerting a powerful effect on his lower digestive system. Matters "come to a head", and he is forced to make a speedy decision. Scandinavians are very socially minded, and public urination, or indeed defecation, carries a heavy fine, and besides the streets are crowded. The towns only public toilet is a long walk away and the few night spots in reach have long queues of freezing revelers outside.

As another contraction hits, he finds himself outside the lighted doors of a bank, one of those which allow entry to indoor cash machines after closing. Inspiration strikes-although the lobby doors face the street, the cash machines inside provide a screen from the street. Not much, but enough for a desperate man to relieve himself with some degree of privacy. So he ventures inside, and there behind the furthest cash machine, like a gift from the Gods, sits a wire waste paper basket, upon which he can squat and avoid losing his balance and falling drunkenly into his own leavings. And squat he does, and it is good. Oystien rationalises that a shit in a basket is less offensive and easier to clean up than a shit on the floor, and so some of his guilt is assuaged. His business at the bank almost completed, he notices in wonder that littered around him are lots of those little receipt things the machines give, and with these he can clean himself behind.

But, as he fastens his trousers, realisation hits! The bank would surely have installed cctv in the lobby, and the whole sordid episode would be caught on tape! Rationalising fast, our hero makes a mental check of his attire: white trainers, baggy jeans, dark gloves, a nondescipt black jacket, and most vitally, a baseball cap! Clothes that would not make him easy to identify, and the peak of the cap obscuring his face. Making certain not to scan the ceiling for cameras, he exits the lobby with a spring in his step and blessedly empty bowels. He has perpetrated the perfect crime!

Come Monday, his hangover little more than a dull sense of paranoia, he is working happily at his desk when the phone rings. Who should it be but the local police station , and would he please present himself there before the end of the day? After work, He makes his way to the station with trepidation, but not without some confidence- he is sure he never revealed his face to the cameras, nor removed his gloves; what evidence would the police have besides a passing visual resemblance? A stern faced officer takes his name at the desk, and he is made to wait before being ushered into a crowded room and sat before a TV screen in crowded room. The officer presses a button on the video, and Oystein is treated to a ceiling mounted view of his the escapades of the past weekend. Try as he might, our hero cannot keep a straight face. He realises the room is full of people who have come to see his reaction. Knowing his blushes are already giving him away, he makes full confession before the laughing audience of police.

One thing is still puzzling him. Today is monday, and the incident was on saturday night, not two days ago. How had they found him so fast? Banks have developed a mechanism to stop unwanted person entering their lobbies after closing. Only those in possession of a bank card are able to pass through the doors. This is checked by a simple scanner, through which one must drag ones card. Oystein had used his own, providing his name and address to to the authorities before he had even committed a crime.
(TheBoyTucker, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:37, 2 replies)

Jam pots and toilet fears
I had the weirdest housemate who refused to do housework unless nagged. She also always horded a million jam pots as she wanted to recycle them but never got around to it.

We agreed we wouldn't use the house phone unless it was an emergency but she kept using it for oversees calls. She wanted to move her tv into her room but found that she couldn't quite lift her tv up the staircase on her own and we were left with two tvs in the living room.

She used to always shout random non-sensical things like "omg I hate this micrwave!" (which she rarely cleaned by the way).

She was afraid of the toilet. She would always leave the cover down and refused to clean the toilet becaues it "freaked her out".

She was afraid of all things sexual so I used to purposefully have really loud sex so she could hear.

^^ hi if you read this ex-housemate from hell
(MeZ, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:32, 3 replies)

Chris
I lived in halls with Chris, and then, after a year living apart, we ended up in the same house during my finals year.

Chris was miserable - hilariously miserable - and, if there was misfortune to be had, it was his for the taking. But it was never a straightforward misfortune. He claimed once to have been run over and knocked unconscious - but the car that hit him was a Rolls-Royce, and when he regained consciousness, he was holding a full, but open, bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale that he had not owned before.

Another of his burdens was the fact that he could never get laid. Apparently his penis was just too big - "it'd rip anyone in half" - and he couldn't find condoms to fit. "I have to use a pint glass," he complained.

He also had a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing. On learning that one of the people living nearby was from Niger, his first question was, "Does that mean you're a Nigger, then?" (We all winced and bit hard into our fists at that...)

But, just occasionally, he said exactly the right thing. When we first moved into halls, the warden spent the first couple of weeks holding little "getting-to-know-you" parties. These were perfectly pleasant, but perhaps a little patronising.

The warden was making small-talk, and happened to ask Chris what his father did for a living.
"He's a hill farmer," said Chris.
"Oh, really? That's interesting. What does he farm?"
Chris looked at his inquisitor witheringly and spat out a one-word answer.
"Hills."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:32, 16 replies)

I have never had room/house mates who were in any way tolerable
I have just a few simple expectations for peaceful co-existence: -
- I like a room mate who doesn't just think that waiting for the lights to go out is enough discretion to play an "organ concerto" on his bedsprings.

