You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike…
I currently live in a shared house in an estate called High Kingsdown, in Bristol. The houses are all identical, arranged in a regular pattern with no road access. To get some idea of it, check out Google maps. That's not my house highlighted, for the record.

I'm living with two randomers, in houses surrounded by various types of student layabout.

Let's start with the room next to me. Here we have somebody who knows not the joys of bacon or gin, being a muslim. Poor fella. His family owns a take-away, so whenever he visits them he comes back with enough frozen curry to fill the freezer, leaving precious little space for the aforementioned gin. Now, this is fine, in fact I'm rather jealous, but he keeps asking me to wash up everything I use right away (sometimes while still eating the food I just cooked) as I'm preventing him from cooking. Once I do that, he proceeds to defrost his curry, reheat it, and cook some rice in a steamer that he never washes.

The other room is being occupied by a leggy, 21 year old blonde. Life's not all bad, eh?

To move further afield, there's the house opposite our front door. The front door is directly below the bathroom, which has no extractor fan. Obviously, the window needs to be open to get rid of steam while having showers. Before school started their back garden was always occupied by the nan and child of the family sitting at a table doing arts and crafts. Glancing out of the window and making eye contact with a child while showering with a stonking morning glory makes you feel like a film director^W^Wbad man for hours.

Their next door neighbours are a bunch of loud chinese students who revel in arguing at 3am. Being woken up by a slanging match isn't too bad if at least you get some juicy info from it, but if I can't even chuckle at the indiscretions that caused it I'm not going to be happy.

A little way past there is a building site, where the contractors seem to have a strange idea of normal hours. It seems they only ever do any construction on a saturday afternoon, the rest of the time they spend burning large amounts of plastic and stinking up the whole place. Invariably they pick a hot day when I have the windows open.

Our landlady also lives in the estate, and she doesn't have a great concept of how the world works. After chasing her for months asking where to pay my rent money to (and I'm a fucking awful debtor to have). I finally got a reply, saying that she was "very disappointed" to hear that I'd paid no rent so far, and the details were on the contract I signed. I reminded her that she was yet to provide me with my copy of said contract, despite it having been signed 3 months prior. She's still not replied to that, now 5 months down the line. Oh well.

The actual next door neighbours are fine, never hear a peep from them. We, on the other hand, are the cunts with a piano in the lounge and considering buying chickens.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 1:10, 5 replies)

Thats a kinda weak excuse
Wouldn't a reasonable person simply ask their housemates where/how they pay their rent?
(St Sepulchre's Belle tolled for thee on, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 3:11, closed)

True
But one was travelling and the other was staying with his parents and had lost his phone, so I couldn't get in contact with them. I did email, but the most I got was a non-committal reply about a standing order and the landlady's contact details.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 11:30, closed)

I had
a similar thing with the bloody council tax. They ignored my phone calls telling them when and where I was moving to and never sent a bill.

Finally, about 9 months after I moved I get a letter telling me that I'd been taken to court in my absence (the letter was barely English - I had to fill in the gaps to make it readable by humans). All very well and good, apart from, in their letter they claim to know when I moved (although this was not correct, it was at least before the court date). So they knowingly sent bills to a place they knew I'd moved from, ignored my many (5) calls asking them when I would receive a bill, then I was summonsed to court (at the wrong address) 6 days after my failure to pay a bill that they knowingly sent to the wrong address.

Then, after having to complain to my MP, I finally get a bill - a bill that claims I was living in my old place and my new place similtaniously and as such, I must pay two council tax bills.

It makes you wonder what the hell they spend the money on - it sure as hell isn't staff.

Phew. Good to get it off my chest.

I still haven't received a correct bill.
(dchurch bah, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 8:08, closed)

xyzzy
Every time I walk through High Kingsdown I hear myself using the "twisty maze of passages" line. Glad I'm not alone in that.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 12:36, closed)

But did you get eaten by a grue?

( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Thu 8 Oct 2009, 13:15, closed)