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)