Timing
Someone (who shall remain anonymous) with whom I live has e very annoying habit.

He goes for a dump:
a) just before I get home from work
b) just before mealtimes and
c) just before I go to bed - stinking the WHOLE place out for 1/2 an hour at a time!

I wouldn't mind so much if he was ill but this has been going on for years.

Also I have reason to believe he wipes his arse on towels! Grotty.
( Schweaty Minge I spunked in your tea! Taste it and see! D:, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 3:28, Reply)

Hammer Time,

your complaint was short, and to the point.

Fnaar fnaar.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 3:28, Reply)

Not my own personal housemates
but my boyfriend and his, are just all, absolutely disgusting. Last time I stayed there, I ended up not being able to sit down on the toilet seat and really stretching some muscles I didn't know I had trying to avoid it. I mean, does anyone know what type of animals are flea-sized, have lots of legs that work at top speed to keep up with each other, inhabit dirty bathrooms and especially walk around the edges of toilet seats when you're about to sit (or have already sat) down?

Maybe that's just me being girly and all males are the same, and are just glad that generally sitting down is not what one does, but I just sincerely hope that not everyone has to go through that kind of breach of human rights.

Maybe I should just dump him...
(LandmineCat 's board sig, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 3:28, Reply)

Way back when I was
in boarding school, I used to share a room on the third floor with a chap named Francis. The nearest bathroom was located on the second floor landing, directly opposite the bottom of the stairs.

One particular night, Francis was brushing his teeth in the bathroom. This was something I had yet to do, so I grabbed my toothbrush and an empty pint glass and headed for the stairs.

The lights were off and about so half way down I managed to trip and face plant onto the floor at the bottom - how the pint glass didn't smash I don't know. I picked myself up and walked into the bathroom only to find Francis crouched down beside the sink: upon questioning, his reasoning was "I heard you fall down the stairs and thought you might be hurt, so I hid".

Not exactly from hell, but apparently not that bothered about stopping me going there.
(cap'nj, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 2:38, Reply)

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
No more jokes about length

(explodes)
(Hammer Time, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 2:17, Reply)

Only 2 stories 'worth' relating
Housemate in a share of 6 or so - we were mostly 'between jobs' apart from one Territorial Army type... actually cooked his food in his square army canteens in our kitchen, and I could swear he used a set-square and protractor to put stuff in his cupboard... Short bloke, bit angry ,from NI, we didn't interfere...
And the bath I wrote 'Clean me' in hoping someone would notice..
( Want Bartender Time gentlemen please.., Wed 11 Apr 2007, 1:16, Reply)

who said americans were dumb?
'I could think of more examples of house--err, dorm mates from hell but I honestly can't think of anymore'

lol. need i say any more?!

length - short and sweet ;)
(babyjak, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 1:09, Reply)

Funky...and NOT in the good way.
About 7 years ago, I was in the Job Corps program here in the States; it's basically like trade school, plus room and board...all for free! It's a pretty good program, but for the most part it seemed like most of my peers who were there with me were in it for the freebies and causing drama and screwing like rabbits on the sly after the class day was done...but I digress...

We all had to be paired up with roommates (same sex) while living on campus--you'd have anywhere from one other roommate living with you to 3 other folks. Most of the roommates I had were alright, I got along with them fine...except for a few little things that bugged me with some of them:

-- The girl who had some sorta problem with keeping up with her personal hygiene. Instead of washing her clothes she'd spray--no, drown all her clothes with Febreze and think everything would be hunky-dory with the rest of us in the dorm room. HELL NO. Her ass-and-foot rot was so bad the smell would permeate the entire room and everyone else's belongings. I think she got kicked out of Job Corps after a while for something she did, to the relief of everyone in the room.

-- Another girl in my room...she was alright, but she had the shittiest taste in music. In the 7 or so months I lived in that room, my roommates and I had to be subjected to hearing her Savage Garden CD played. On repeat. Night after night after friggin' night. I should've hidden that shit somewhere...

-- This next example wasn't in the room I stayed in, but in another room a few doors down: there was a fairly large number of Bosnian refugees who were on campus and taking classes along with the rest of us Amurricans. There were 4 Bosnian girls who lived in the same dorm as me...they were all pretty cool and kept to themselves for the most part. But fer fuck's sake, they would stay on the pay phone in the lounge for what seemed like forever, talking to their loved ones back home. There was a time limit for phone calls, but they were pretty nonchalant about it and they'd get into arguments with some of the other girls in the dorm for their phone-hogginess.

I could think of more examples of house--err, dorm mates from hell but I honestly can't think of anymore.


Shuddup about the length--you know that you love every single inch of it and you're secretly begging for more. ;)
( svnynne damn near forgot she was here on, Wed 11 Apr 2007, 0:25, Reply)

i shared a flat with all rachelswipe's exes
but then cunningly left and torched the place with all of them still in it ... jesus H christ on a shrinking icecap woman, why keep punishing yourself?
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 23:05, Reply)

Religious fundamentalist
Not my housemate fortunatly, but one of my best mates previous ones.