- I like lodgers who don't then invite horrible Australian girls to stay without my permission for a couple of week that quickly turns into six months of hell: picking fights with me over her interpretation of political correctness (me describing a cold morning as being a bit "Pearl Harbour" gets me barked at for being racist); being careful to wipe the chain oil from her bike on my cream upholstery every night...etc...etc...

-(by this point I should have known) when offering a couple some rooms in my very spacious house I do not expect to find that they live their lives like 24/7 soap opera: fights every night "I hate/love you" "I'll kill myself/you" etc...

-Dying your hair and then walking through dripping it on the carpets is not acceptable. No, not even if your hair-dryer is in the bedroom.

-Agreeing to abide by my vegetarian rules in the kitchen does not then mean "Except if I really want to cook mackerel at 2 in the morning and stink up the whole house for a week".

-Waking your landlord up on a Saturday morning by moving all your stuff out does not constitute "one month's notice".

-When your now ex-landlord comes to your workplace because you've not paid your last months rent and have been ignoring his calls for two weeks, do not square off to him.

-When your ex-landlord is unimpressed by your tough act, never ever think that putting the money you owe him in an envelope with a snotty and badly spelt note in any way "shows him".
(Stonkwood Pipes made me do it, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 15:31, 1 reply)

a few years ago
i lived in a big house with 4 other girls in west london. from time to time, housemates would move in and out, and we would advertise in loot. and that is how we found ellie.

oh, ellie.

ellie was a very naive 28 year old girl from the remotest part of canada. she was very sweet, but the kind of girl who immediately volunteered to run the local brownie group, and who was always cooking something for someone. one occasion when i was fighting furiously with the bedshitter, she emailed me and said:

"how do you fancy a little foursome tonight - just you, me, ben and jerry?"

no, actually, i fancy a shitload of vodka and fantasies about killing the cunt. but that sums her up.

so one night shortly after she moved in, the bedshitter and i arrived home to find her lying on the sofa crying and vomiting. my other housemate rachel said, "thank god you're here," and promptly fucked off and left us with her.

we established quickly that the vomit was alcohol induced. the crying, however, seemed to be because she had pulled some guy from the office. we could not see the problem. eventually, she sat up, mascara, hair and snot smeared everywhere, and howled:

"no, you don't understand. it was my FIRST TIME..."

like i said. she was 28.

anyway, the next day, she was desperately ashamed. i couldn't give a fuck about cleaning up the vomit; we've all been there, but i hardly knew the girl, and i did not want to find myself discussing whether she had enjoyed oral as much as she thought she would.

eventually, however, she asked me whether she should take the morning after pill. i blushed and asked whether he had used a condom. and she said.......

"well, he didn't put it in. he just - you know - on my tummy."

ffs. ffs. ffs. how did she think that was going to impregnate her? did she think spunk went in through the belly button? or that it swam down the stomach, over the pubis, trickled over the lips, and then dragged itself inside and upwards?

i nearly dislocated my jaw gaping at her. poor naive ellie.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 14:50, 29 replies)

Tory John
It was freshers' week 1995. I had just moved into my hall of residence. "Sick, Tired and Sleepless" by The Cardigans was on the radio.

One of the people with whom I would spend the next academic year was John. John was... well, he wasn't normal. How abnormal? Well, he had a picture of Michael Heseltine above his bed. He wore a tweed blazer if he got cold. He wasn't posh, or a huntin'-and-fishin' type - he was just remarkably unworldly, and an 18-year-old Liverpudlian Tory.

At the time, one of the ways to gauge people was by asking them one question: Blur or Oasis? He'd never knowingly heard anything by either. He did own a lot of Frank Sinatra tapes, though.

He'd be in bed by 10:30 every evening, and up by 7:30 every morning. This was understandable during the week - he had a heavy lecture timetable - but the same was true at weekends.

At weekends, he'd go off to car-boot sales and buy things in the hope of selling them on at a profit - and they always, but always, turned out to be utter junk.

And his proudest possession - Heseltine picture excepted, perhaps - was an adjustable spanner, which he'd demonstrate with warmth to anyone who'd listen.

Nice enough guy - but... oh, dear. Not really suited to going outside.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 14:49, 5 replies)

Northern mad man
I once lived in a shared house next door to another shared house and the boyfriend of one of the girls next door moved in with us, fun guy, if a little mental.

one night after a massive row next door he comes home and storms into my room (where I was enjoying a 'smoke' with the then missus) wielding a machete and a pair of nunchuckers, swinging them about knocking seven shades of shit out of himself (I had an internal stoned freakout until I realised he was harming himself not us).

he then went to his room then left to go back next door to try to kick down her door.

next thing we know smoke is coming from his room and in my stoned laziness it took me a while to investigate what was a full on fire, his music gear (piano, computer, guitar) was all beyond repair and so we got to putting the fire out, half an hour later he comes back in looking guilt free and started looking for his new jacket, he didn't seem to mind a grands worth of music equipment being ruined but apparently this jacket was all that he loved.

