After a few years spent in various share houses with various housemates, I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that humans are simply not meant to cohabitate with other people. Someone alert the scientific community for I have made a discovery.
I consider myself fairly normal and easy to live with. I’m very clean and pretty chill. I don’t bring people ’round at all hours, leave my dishes in the sink or run a small religion out of my bedroom.
But here’s the thing! I am a musician and am often up and making music out of my bedroom at all hours. I forget about my washing and leave it on the clothesline for three days. There is currently a collection of half-empty coffee mugs on my desk.
These three traits (and I probably have more that I’m not aware of) could drive the wrong housemate totally mad, upending the careful symbiosis of the share house. My point is everyone has something about them that makes them a bit un-live-with-able.
That being said, there are people out there who are completely and utterly Unlive-with-able with a capital U. These sickos are the ones who will fill the fridge with nothing but cabbages leaving no room for anything else. They’ll skimp out on their share of the bills and bring randoms home to set up camp in the living room for days on end. They’re menaces to society.
Here’s a bunch of first-person accounts from people who’ve experienced this kinda housemate and lived to tell the tale. For your convenience, I have ranked them from not-so-bad to most absolutely horrific and terrifying.
Heed them all as a warning. Now you can avoid any and all future bad housemate behaviour.
OK that’s pretty bad housemate behaviour
“I once lived with someone with very sensitive hearing and as someone who has one functioning ear, I spent most of the time after 8pm watching TV with the subtitles on because I couldn’t hear what they were saying but the housemate in bed could.” – Ben
“My boyfriend at the time was living with a very arty crowd. They’d sometimes have parties that would go on til the early hours – no big deal, except that around 2am they’d whip out the drum circle. It was a nightmare.” – Priya
“One housemate bought a fan heater that she kept in her room for only her to use and when we tried to explain to her she couldn’t keep it on all the time, she ignored us.” – Rachel
Okay, pretty crappy behaviour but nothing to write home about. Let’s move on, shall we?
Defo time to look for a new place
“We had to integrate a kitchen schedule because one housemate wouldn’t let anyone cook in the kitchen between the hours of 5pm and 8pm every day. Before we integrated the schedule, if you came in at 5pm when she wanted to cook, she would legit just turn your stuff off and move things to the side.” – Mia
“One bedroom in the house had a serious mould problem, so that housemate set up camp in the living room. For like, six months. I used to step over him sleeping in a sleeping bag every morning on my way to work and trip over his alarm clock.” – Gracie
“We used to have two extra people stay over multiple nights a week. They weren’t partners, just two friends who would sleep in the living room — no mattress, no sheets, one blanket, one of them on the couch, one on the floor. They’d party on the weekend and so still be there taking up the whole living room and stinking out the place in the middle of the day. They’d take showers and just throw their wet towels on top of the washing machine.” – Julian
Not to judge Gracie but I, too, would be getting the hell out of the room if there was mould in it. Did no one think to call the landlord? And the easiest solution for you, Julian? Try a Westinghouse front-load washing machine (or win one) and pop a dryer on top. Bam, they’ll have to find new places to put their gross towels, and now you can enjoy a wet towel-free lifestyle.
We’re just solving problems left, right and centre here. Now, to the nitty-gritty.
Oh my God get outta there IMMEDIATELY
“I lived with a girl who liked to keep her cooking knives in her bedroom. She was very quiet and never liked to interact or speak with us. She often would appear out of nowhere when I was getting out of the bathroom, or toilet, walking back to her room with chef knife in hand.” – Eva
“One guy I lived with would leave wet washing in the washing machine for like, days. He didn’t seem to get that it made the clothes – and the laundry – smell. It of course also inconvenienced the entire house. And THEN when he would finally take out the wet washing…he’d leave it on a clotheshorse in the living room until he needed to wash it again! Like, the clotheshorse was his wardrobe. It was unbearable.” – Matilda
“During lockdown, my housemate started sleeping with my brother. There was no escape.” – Emma
No words. People suck. Now you can move out, pick up some new appliances for your fresh abode and move on.