Very very christian, extreamist who was very prejudiced against other religions, believed the boxingday Tsunami came and killed people because they believed in false gods and animals with the same veiw on earthquakes but stayed silent over what happened in New Orleans.

From a blog post my friend posted once after getting sick of him, this guy had religious meetings in their livingroom shouting loudly and watching the repetative god channel.

Apart from his extreme beliefs and religious actions, one of the most anoyying thing about him was his sister, who didnt speak much english and was supossedly staying for 2 weeks, ending up staying their for nearly a year. She went through a toilet roll a day and slept with her brother.

I tried to 'make friends' with her sometimes (I visited my friends who lived there often) but she had a face like a slapped arse and she'd look at me like i was pure filth, as well as pretend to be deaf. Twat
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 21:53, Reply)

This brings back memories...
Unfortunately not mammaries. :(

I think pretty much the epitome of poor flat-shares comes from students. Mostly because no one has lived by themselves before and there are much better things to do (drink/fuck) than wash/clean. My time in further education was no different.

*cue wibbly lines*

My first year as many was characterised by the usual assortment of mismatched weirdos you get in halls. There was Steve whom I only ever saw eating a weird mixture of stinking food which seemed to consist of brown sauce that fetid his room for the entire year. Not only that but he was without social graces or an ability to interact. Fine if he was clever but he was in fact thick.

Next is Simon who was a great guy all round but from Northern Ireland so had a massive chip on his shoulder. His best mate in that year was another hulking NI chap with scary(UVF) mates. He ended up stripping most of the flesh from his lower arm punching the shit out of the safety glass in our front door. Simon threatened to stab me with a fork whilst I was naked in bed with my then girl for leaving the deep far fryer on.

The real final weird chap was a guy called Graeme. Totally sweet bloke who is still a mate but is prematurely in his 40's. Receding hair, paunch, love of my dads music collection. Rock god in all but looks, style and execution.

Second year mostly involved living with my girlfriend because my flat was full of five stoners and a cat. No cleaning what-so-ever, coated in cat shit and dirty dishes as well as takeaway cartons. Was lovely... not! Girlfriend is now dating one of the guys who lived in that squalor! One of the guys sobered up mid-way through the year and pretty much lived over with my girlfriend, her flatmate and me.

Third and fourth year I cottoned onto the fact I actually had to live with these people rather than party. Great times with two sound guys, highlights including:

* - Many punk bands staying over after playing gigs, thus lots of after-parties.
* - Cleaning 12 replica MP5s (don't ask) in the living room and inviting a plain-clothes policeman in without thinking. Brown trousers for him, brown trousers for me when I realised.
* - Walking in at 3am to find two mates with a completely naked hot chick on our sofa giving a guided tour of her piercings our sofa.
* - A few gigs played in our back garden.

Currently I live with a few guys from work and other companies in a similar field and I think I'm probably the most annoying person. I'm pretty lax on the old cleaning lark. Trying to improve though.

My current girls flatmates are properly mental though. But that's her story.
(mehmeh 0% witty, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 21:48, Reply)

hairy fish pie gobbling
my third year at uni there were 4 of us in a horrid east london "townhouse" in scumsville: me, my ex and 2 other mates. my ex oswald buggered off for the weekend and we were having a spring clean. we girls were very clean, but oswald was a nightmare. pants in the bathroom; wank rags in the lounge (only when i was away, i might add); cigarettes lit off the toaster.

so we were cleaning and i was doing the lounge.

i could smell.... something. something unidentified and nasty. i looked around. nothing. i sniffed. ugh. i got down on all fours like some kind of denim clad bloodhound and literally sniffed out the plate that oswald had left under the sofa. i slipped my hand under there and withdrew it covered in slimy cheesy mould.

the little bastard had left a partially eaten dinner that was half spaghetti carbonara and half fish pie under the sofa and it was covered in fuck knows what. rusty ketchup, bogeys, hairs, dirt, ants... the lot.

i screamed and screamed and my flatmates ran upstairs and threw the plate straight out of the window.

when oswald got back, i yelled at him for leaving it there.

"oh yeah," he sniggered. "i wondered which one of you would find that."

he got no sex options but wank rags for two weeks for that.....
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 21:03, Reply)

I count myself lucky...
that I live with four of my (generally very clean) best friends and apart from the occasional washing-up mountain there isn't much to complain about.

However, one in particular drives me MENTAL. Not because she's a beast and shits everywhere or some such dirty thing. She's the inverse and obsessively neat - it's revolting (and I'd like to think its worse than messiness).

You can't leave a newspaper on our dining room table for 10mins without it being thrown into a drawer or cupboard. You must open your mail IMMEDIATELY after it comes through the letterbox. Leave it on the table while you go off and have a morning piss or something and you'll find it in the recycling.

We don't have any coat hooks on our house so we naturally hang them on the back of chairs. BUT NO. According to said housemate, this is UNTIDY and the offensive coats are thrown into a dusty cupboard or onto the floor.

She picks shoes up from their neat row near the front door and puts them onto chairs (wtf?!?)

A house of five girls has a lot of make-up in it and just the one full length mirror. She can't stand a big pile of make-up so separates it into little piles and puts them outside your door to stamp on and break when you are bleary eyed and hungover. And if she doesn't know who it belongs to she has a rough guess and puts it in any old pile.