I found the label of the jacket in the middle of the carnage

turns out that a lit cigarette fell into his top pocket which he didn't notice when he took off his jacket just before going next door.

he moved out the next day thank fuck.
(Starzy had a headache on, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 14:25, 2 replies)

A bit of a domestic
A couple of days after I'd moved in to my final student flat, B moved in. He brought his girlfriend with him.

At silly o'clock, I was woken by the sound of shouting. I couldn't tell much about it, but it was clearly coming from my new flatmate's room, and the tone was female.
"You fucking hit me!" the voice screamed. "Don't you fucking kick me again!"

Oh, hell, I thought. I've gone and landed myself in a flat with a violent nutter.

As it turned out, the opposite was the case. His hands and feet had made rapid contact with her body - but only in the sense that her body was in the way as he flailed about in the burning bed to which she'd just set fire - and not in the metaphorical way.

For his part, B was very apologetic about the noise the following morning. And the girlfriend was not seen again.

Well - it's one way to get to know your flatmates, isn't it?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 14:06, 14 replies)

Boo!
I once temporarily moved in with a few people I didn’t really know. I couldn’t have moved in with any mates TBH as I was in a different country. Things started to go wrong a few weeks later when J moved in. J was a mate of one or two of the housemates and decided to because there was a bit of a class and culture difference between us she didn’t want to know anything about me.

She slowly turned a couple of people against me and together they tried to make my life (While in the house) hell by using a number of racist taunts at me behind my back. This all came to a head one night and me and J had a bit of a loud shouting match.

Thankfully she was evicted a few weeks later along with her two other chavvy mates.

A good year later and I’ve been told that J has developed cancer and the whole incident has been erased from the minds of most of the British public, despite the fact that it was a major media event at the time.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 13:41, 7 replies)

Who's been sleeping in my bed?
Split up with a live-in ex back when I was in my mid-20s.

It was her house, so I needed somewhere to live, spent a while looking unsuccessfully, then the mutual friend we met through suggested I take his flat on - he'd moved elsewhere for work but couldn't rent the flat out because the Victorian house it was in had subsidence problems and the front of his flat was undergoing structural repairs.

But for a one-bed flat in Clapham at half-rent I could certainly put up with that.

Mentioned my luck to my old ex-door neighbour down the pub, who asked a bit about the flat (basically it had a sofa bed in the living room and a separate bedroom), then said, "Oh, Jamie" - another regular, originally from Brum but working in London - "needs somewhere to stay, that'll do nicely for him".

Well, several beers later I had been convinced that it would be the decent thing to let Jamie move in with me, and I now had a one-bed (shared) flat in Clapham at quarter rent. Most weekends, he'd be up in Brum seeing his kids, during the week, one or both of us would be out, so it suited us both fine.

A couple of months later, one evening down the pub, my ex's lodger ran in and told me I'd better get round there sharpish, our (well, by this point, her) cat had been run over and killed and my ex was in a very bad way.

So I went over and stayed the night, and the following night, and the rest of the week, which turned into a fortnight... (after a couple of days, once it was clear this would be an extended stay, I'd gone back to the flat to pick up clothes etc).

Anyway, after a couple of weeks, I went back to my flat so we could have a bit of space to work out whether we wanted to get back together and when I walked in, I found Jamie looking sheepish and startled at the same time, if that's possible.

Turned out the cheeky git had figured I wasn't coming back so got a mate of his in to share without telling me. This new guy was built like a brick shithouse and I wasn't about to turf him out, so I went back to the ex's and left them to sort things out with my mate/landlord.

Length? Another year before the relationship finally hit the buffers at Break-Up Junction, which coincided with my first year at uni (mature student) and meant I really didn't enjoy my first year as much as I could/should have (certainly made up for it in the second year, mind...)
(Capo, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 13:21, Reply)

Left Home For the First Time
My first housemate told me about her recent date rape, the first time I met her.

She was a "Heavy" girl, but my god she could pull men no bother, her technique was to tell them all the shit she'd do to them when they got back to hers. Once she pulled a guy on the Thursday and he stayed until Sunday, pretty much by himself with all our stuff because when she was sober she would barely talk to anyone.

She had an odd fear of eggs, even in their shells, this led to my long running game of hide the eggs, basically you put them anywhere, her bedside locker, the shower or my favorite in the Toilet. Then wait for the screams.

When she moved out there was full body sweat prints of her all over the walls in her room, which she told her parents were from rain.

Oh and she ate Wheatbix in a bowl with peas...
(Lukekull Fuck, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 13:04, 6 replies)

Not your normal student digs.
Wavy lines to 1977.

