My mate Phil
My pal Phil is a regular guy. We went to college together (and both have stringent standards of personal hygiene before anyone asks) and have known each other for longer than I'd care to work out at this time of the evening.

A few years back, post divorce I lodged with Phil for a while.

Phil's a builder and works every hour of the day and until he shacked up with a lady didn't have time for cleaning duties. Seeing as he worked outside in all weathers, he didn't bother with central heating either. Just a warm dog and a log fire in the lounge kept him warm when required. It was the perfect "Men Behaving Badly" lifestyle, beer accompanying two meals a day, mountain bikes parked in the lounge (which would on occaion be ridden in the house, beer abuse permitting) and the barest minimum time given over to domestic chores.

Now it must be said that blokes have a much higher grottiness threshold than lasses, indeed Phil's bathroom bore this theory out.

If you moved the bottles of bleach or the loo brush, you'd see a perfect circle of carpet in it's original colour, exposed to light for the first time in months. Around this circle of carpet was a perfect dust corona. The shower curtain was of indeterminate hue, but it was supposed to be opaque at one time or another. It was caked in the liberal growth of mould and limescale, as were the taps. The bath itself was naturally a fetching turquiose shade, but layers of lime had softened this effect a tad. The walls had a layer of lime where the condensation had evapourated, leaving behind a chalky residue.

No doubt, the shower was used four times a day but just went without being cleaned...

But that was nothing compared to the horror which was the lavatory itself. Once the seat was lifted, the pungent odour of well aged effluent seeped forth and no amount of bleach would shift it. Tide marks on the bowl itself were at the point of being chiselled away.

After a week or so of lodging, I had a mini-breakdown at the sight of the bathroom and set to work with rubber gloves, bleach and dammit even sandpaper. By the time I finished you could just about see your reflection in the porcelein, although Phil stubbornly refused to do anything about the shower curtain. Although despite my frequent frenzied scrubbing, the bathroom got wronger very quickly.

The kitchen was a sight to behold. The tiles were once patterned biege but had turned grey-brown and again, no amount of elbow grease would shift it. I resorted to using oven cleaner to bring back an approximation of the original shade.

The worst thing of all was my Saturday morning coffee, which I accepted from Phil. His explaination that the granules were "left from my last lodger" didn't ring any bells, but I was somewhat shocked when I attempted to make my own coffee to be greeted by grey, matted granules in the bottom of an ancient jar.

Sacriest of all was when I was dropped off home by a prospective young lady who nipped in to use the loo only to emerge looking very sheepish and make her excuses before disappering pronto. Upon a post date visit to the bathroom I was met with the most horrifying stench it has ever been my misfortune to encounter, nearly bleaching my eyebrows with it's fetid ferocity. Turned out that the charming lady in question had deposited her lunch and must surely have been the victim of a very unfortunate bowel complaint.

We didn't last... Everyone knows that a pretty girl's only use of a bathroom is to touch up lipstick or powder her nose, the thought that someone I might be romantically inclined toward is capable of overpowering even Phil's stinky bathroom makes me gag.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Tue 27 Mar 2007, 19:05, Reply)