You can see her flinch if you move perfectly arranged scatter cushions to get yourself comfy on the sofa.

I'd hate to think what she'd do if i told her about the amount of sex i'd had on it. She'd probably burn it actually. And the scatter cushions.
(thants, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 20:54, Reply)

Ahhhh Memories...
Lived with a girl in my second year at uni, she was a friend of my other housemate (who incidentally was, and still is, lovely). Anyway...she was an evangelical christian, which I shouldn't hold against her, but I will because she was a morally superior stuck-up judgemental bitch. She thought everyone should be like her, basically. Because I wasn't a christian and had a boyfriend that I quite liked having sex with I was eeeeeeevil.

And Jesus, was she ever tight! She used to send text messages with no spaces in them to save herself the 10p an extra message would cost! Thrifty, you might think, but reading the buggers was a pain in the arse!

We'd all signed the contracts, like you do, promising to stay in this house for a year. She decided she wanted out just before Christmas (to save money, she commuted from SHEFFIELD to LEICESTER for the rest of her course), and royally stitched me and the other housemate up over just about everything.

We had to find ourselves another housemate. She did not help, nor did she care about the sort of psycho/nutter we could end up with. As it turned out, we ended up with a strange girl whose father interviewed us before he would let her live with us, but at least she was NICE.

Anyhow, said crap housemate moved out, but only after trying to reclaim a third of the money back on everything that had *ever* been jointly bought for the house (she had receipts. And one of those calculators with a little printer on it). It was when she decided that taking our food home with her would be a good idea that harsh words were exchanged, and she made her exit quite sharpish. She was trying to take our CEREAL, FFS! Our WEETABIX! I swear to this day that she took her 'share' of bog rolls with her.

I don't think I ever spoke to her again after that, even though we were on the same course she used to quite routinely blank me.

If that lot's not bad enough, she used to iron her socks and pants, which is just...wrong.


No apologies for length, it's not every day a girl loses her B3TA virginity. *pop*
(Kelpy22 wants to get drunk and play pingpong on, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 20:35, Reply)

Hull
We had a spare room in our student house as a result of one of the lads not doing quite so well in his first year as he'd hoped. So we put a advert at the student union saying "spare room", naturally. This guy came along who looked decent enough so we "interviewed" him by inviting him out on the pish with us. He was fine. Everyone got on with him, he was a laugh and he seemed to attract the chicks. It was only when he moved in that he started to irk us. Firstly he started leaving mess all over the kitchen, just normal stuff. Then he started reading Nazi literature. Hmm. Then other friends of his started showing up at the house. Mostly people who you wouldn't introduce to your more ethnically challenged friends. Then he stopped paying rent and for the sky TV. Luckily, one night we heard a noise from him room and when we went to investigate we found that he'd disappeared never to be seen again. None of us cared.
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 20:09, Reply)

smelly man
chris pennington, he could shower spray deodorant and in 5 minutes stink the houseout,seriously he must have had some bad genes or something.. However the worst thing he did wasn't to stink.. when we were packing up the houseat the end of term he had his computer left on in the lounge so I rummaged through it looking for porn. Well porn I found but not normal porn, oh no he had a thing for gunk.. lots of pictures of celebs been gunged on kids tv. To top this lust off though he'd joined some sort of fetish website and posted pictures of him pouring custard over his horrid naked body and dunking his fetid cock in in.. Of course I had to email these round everyone I knew, well I didn't have to, but he does still owe me £300 so I guess its justice..
(b3tan senseless is slowly getting older, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 19:52, Reply)

Bad housemates? Let me see...
I have over the years had THE most disgraceful and disgusting collection of fiends live wth me.

First off there was Jake the wanker. And what a wanker he was. Quite literally. If he didn't visit barclays bank three times a day it must have been some sort of religious holiday. Now I'm perfectly fine with a man flogging the bishop but he was so bloody obvious about it, and he'd do it over the slightest thing, one time over some fat bird discussing her orgys on Jeremy Kyle. The worst part was finding his ...erm... fluids all over the flat. Firstly it was all over the back of the toilet, his aim was quite poor, and once you've noticed it once you cant help but find it everywhere. Everytime you discover a funny smell, or stand in something wet it's always in the back of your mind. The final straw came when I was doing the laundry and discovered the crusiest, dirtiest, most disgusting bedsheet I have ever seen, with what I'm sure was fungus growing on it. "Oh dear Jake." I say to myself. Then it clicks. That is my bedsheet. From my bed. I have never wanked in my bed. Bye bye Jake.

Next was Alex. I'd say 20% of us have had this kind of flatmate- the thief. First they mention how they have no money hence their lack of food. You feel a bit sorry for them so you let them sponge. Then you notice your money begins to go missing. Then a friend tells you how they saw them stea your money. Then you lock them and their stuff out of the flat and tell them to fuck off unless they want the shit kicked out of them (by my big friend) and their mother humiliated (by me).