I was attending Aston University and living in Acocks Green (Birmingham). Due to various misadventures I’d ended up living in a place where I had my own (lockable) room and was provided with bed and breakfast and an evening meal. The other inmates were solid chaps, Jim was a retired Regimental Sergeant Major (emphasis on mental) who was a fount of Army related stories. Ernie was a former designer who had worked at one of the many car factories in the area. Both were very good drinkers and often took pity on a poor be-knighted student and took me down the pub for beers, darts, dominoes and numerous bullshitting sessions where each would try to outdo the other with outlandish tales of their past. Good times. This was interrupted for a short period by the arrival of Frank.

In 1977 Care In The Community was starting to raise it’s ugly head and so Frank arrived. He landed on the doorstep smartly dressed and carrying a good quality suitcase. He was polite and clean but rather reserved and reticent with information. After a week without incident he arrived for dinner unkempt, unshaven and barefoot. Sitting down he introduced himself.

“Hello, my name’s Frank and I’ve got a clock. Would you like to see it?”
After which every time he appeared it would presage a conversation later to be hi-jacked by Jasper Carrott for his Nutter On A Bus sketches. It turned out that without constant supervision Frank could not be relied upon to take his meds. It got worse and worse, eventually getting to the stage where the landlady (a lovely young Irish lady with three small children) was getting quite upset and worried for their safety (luckily it emerged that Frank was neither paranoid nor schizophrenic, he was simply suffering from a form of Alzheimer’s). She managed to get Frank and his gear packed into her car and delivered him back to the residential home he had come from. And that is where I came in.

She offered me a months stay rent free if I pretended to be her husband (he was away working on building sites in London) and ensured Frank was not allowed back on the premises. Easiest money I ever earned. Shouting “No.” in a fake Oirish accent through the letterbox at Social Workers isn’t exactly hard work.

If I could remember more of that time and place I would definitely have made this a longer post, it was actually a bittersweet sad\funny period in my life but to be honest the years have taken their toll with me also.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Fri 27 Feb 2009, 12:55, Reply)

Yuk
Used to live with a guy who invited his girlfriend to move in to our tiny two person flat without even mentioning it. He didn't think this was the sort of thing he ought to run past me.

That annoyed me, but what really took the piss was when I came home one night and the door was double locked from inside.

I banged on the door until they let me in.

Pretty livid about being locked out of my flat, I brought it up with him the next day before she got back from work.

'Sorry mate, I didn't mean to lock you out, but I didn't want you just walking in on us...'
'Why not?'
'I was banging Sarah on the kitchen work surface.'

I moved out.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 12:54, Reply)

Viewing
A while back we had a room to rent in our house.

I was showing this couple round. They seemed like they were in the middle of a row, lots of tension in the air, they refused to look at each other.

I thought I'd break the static by starting a little small talk.

"So, what do you do, then?" I asked the woman.

"Him," she replied venemously. "That's why I'm here."

They didn't like the room, thank fuck.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 12:41, Reply)

Drug den
When I left home, I rented a room in a very nice house in the leafy, middle-class area of town. Life was good, we all got on and took the piss out of the bunny boiler bird that kept hassling one of the other guys. Then the guy that owned the house fell off a roof and broke his back on a roofing job. Literally that same day, his arsehole ex-wife turned up, proclaimed the house hers and me and the other guy to find somewhere else to live within a week. So I was fairly desperate to find somewhere.
Ended up renting a room from a guy who seemed okay on the first meeting. He was a friendly bloke, smoked a bit of weed and was into the same kind of music as me. I moved in but within a couple of days I started to wonder why the fuck I had done so.
The house was permanently cold. There was never any hot water and I began to wonder whether my rent was actually going to the real landlord, my roommate’s grandmother.
As time went on I noticed things going missing. It started with food, then my Southern Comfort. One day I sneaked into roomie’s room and found discarded food packaging all over the floor. My food! More worryingly though were several empty tins of lighter fluid scattered about the place…
I took the day off work one day and was having a nice relaxing shit when there was a very authoritarian knock at the door. I went downstairs and noticed, through the glass door, a couple of people dressed in black. There was a long, heavy looking red thing about to make its way through the glass. I opened the door and was met with two officers of her Majesty’s finest with a battering ram. They were here looking for stolen goods. One of my roommates dodgier friends had been accused of passing on stolen goods and the rozzers had a warrant to search the premises.
Now I’ve never been in bother with the law and so let them in. They searched the place and asked how long I’d been living there, as well as what I did for a living. When they found out that I was a good lad that worked and paid his taxes, instead of sitting indoors all day smoking dope and inhaling lighter fluid, the male officer took me to one side and ‘advised’ me that I should look for somewhere else to live.
One day I got in from work and noticed that the telly had disappeared. Odd, I thought, and went to my room. My guitar had gone. My bottle of Southern Comfort had gone. A big jar full of saved coins had gone too. Immediately I packed up my computer and other valuable stuff and took it down to a friend’s for safe keeping. A week later I found somewhere else to live.
A few years later, one of the guys that used to call round there often told me that the arsehole I was sharing with thought nothing of getting pissed and doped up, nicking my car keys and having a bit of a midnight joy ride in my car.
Last thing I heard, he was living in Leeds. I hope the fucker ODs on something…
(Ghostlight, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 12:05, Reply)

The Colour Purple…

Disclaimer: Please get comfy…and you might want to get a cup of coffee / can of Redbull / gram of speed to keep you going through this one…

When my brother and the sugar-coated Sherman tank that ended up becoming his (now ex) wife were star crossed young lovers, they were desperate to shack up together and plunge nose-first into credit-related chaos.