After a brief stint with Liam who loved to flash me (HUGE!) I was back on bodily functions with Mike who's habit I discovered after one night of heavy drinking. I woke up, went to the toilet to find a turd sitting right by the loo. The dirty bastard had missed the freaking toilet with the biggest dump I'd ever seen, but seeing as he was a good friend and had been very drunk I let it slide. Then I went into the kitchen to find a poo on the table. "Well this is odd" I tell myself. But, when Mike ges up he is very apologetic and cleans up very thoroughly. "Ah, he's not so bad," I say to myself as I get a pringle. Wait. These pringles feel oddly soft. And squishy. And- "Oh my God!! You shat in the pringles tube you utter fuck!!" I withdrew my hand which was now covered in poo and ran to the toilet where I threw up twice and then showered for an hour. I should have kicked him out then but,kindly I let it slide. Sadly the pooing didnt stop there. 1 in every 3 times we'd go out I'd wake up to find shit all over the house, and in the oddest places. These included (but were not limited to) the couch, the top of the television, under he welcome mat, at the foot of my bed, and, most bizarrely of all, in the oven. Eventually I kicked him out, but scarily am still very good friends with him.

If you click "I Like This" I'll get some proper friends.

Oh and I forgot to mention. I now live alone.
( Paedosmile service with a grin., Tue 10 Apr 2007, 19:29, Reply)

not housemates, but our last landlord
is currently trying to sue me for £1000, because we 'stole' all the furniture in the house. Hmm, the list of missing things includes things that were never there, things that were broken and he said we could throw out and best of all, things he took from the property himself.

Its more of a cheek because the place he's renting is mostly illegal and hasn't had a gas check in 4 years at least

wanker
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 19:16, Reply)

Scary Midget Landlord

He owns a street of houses, with at least 7 bedrooms each.

We all had to pay him our rent cash in hand. He would let himself when ever he wanted. His mum was the cleaner - didn't really clean was just their to nosey about.

The controls to switch the heating on had a box screwed over it and the heating was set to go off at specific times of the day. All of the rooms had single beds and we had to notify him if we had guests over. The sofa springs had gone and he put sheets of MDF under the cushons.

Anyone living in Lynnewood terrace grass the little Fcuk up to the authorities cos I'm sure most of that is illegal
(DryGoldfish, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 18:41, Reply)

letting agents
see a LOT of dirty bastards. fleas. years of utter failure to clean. before digital cameras, i used to have to collect armfuls of photos of bathrooms and kitchens that made me itch just looking at the pictures. the hot guy in the photo shop must have thought i was a total weirdo.

one of the worst for me was when the landlady rang me in tears. our inventory checker (himself a reeking french twat) had ticked the house as clean and tidy. somehow having missed the fact that the three tenants (brothers, their parents must have been so proud) had shat on the floor and wiped their arses on the curtains...

or the fundamentalist muslim landlord who wouldn't let me in the house at first because i was wearing a short skirted suit and was bare headed. then relented but insisted i took my shoes off. and when he'd moved out and i let it for him, the tenant discovered boxes and boxes of porn in the attic. what's the word in the koran for "FILTHY HYPOCRITE"???

the tenant who put mirrored tiles all around the corner where his bed was. that was fun, showing people around his flat when he moved out.

the gay landlord who had his boyfriend's ashes in an urn in the back garden. he simply could not understand why i recommended he move it, then got huffy and called another agent.

the landlord whose flat was above a curry house and had NO BATHROOM!!! he said he thought tenants could "use the toilet in the restaurant when it was open" and "shower in the gym across the road".

tip of the insane and dirty iceberg, guys.

oh, and i was also once sent out as a 17 year old summer student to see if a tenant had died in his bed because the neighbours were complaining of flies. he hadn't, his brother had taken him to hospital, but the rotting steak on the hob had attracted about 1,000,000 flies. and the electricity was off. i still have nightmares about tiptoeing around that creepy fly filled basement hellhole with a torch, looking for a corpse...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 18:11, Reply)

Pfft
Everyone's lived with the mucky buggers who don't clean up, but it isn't until you've shared with someone who turns out to practise her archery indoors and have her own sword collection that you've truly experienced pants-wetting horror of your own housemate. Turned out that straitjacket she wore to that fancy dress gig? Was her own. Came home one day to find the kitchen window shut and the gas left on. Packed my bags and headed over to my boyfriend's place that night and moved out shortly afterwards.

However, no housemate can compare to the frustration visited upon me and my housemates (who became 2 of my best friends) when living in a rather nice house in Ealing a few years ago. The landlord's inability to recognise that renting the house meant he had to check before he could come over was the source of quite a few problems - especially as we rapidly decided that he was bonking our cleaner as well. He couldn't cope with women in careers - I (a research and data analyst, studying for a law degree) was referred to as "secretary", whereas the OT was a "nurse". He couldn't get his head around our friend, who's a senior engineer for Network Rail. In the time I lived there (about three years) we had an endless series of problems with the central heating (12 radiators blew, and there were only 11 in the house, so 2 had gone twice as I never turned mine on after the first four) causing at least six major floods, several of which were two storey beasts flooding through ceilings, and one exceptionally impressive effort which started in the second floor bathroom, cascaded through the first floor bedroom and down into the garage.

Things were taken (by him and the cleaner) from our rooms and on one particularly gruesome occasion, when one of the things taken happened to be some concert tickets from the OT's bedroom, her enraged phone call to him led us to the discovery that he was taking all of our bin bags home with him.

He and his wife would make as much effort to come by when we weren't there as possible, and go through our things, and blame us for anything that went wrong - which was inevitably the result of poor maintenance by them, and not due to our carelessness at all. On one occasion a light fitting fell from the ceiling onto my head during dinner. Our catch cry was, "It's not normal!"

I've never been so pleased to leave a place in my life.
(Colloquielle, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 18:10, Reply)

How many to a room?
A few years ago, I was house-sharing in South London, with three very good friends, when one of them had to up-and-leave us to go to Iran (and whilst there, get married and conscripted), but before he left he got us a new flatmate, someone quiet who kept himself to himself. Sounds good we thought. How naive we were...!
The guy was called Harold, was a Hong Kong Chinese guy, and very quiet. He was also a devout Christian, and occasionally he would have these large gatherings in our dining rooms, praising the Lord in Cantonese at the top of their voices... not fun!
But the main reason we remember him (apart from when he left chicken bones burning in a pan for hours, stinking out the kitchen and ruining the pan), was the people he had in his room. Not just one or two staying a few nights in his room, but the half-a-dozen guys living there for weeks and weeks on end, paying (him) rent, whilst the first time we met these people, we were told that they were living there now!
My flatmate Dave had the worst experience. Living on the ground floor at the front of the house, he was once woken by someone breaking in through his window, only to find out it was one of Harold's friends who had forgotten his key!
Soon we made a decision to ask him to move. After he moved out, the room was in a horrible state, including a carpet almost caked in chinchilla faeces. Nice! The next occupant in that room had to completely redecorate before she even considered staying there!
(hit me with your jesus stick, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 17:49, Reply)

A catalogue of psychos/wierdos/weak minded fools...
Housemates from hell… Where do I start, and more importantly are you sitting comfortably?

First year of Uni, “oh no” I thought, “I won’t go into Halls, I can cook for myself and not eat that school dinner pish they serve. No a much healthier and whatnot option would be to go self catered.” Lesson no 1: ALWAYS go into Uni halls for your first year at Uni kids. Anyway, moved in during fresher’s week, no-one about, end of the week the other 5 move in, dammit no other freshers. Ah well got on pretty good with everyone in the flat. Things went well for a bit then one guy turned out to have a serious beef with everyone in the flat (of 6 people) apart from muggins here and somehow we seem to be best mates. So there’s me stuck in the middle between a load of geeks and this psycho who ends up getting wasted, slashing his own arm up with a 7 inch kitchen knife and OD’ing after giving the foreign girl in our flat tons of abuse for weeks. I was woken up at 3am with a lot of noise outside my door only to open it and find 2 coppers outside. Nutcase had been found naked slumped over his bed by our flatmate and he was sectioned in hospital for a few weeks. He also punched a wall at a later date and broke several knuckles after knocking someone else out. Utter nut case. As you can imagine slightly awkward living there after that… I saw this guy a couple months back (4 years later) and he talks to me like nothing ever happened. Said he’d been diagnosed with epilepsy, and that explains him being a psycho how exactly? Run awaaaaayyyyyyy!!!

Second year, moved in with a mate from my course and some randoms, again a total of 6 people in a Uni flat. Turned out one girl was proper OCD. Wouldn’t let the cleaner clean her room (which we paid a small fortune extra for the privilege) but would clean her own room 2-4 times a day religiously at any hour of the damn day. It’s 3am! TURN THAT F***ING HOOVER OFF YOU CRAZY BITCH! Etc. At the end of the year she accused us all of stealing her food and leaving toast crumbs in the spread. WTF?! 2 words: Chicken oriental although to be fair she never was in the communal part of the flat apart from cooking occasionally so it wasn’t really that bad. Although thanks to another flatmate we seemed to frequently have drug addled stoners pop by and vegetate in our lounge for extended periods. No trouble or anything from them so not so bad.

Third year lived in the same Uni accommodation again, this time 2 more mates moved in plus 2 randoms. 1 random guy was ace, other guy (starting to see a pattern here?) was definitely a chromosome-ly challenged member of the window licking sunshine variety coach brigade, your typical maths student stereotype. Thin, dire dress sense, Deirdre Rashid from Coronation Street glasses, socially inept, enjoyed religiously watching snooker (I prefer to detach my own retinas with a snooker cue than watch it) and could not cook for shit. He lived on tinned beans with sausages in and those freeze dried pasta gloop things, how he didn’t get scurvy I don’t know. Anyway things got a bit weird, he locked his door when he was in the communal part of the flat with us. A bit odd at first but after we got to know him it continued so we felt a bit insulted. We heard multiple voices from his room a few times and after asking others no-one had seen or heard anyone else arrive we got a bit suspicious. After a while curiosity got the better of us, so 5 of us huddled around his door listening were a bit scared to say the least when we heard the following with 3 distinct voices ( he was categorically the ONLY person in his room):

Voice 1 (shouting): “I’m angry at you God, what have you done. Rarrrrgh!” *crashing sounds*
Voice 2 (almost crying, quite high pitched): “Why have you done this?!”
Voice 3: “You know what has to be done. I must destroy you.”