Unfortunately, they were hindered in their plight by that annoying, age old stumbling block of having no job, no money…and criminal records.

Their doomed blossoming romance needed help…and someone answered their call…

Behold! Bumbling along, like a drunken, late-teens, slightly sex-obsessed superhero, whose special powers consisted only of regular employment, being debt-free and having no previous convictions against his name…step forward 'Super Pooflake' – aka: ‘Security Bond & Deposit Guarantee Boy’!

I signed up and lived there for about a year or so, genuinely enjoying my first taste of freedom without the parents...although to be fair, my folks were always pretty liberal on the ‘bringing girls home’ front (Dad used to ‘high five’ me as I escorted the young ladies out of the house 'post-humpage'). My steady girlfriend of the time pretty much moved in with me, work was nearby – all was good.

Unfortunately, although we made a fair fist of blissful cohabitation for a while, living under the same roof as my brother and his monu-mentalist missus simply couldn’t last.

(Their domestic disputes made the hundred years war look like a ‘bit of a tiff’…I soon developed a sort of Jedi-esque ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ ability at spotting violent arguments just before they kicked off…and spider senses to avoid ashtrays just before they whizzed past my head)

Eventually, I informed them of my decision to move out, and all was amicably agreed. They had been on the premises for over a year, were getting by and were settled in; however, they asked me to hang around for a bit whilst they found a replacement lodger to help them with the almost overlooked matter of paying.the.fucking.rent.

I don’t know how, or where from, but eventually, they found their saviour in the spindly form of ‘Nigel’.

Nigel was an accountant-type fellow and owned a home PC, and this was in the days where your average compooter-a-tron was the size of an articulated lorry, had twirly-round tape wheel thingies, and thousands of nondescript lights blinking on and off like the set of Blake’s 7.

I was impressed. However, my suspicions were first aroused as to him possibly having ‘rolled onto the mouldy side of the fruit bowl’ when I was helping him move in, and I complimented him on some of the artwork that adorned his new bedroom walls.

Although the subject matter wasn’t exactly my ‘cup-of-tea’ (general wildlife, gore fests, people hanging from trees etc), I could at least acknowledge the talent involved.

“They’re good” I bleated nervously before enquiring: “Did you paint them yourself?”

He then informed me that he had bought the paintings from various artists, but that every piece had one thing in common. Each artist featured in his collection had later committed suicide…this was his motivation for buying them.

'Ooooooookay then' thinks I, as I slowly back out of the room...

Nigel got past the first few days without incident, and like so many stories on this QotW will no doubt testify, he seemed to be one of those guys who pretty much ‘kept himself to himself’.

To celebrate his arrival (and my subsequent freedom), we decided to venture out for a good old ‘boozy do’. Nigel was invited but said he had ‘other plans’. Non perturbed, my brother, his g/f and I went to our local and partook in the time-honoured tradition of getting bladder-bustingly shitfaced.

When kicking out time came, we were predictably kicked out, and we staggered back to the house for a 'sophisticated night cap' (tins of cider), and the welcome invitation for me to sleep on the sofa.

We crept along as we approached the house, in a conscientious move to avoid causing a disturbance. My brother’s g/f then quietly opened the front door, and as we tip-toed along the hallway we noticed that the lounge light was still on. ‘Ah, Nigel must still be up’, we thought to ourselves as we opened the door…

The sight that awaited us shook me to the very core.

Nigel was laying flat out on the floor, plum faced, completely stark-bollock naked, except for his trollies which were pulled down by his ankles, and a thick leather belt wrapped tightly round his throat. In one of his hands was a half drunk bottle of scotch…on his other hand was a purple silk glove, and in it he was holding his limp, dribbling, flaccid bacon bazooka, which was drooping snoozily, with a drizzle of post-ejaculatum oozing from his blistered hog’s eye. Surrounding him was a collection of jizzed-to-a-pulp tissues, scattered liberally about like stumpy, scrunched up little monuments to all things spunkilicious.

Nigel had passed out completely…fixed with the kind of glazed, gurning expression that you find on mongs clutching tickets to a Chuckle Brothers extravaganza.

He had quite literally wanked himself into blurry unconsciousness.