Cue 5 nervously exchanged glances and running to own rooms and locking of and piling furniture up against the doors and getting 999 ready on the speed dial. This went on the whole year, one of my mates was in the adjacent room (beds separated by a mere breeze block wall) and he was frequently woken at ungodly hours by wailing and shouting. This fruit loop was a genius at remembering statistics and numerical facts, like the last time Willie Thorn got 147 on a snooker break at the Embassy World Cup at Edgbaston in 1845 or when Garfield Sobers got 8 boundaries at the Oval against Namibia or something. At first I thought he was making it all up, but I started checking out his stats claims on Google and they were all dead right. I believe this is a recognised medical condition, but I have no sympathy after living with it for a year. I have my own explanation for it, it’s called don’t shag your own sister or mum or cousin. It may be legal in Cornwall/Plymouth area but if you must indulge, stay that bloody side of the Tamar. He had said at one point you could trace 10 generations of his family from a thumbprint sized area on a small scale OS map, so yeah no fucking wonder you’ve got 25 X-chromosomes and webbed toes. Lesson 2: Don’t inbreed kids, no matter how desperate you are/hot your sister/cousin/mother is, it’s wrong and you’ll end up mad as a bag of frogs. His mum even proclaimed to buy him the tins with the ring pull so he doesn’t have to use a can opener. My god that was a scary Saturday morning, groggily making my hungover way into the kitchen for provisions to find a whole family of yokels pointing in awe at the "refrigamerator" and the wonder of electricity.

That was a quality year though, football and Frisbee up and down the corridor, managed to trip the lights out in the entire building one evening. “Err it just fell off the wall, honest guv’nor…”

So 3 years, 3 mental flatmates. I wonder if I can sue the University for mental anguish…

Fourth year, moved into a 2 bedroom flat with a mate, who soon after moving in got addicted to Final Fantasy 25 or something. Utterly addicted, took over his life, ruined a perfectly good (fully government funded) Masters degree and a good friendship. At first I thought he was working really hard staying up late and getting up early, when I could hear the tap-tap-tap of his computer keyboard. After a while I realised he had got into a nocturnal cycle to be online when the Japs and Yanks were online too. In less than a year (that’s 365 days for those who are a bit slow off the mark) he racked up a little over 100 days cumulatively playing that effing game. Yes that’s 1 in every 3 hours of existence playing a sodding GAME with giant fucking chickens in it and even sacrificed his MSc degree by not submitting a dissertation. Best possible result was a Postgraduate Diploma which is worth crap all. Other than that the usual general laziness, never cleaned the flat (well twice in 16 months to be fair) or ever put bins out etc. Although he always did the washing up and at least washed himself. We moved out and shortly after I had a phone call from the landlord asking what we had left in the flat. Turns out I’d forgotten a coffee maker and a pressure cooker/boiler thing in the kitchen but cleared everything else out. Landlord continued to ask what was left behind but I didn’t know what he was on about. Apparently some “magazines” had been left in the other bedroom. I didn’t enquire as to the nature of these…

The following month, actually moved back into the same flat after landing a job at the Uni. Different flatmate, all good for a year! Hooray! Maybe I’m not mad. Oh apart from his other half practically living in the flat (well not living exactly, but sleeping, showering and then eating evening meals at) and not contributing to any bills. Still owed £50 he agreed to contribute to bills, doubt I’ll ever see that despite his considerable and undeclared to the tax man earnings. I didn’t think it was unreasonable, an hour and a half’s heated discussion revealed he thought otherwise.

This year, I moved into a house of 5, couple of mates, a friend of a friend and a random we found on the internet. All good for a bit, then some minor disagreement turned into a massive fallout between 2 of them. Everyone was still talking to me, since I hadn’t mortally offended anyone so me being stuck in the middle, again. Woo, possibly yay and indeed hoopla. They were just as stubborn as each other, if they’d sat down and talked it over they probably would have been fine, but no, just had a big silent dispute (one acting like a self righteous spoilt child-can’t think why that is…) for a few months and the friend of a friend moved out, mainly because she was well paranoid from too much smoking and being a bit of a basket case anyway. Oddly enough the person we found on the internet is awesome :) The replacement for mental-girl is sound too so now it's a good house :D

I’m no OCD merchant but for once in a fucking while I wish any one of them would do their own washing up within say a calendar month, put the bin bags or recycling out, lazy twunts. I reckon we would still be on our first towering rotting bin bag after 7 months if I hadn’t put them out every Monday morning, and FFS the council DO NOT recycle those Tetra-Pak cartons that are impregnated with foil, so STOP putting them in the damn green bin and letting it pile up until someone else (ie me) puts it outside. Anyway I’m not bitter, just glad it’s a fairly stable house. I can cope with doing a bit extra just to keep things a bit sweet having previously lived with complete psychos, but since the dishwasher packed in nothing has been washed up, so I spent 3 hours on Saturday single handedly washing practically every single item of cutlery and crockery. Has anyone said thank you? Have they fuck, merely left another neat pile of dirty dishes which will no doubt be left indefinitely, or until the dishwasher is fixed.

Click “I like this” if you think the madness is actually all in my head and everyone else is perfectly sane and not a lazy bunch of twunts… Oh sorry about the length, the end is in a different time zone but you love it, in fact this might be the longest QOTW answer ever!
(Stanlington Jobsworthy Smythe Last skived off work on, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 17:19, Reply)

Stains...
This story belongs to my girlfriend. She lives in a flat owned by her parents (she has to pay rent to them) in which the second room is also rented out. She hasn't had much luck with housemates so far as the two she has had haven't turned out particularly well. The first was mental, unfortunately I cannot immediately recall any stories of her. The second was just plain disgusting.

After a long and heavy day doing whatever it was she was doing, the girlfriend returns to her flat to find the door locked by the deadbolt on the inside. No amount of door-banging or phone-ringing could attract the attention of the housemate inside. "Was she asleep?" you may ask. Perhaps, as she later claimed, she and the boyfriend were relaxing in front of the telly and couldn't hear the door or the phone (mobile or house). No no no. The truth is somewhat worse.

They were having very very very loud sex. The housemate's screams and moaning were audiable by the entire block of flats. Even people in the street privvy to the wild monkey sex that was occuring behind the locked door. It was clear that someone was enjoying themselves very much. Unfortunately, in the proceeding days it was my girlfriend who got the knowing nods, winks and smiles (yes, my length and girth can account for this but we weren't together at this point).

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Loud sex, big deal" and you'd be right. It doesn't really end there. You see, this happened at that time of the month a woman may refer to as "her time of the month". When my girlfriend was finally permitted to enter the flat there were numerous blood stains to be found all over the flat. The housemate didn't even attempt to clean up so it was left to my girl to do it. Doing someone's washing up is one thing, but having to clean up her menstrual blood, puh-lease! In confronting the pair about what was going on the housemate's boyfriend squared up to her in a bid to look intimidating and asked "is there a problem?" Twat.

It was after this time that formally friendly relations between the two plummeted into barely speaking terms. The housemate emailed the girlfriend's parents saying she wanted to move out, citing gf's rudeness and "a breakdown in communication" as reason. She was informed that she was being kicked out over numerous breaches of contract. "Noise complaints" had been received about her. Locking girlfriend out of the flat and not responding to the door or the phone was mentioned too. Nothing was said of the blood - perhaps everyone was too embarrassed.

She now has a new housemate moving in soon who I helped interview. Hopefully third time's the charm.

Length, girth? See above.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 17:09, Reply)

utter utter wanker!!
I put my notice in on the place where I was renting a room with a lovely bloke and his new family, so that I could move in with a friend I had known for yonks and wouldnt it be awesome if we lived together and had mash up parties and yeah woo yay!
I moved into the new gaff on the friday.
He was moving in on the saturday.

Only he never.
And he had no intention of doing it.

And he wasnt going to tell me, I found out off his brother.

So he cost me a great room in a lovely house with a smashing family.

He is a cunt.

I speak to him no more.

That little happenstance fucked me financially for months nay years.

So I suppose he is the worst not-quite-but-nearly housemate I ever had.

Lets have a QOTW on great housemates.
So I can find out what its like when people are happy.
(UnstableDan Bah, Humbug! ooooh, humbugs, nyom!, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 17:07, Reply)

Roleplayers
I must be a glutton for punishment. In the last 8 years I've shared living space with the terminally-lacking-of-a-social-life and have found the same on all occasions:

Tidiness is a nemesis to be vanquished with the empty fast-food containers of doom +2.

Requests, no matter how polite for any given gamer to get up off of their arse, put down their gaming paraphernalia and do something for the good of themselves or the house (like have a wash) it's met with a grunt, a sigh and "in a minute" I guess it's in the vain hope that the stench of BO will carry them off to be cleaned.

The last house I lived in, I acted like a spiv. The PlayStation II and _my_ laptop got far more attention than the house did, so I washed, cleaned & picked up after two others, only to be told that "You don't do anything around here." They (being a couple) went away to Scotland for a week, left food out, left their clothes all over the lounge (including some unmentionably dirty underwear) and enough washing up to give a hotel a run for it's money. I spent two days tidying up the entire place & making it livable. They get back, tell me that I don't do anything around the place and proceed to dump stuff all over saying "We can't find anything when it's tidy." No lie.

So I move in with my other half and his friend, who turns out to be a hardcore gamer... Sigh. He leaves his dishes for others to do, he lives on microwave chips (fries to the Americans amongst us) and ham sandwiches. He totally blanks me because I vetoed roleplaying in the flat every goddamned night, he slams doors and storms around like a teenager that can't get his own way. He's 20.

... He won't be around for much longer, cos I'm likely to kill him.

Length, Girth, Adequate. Nobody has complained about my lance of merriment +2
(fatedsnowfox, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 16:59, Reply)

arrrgh
I have to find a house-share in Guildford in a couple of weeks. And now I'm scared.
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 16:55, Reply)

where to start
i suppose sharing a kitchen in halls counts as a flatmate, particularly as our area was blocked off from the rest of the maze of rooms, in a little scabby pod of our own. We had mushrooms growing on the walls. But I digress.