Aghast at this initial sight, our eyes were then turned to the subject playing on the video…

Despite the shaky camerawork, we could clearly make out an uncomfortable-looking woman repeatedly thrusting herself back and forth on to the gargantuan dangling phallus of a strapping farm horse – and both parties were ‘whinnying’ frantically as the dong-tastic Dobbin was plunged balls deep into her cavernous cack-canyon time and time again.

As we collectively recoiled we were just in time to watch another young lady collect about half a gallon of fresh horse spaff into a carrier bag…then tip it all over herself.

Time then seemed to slow down for us, Matrix style, as we stood there looking at the screen, then each other, then Nigel, then the screen again...as we noticed the action had changed to feature a rather blessed-in-the-chest-department female receiving enthusiastic oral pleasure from a weapons grade Rottweiller…whilst another was frying the dog’s miniature mountain of munting manure…and eating it. (she was using a knife and fork though...it seems there’s always time for good table manners).

“Whooooa?” I mewed meekly, leaving my mouth agape as my fledgling mind warped more and more beyond recognition with every passing frame of filthy film footage.

…

Eventually, my brother timidly ponders: “Ahh……erm……Shhhh, don’t wake him” he whispers kindly, holding his finger to his lips.

In the meantime, his psychopathic significant other had stepped over Nigel, and quietly switched off the TV…But as she heard my brother's words she breathed deeply, then visibly ‘snapped’ – screaming out at a lung-collapsing volume:

”DON’T FUCKING WAKE HIM?”

Bellowing with a force that would have had Brian Blessed reaching for the ear plugs, she continued: ”Oi! *kicks Nigel stoutly in the ribs* – you dirty, filthy fucker! What the fucking FUCK do you think you’re doing?”

Nigel slowly awoke and he rubbed his eyes, then after a brief realisation of his surroundings and the situation, he let out a piercing screech, like tyres in a 70’s car chase, before catapulting himself skywards in the manner of someone who had just received 3000 volts through his wrinkled, spent scrote (which on reflection he probably would have enjoyed).

He then desperately scrambled about for his clouts, whilst attempting in vain to cover as many offending articles as he could; yet only succeeding in doing what looked like a combination of synchronised swimming, an epileptic episode, and an impressive rendition of the ‘funky chicken’ dance.

Gazing down at this pathetic personification of purest perversion I tried to stifle the onset of giggles by adopting the moral high ground, ‘tutting’ loudly, shaking my head slowly, then turning and walking away in mock disgust…before running out of earshot and laughing like a particularly ticklish drain.

I slept in the bath.

To his credit, Nigel didn’t move out straight away… Fair play to him, he tried to ‘live it down’, but there are just some things that no amount of apologising can make up for, some things that you can’t just 'sweep under the carpet' (especially when you know what has taken place on that carpet)

Most of all…it’s impossible to share a house with someone when you can’t even bring yourselves to look each other in the eye.

He lasted about a fortnight.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:58, 23 replies)

Soup
I used to have a housemate who didn't like most of the food. If he had to eat on his own, one of the few meals he would make was tomato soup with bread.

He'd get a baguette, cut a slice off it and ate it with some of the soup. Not much is wrong with that, but the way he'd eat it surprised me. Instead of dipping the bread in the soup, he'd hold the slice over his bowl of soup and put the soup on it with a spoon. When asked why, he responded that that way he wouldn't get his fingers covered in soup...

The same guy convinced some of my other flatmates of the 200/200/200-rule. A meal had to consist of 200 grams of vegetables, 200 grams of potatoes and 200 grams of meat in order to be healthy.
(Duyster, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:56, 1 reply)

"let me guess..."
I'm a student at the moment, and living in a tiny, dirty house with four other blokes. I'm just as guilty as not cleaning up for myself, so that's not what's annoying me. I'm quite happy to live in my own filth.

No, what annoys me is that if there's something i wish to watch, and two of my housemates are in the living room as well.

One, let's call him x, if he's seen the show, he will sit there and recite every line about a second before it happens.

The other, y, starts to predict what's about to happen, always starting with the words "let me guess...". for example.

"let me guess. They're all going to die."
"Let me guess. She turns out to be her own mother"
"Let me guess. He's going to walk past in a minute."

Both of them together in the same room is intolerable. It's pretty much a full conversation, without ever watching the show i want to see.
(Urban Hermit Exit, pursued by a bear on, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:52, 2 replies)

OCD Madness
I had a housemate who was OCD.

Some things relatively expected - the remotes always put back in the same place on top of the TV (I swear he must have used a set square). He also used to move the power dial on the microwave so that it pointed upwards.

Other behaviours were a bit more odd. He wouldn't throw out his empty Flora tubs. They lived in the fridge. And the crusts from every loaf he bought were all tied up in their breadbags, and deposited in the freezer for posterity.

But in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that bad. He used to lock himself in his room every night after Neighbours and not come out for the rest of the night, leaving me with sole telly control!!
(Bigbadbob, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:52, 2 replies)

Trekkie Lesbians
I once lived in a 10-person house in the since-demolished Clays Lane Housing Co-op in East London.

One of the housemates was a trekkie lesbian whose girlfriend lived with her. You could tell they were trekkies because they often walked around all day in Star Trek uniforms that neither had the figure for. *shudder*

What I didn't realise was that I had the better end of the deal - the girlfriend had her own room in another house on the Co-op, which they used as storage and which was infested with vermin which naturally wandered around the rest of the house also. Said girl was asked why she didn't get the council in to eliminate said vermin, but she replied "oh it's okay, I love all God's creatures".

Oh dear God I'm glad they pulled that place down.
( wangmaster2000, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:43, Reply)

When I lived in Oz.
When I first moved to Oz, I had two really crappy room-mates.

One was a mad Nigerian fella who nicked all my stuff. The other was a scary skinhead who had a perchant for buggery and branding.

Still shit happens, eh?

T. Beecher
(ScousersPet, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:35, 2 replies)

We were a bit grubby...
The flat in which I lived between 1998 and 2001 had a fluctuating list of tenants - Richard and I were there the whole time, but others (such as Si and Paul) came and went.

David, one of the last people to join our band, arrived in the autumn of 2000. It was mid-afternoon when he and his family turned up with a couple of car-loads of stuff. We introduced ourselves, showed them his room, offered tea, and got out of the way.

The hoover went on. Now, the flat was a bit grotty, because it was old and hadn't been decorated since Genesis. But, albeit down-at-heal, the place was at least tolerably clean. Still, wanting to give a room the once-over isn't that unusual.

But the hoover stayed on.

I went for a run, and when I got back an hour later, it was still on. The room wasn't big. It should have taken about two minutes to give it the most coprehensive vacuuming ever - not two hours. Odd.

Eventually, the extended family left. David carried on with the cleaning. By now he was scrubbing the windowsill.

And he cleaned his room late into the night. When he'd finished that, he turned his attention to the rest of the flat.

For the next few days, there was not a single surface in the communal areas that was not cleaned. By this, I don't just mean that he showed a bottle of Flash to the admittedly greasy hob. I mean he took out the oven, and mopped under it. I got in one evening to find him on his knees, scrubbing the skirting-board in the hall with a nailbrush. On another occasion, he was to be found cleaning the wires from which the lightbulbs hung.

After a week, everything sparkled. It was wonderful - but the rest of us were beginning to wonder whether living with David might turn out to be a chore. This was, after all, odd behaviour.

But - no. David put our minds at rest. He called his routine nesting. What this meant was that he had a horror of other people's dirt. But once he'd cleaned the place completely, he had no problems about it getting dirty again. He just wanted to know whence the dirt came...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:28, 11 replies)

Censor
My mate Blackpool Ben was speeding his tits off.

He sat up all night and worked on a "great project". I really didn't want to sit round with a fella on amphetamines all night, watching him jibber and chew his cheeks to buggery, so I went up to bed.

In the morning I went down stairs. Ben hadn't moved. He was still sat where I left him the previous night.

"There you go, Spanky!" said Ben manically. And he passed me the stack of porno mags I kept in the living room - light reading for any guests who may come round.

I flicked through them.

Ben, the utter, utter bastard, had spent the night drawing underwear on every single girl. In biro.

Cunt.

Speed is bad for you, children. In this case it was bad for Ben because I went into the kitchen, picked up a saucepan, and twatted him round the back of the head with it.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:27, 6 replies)

Still Dre...
When I first moved to London, I was in desperate need of somewhere to live - the two-hour commute from my cousin's place was doing my head in after a week. So I ended up getting a shitty bedsit within walking distance of work.

The landlord was an utter cunt, but that's another story.

The (main) problem with this place was the lad in the room next to mine. He was 18 and the first one of his mates to move out. Therefore the house was used as a youth (yoof?) club.

He had a bout a dozen mates who would hang about the place, sometimes when he wasn't even there. While about half of he mates were actually black, the rest were, well, wiggers.

As a result of this, they liked to play hip-hop at loud volumes. But, this being a relatively nice area of Finchley, it was very much radio-friendly hip-hop. They had two favourite tracks that seemed to be on permanent rotation - Eminem's "Stan" and "Still Dre".

This grew a little thin after a while, though I used to counteract it by whacking Pantera's "Great Southern Trendkill", Sepultura's "Chaos A.D." or Fear Factory's "Soul Of A New Machine" at a volume that would be painful, were it not for the earplugs.

One Sunday morning, after me and the missus had had a heavy night on the sherbert, Still Dre started at about 8am. We were not happy and the missus snapped and went and yelled at them. It was really funny to see a dozen "gang-stars" being throughly terrified by a pink-haired Scouse bird who was wearing nothing but a towel that didn't quite cover everything it should cover.