I've mentioned him before, I'm sure. Short, fat hairy Frenchman, who cooked only the most foul-smelling food; had no concept of body space (walked right up against you to have any type of conversation); had an inch-thick layer of hair all over his body, lifting his clothes above his skin said amount, creating an insulating layer causing sweat of a sour-milk/garlic scent to constantly waft from him; would listen to conversations in the kitchen through a crack in his wall, and if he vaguely suspected anything sexual or illicit in these conversations would race from his room into the kitchen, full pelt, unaware we could hear him running; most odious personality I have ever encountered, and aggressive (SCREAMING in my roommate's face when the boys she was with decided to leave a club early- no, I don't know why he chose to scream at her (presumably, didn't feel up to shouting at men) either, but I gave him a massive b******ing for it, and we hated each other ever after); talked rather too much about his mother, in a disturbingly overtly sexual manner; kept asking my roommate to pose naked for him; constantly boasted about the one sexual exploit he experienced during the year... odious. You get the idea.

Otherwise my 'favourite' is the female housemate I had in my shared house. In the first year she was in our flat, she constantly auditioned men to be her boyfriend, all of whom were ugly as sin, and generally monosyllabic, but usually either rolling in dough, or highly proficient at Photoshop, her preferred course medium. Which meant she either had everything bought for her, or all her coursework completed by eager, panting men, which is odd as she really wasn't all that pretty (she had an inferiority complex somewhat, as her sister was apparently a stunning ex-underwear model who ran a successful london club), and didn't put out (until later with just one - see below). She barely spoke, when she did it was to giggle coquettishly (which just made us other three hardworking, non-manipultive girl housemates hate her more). She ate nothing but frozen stew for the first year, and didn't know what herbs were. (Conversation: me and male housemate - "um, G, are you just going to eat that heated tinned tomato on toast? would you not like some herbs, like oregano?" Her - "Um, what's oregano? *giggle*"). She was just the most annoying person ever - who genuinely LIKES giant fluffy teddies holding hearts saying "I WUV U"? Really, who? G did. She also refused to speak or bond with us, instead preferring to hide in what we later began to refer to as her 'penthouse' (top floor room, with a bathroom next door).

Oh yes, and there was the time her mobile rang the house phone, but we couldn't hang up as it kept the line open. We tried shouting down the phone, screaming, then got creative (bongo drums, kazoos, bass bins blasting "super sharp shooter"...). After about an hour we gave up, and started listening in. She was dumping one of her minions, who had burst into tears and was pleading with her to take it back. The conversation was sheer schadenfreud joy - his booming histronics, her inability to converse with actual words - it was one of the funniest things we'd ever heard. Like a mime breaking up with Brain Blessed. Hilarious. One of the best free night's entertainment we had. She never found out.

At one of our house parties, one of the guests came up to me and said "how about that whole sex in the pipes thing, eh?". Um, what?, says I. "You know, how you can hear G* having sex through the pipes and radiators". I was a bit puzzled. This story had gotten around a whole party before reaching me, and I had no idea.

See, I sleep like a log. Once I'm asleep, I stay asleep. My housemates, however, slept lighter than me. Apparently, at night (when the plumbing stopped moving around), G would have vigorous, noisy sex. Walls are quite thick in large Georgian buildings, but plumbing can carry sound well, particularly when you use the radiator as 'support'. So whilst she was being hammered away at, her grunts and moans were carried through the quiet pipes around the whole house, crystal clear, for everyone to hear. After a while, my housemates would start dropping sexual petnames/conversations/dirty talk she and her boyfriend had into everyday conversations with her. I truly believe she never caught on, despite the weekly updates we'd give everyone on our course.

We really didn't like her very much.

*name changed to protect the truly irritating.

my rant is over.

edit: this does make me seem like a bit of a behatch. But she was truly the most soul-sapping person I have ever met, as well as the most manipulative and devious, as well as quite stupid. She was lots of bad things. And vacuous - when she finally slimmed down to the size 8 she'd wanted always to be, her first project was self-titled, and all about how slim she was, and her size of jeans and bra size. Being exactly the same size as her new 'improved' self, I actually found this even more insulting and insensitive, particularly when she started giving me diet advice to lose 'a few pounds'. I'M THE SAME SIZE. And it didn't improve her personality one iota, rubbing it in the faces of the non-size-8 girls constantly at group crits. What a cow. The tutors only found out after grades had been handed out that her boyfriend had done all the work in her final show. At that point they realised why we disliked her so, as we were too nice to say at the time. Most annoying person ever.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 16:25, Reply)

as an aside...
to add to the story...fatty's parents were also just as gross as she was. When they visited, they didn't wash their hands after using the bathroom (gross), and they left their shit everywhere.
Like mother, like daughter. ew.
I think she was just jealous that I was a better/more responsible musician than she was (we are both opera singers)
(mezzalyrica1184, Tue 10 Apr 2007, 16:21, Reply)