One of them made the mistake of standing up and saying "Wot you gahn do if we don' turn da muzik off?". The towel dropped, the lad never saw the hand coming and my missus had to move his head with her foot to get the towel back.

I didn't hear shit after that...
(ScousersPet, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:22, 1 reply)

Charley
I live on my own and like it that way, house sharing was just about bearable as a student but that was over 10 years ago for me and just the idea of living with other people makes me feel uncomfortable.

However, I do have a spare room in my house and various friends have hinted that they would like to move in. So far I have managed to dodge the issue without hurting anyone’s feelings. But then there's Charley.

Charley boards with a family 2 houses down from me. When I first moved in he introduced himself bold as brass and invited himself in, I didn't mind as it was nice to meet the neighbours and have a bit of company in a strange new house but recently he's been coming round a bit too much and I think he wants to move in. Two nights ago I got back from a mates house about 11.30pm and I could hear him calling to me as I got out of my car. He came over and we watched the end of "Ghosts of Mars" before he went home. However, last night I got back late and he was waiting for me at my front door. Before I could explain that it was late and I was too tired for company he was inside and making himself comfortable (bloody cheek). Just to be polite I watched "Family Guy" on BBC3 with him but by midnight I could tell that he didn't want to leave and I had to physically manhandle him out the door, as I did so I said "I'm sorry Charley, you can't move in with me, I like you but you're somebody else’s cat".
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:21, 5 replies)

I live alone now.
Well, there's a tarantula. But she doesn't count as people. I've checked.

My first housemate was Tom Amazing. No, not his God or parent-given name, but the one we gifted him. For Tom was the most amazing person ever, if you believed him.

You see, Tom had wonderful stories. Tom was 25. Tom used to be very high up at IBM. Tom spent two years in Cyprus running a salsa bar. Tom was a superstar DJ who gave it all up. Tom was in the IRA (he was English, by the way). Tom once had a Ferrari that he got caught doing 180mph in - but the police let him off because his driving was so good.

Not all of Tom's stories were so ridiculous. His pride of joy was his PC. He claimed he'd 'written some code' to allow him to run two motherboards at once. It was the best PC in the world. It had a glass case. It only had one motherboard. His response when questioned? 'I'm not going to argue with you.'

Uhmmm?

Tom used to go clubbing, get wrecked and bring scary, sketchy people back with him. Like the 50 year old pair of women who appeared to be made of stone. Me and my friend locked ourselves in my bedroom and waited for them to go away.

When we moved in, we paid 50/50 on a fridge freezer, washing machine and dishwasher. When I moved out, he wanted me to buy them off him. Fine, says I. He wanted more than we'd originally paid for them because 'my mum got us a discount on them.' Cunt.

He also never, ever washed clothes. There was a layer of yeast-ridden socks and skiddy pants that climbed up the walls. His room smelt like the end of all things.

We christened him Tom Amazing. It was ironic. He heard it. He thought it was a complimentary nickname. He then assumed it for himself. You have never cringed like you cringe when your tubby, beardy David Brent of a housemate introduces himself to your unimpressed female friends as 'Tom Amazing, baby!'

Still, he was a nice enough guy. He once welcomed me home from work with a line of ketamine. There are worse things to open a door to.

After him was the stripper. I came home to find a pole installed in my living room.

'How dare you? Did you even think about my deposit? What the hell were you thinking?'

'I'll give lessons.'

'No, that's....oooh, ok!'

Two flatmates. One bad, one good. Not great odds. I live alone now. The tarantula doesn't bring scary people back or build stuff. Except out of web.
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:20, 1 reply)

Noisy Housemate Justice
In my first year at uni I had a particularly unpleasant housemate named Jake who brought a different girl home pretty much every night, he was also a bit of a druggie. He theived food, pinched from my stash, never cleaned or tidied and his room was like a biological warzone.

Jake had a penchant for larger ladies and most nights could he heard having sexyteim, bashing against the wall, skin slapping on skin, grunting and huffing like an angry, wounded buffalo.

The way that the rooms were layed out made it impossible to have our beds anywhere apart from the very thin stud wall dividing the two rooms. Needless to say this started to be irritating very quickly. It started the ball rolling as to how to get revenge.

I am a keen singer and guitarist and had just recently invested in a little studio setup for home recording. I rigged the condenser mics up and recorded about half an hour of their demented sounding rutting and then proceded to play it back to them. All night. At full volume.

He didn't bring anyone back for a couple of weeks but poetic justice was finally served when he did. After a particularly marathon session, at one point I thought they might be coming through the wall (pun intended). Jake woke up in the middle of the night with a severe pain in the nether regions. With nothing visually wrong he woke me and begged me to take him to hospital.

I took him to hospital and it turned out he had testicular torsion. They operated immediately but had to remove one of his testicles. Horrific for him but the doc forbid him any sex for at least a month, leaving me in blissful silence.

Length? The operation took about an hour.
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Fri 27 Feb 2009, 11:07, 1 reply)