HOUSEMATE CRIMES

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

In about a weeks time... my housemates are moving out. I cannot wait. Although one of them is okay, the other is a arrogant troll of a person. Arrogant, presumptuous, constantly using our property, money grabbing, wingy two faced, breaking things and not taking responsibility etc.

 

So in the mood that I'm in, I'd love to hear stories of other crappy housemates.

 

One bad egg I lived with at university was a general messy, money grabbing arse who would steal toilet paper and not contribute anything to the house. The worst thing the little git did was break into my alcohol stash (padlocked I might add) and helped himself to a really nice 20 year old McCallen Whiskey I had been saving.

 

He drank about two thirds of it with cheap imitation cola. He drank a lovely single malt with 50p litre of coke!!!!

 

Anyone want to vent?

[Philo_Vance]

Had one once who wasn't necessarily a nightmare to live with, he was just a glutton to the point of comedy. He'd buy a massive 4 litre tub of ice cream, ask if anyone wanted some, dole out a pitiful spoonful in a bowl to each of us, then sit there with the other 3.85 litres and eat the lot, washed down with two litres of sprite. Wasn't pretty. Also once saw him with a sixteen pack of potato waffles. He'd toast two of them, put them between buttered bread, and eat them while the next two waffles were toasting. Repeat until packet is gone.

 

Best story of him though, was one night after the pub, I'd become sick of one of the other housemates leaving her socks everywhere, so I made one of them into an omelette. Best one I've ever made, perfectly golden folded unbroken omelette with a sock in the middle. The next morning we came downstairs and the fat fucker had eaten it. There was just the sock left on the plate, carefully eaten around.

 

The next place I lived was with a mate I'd known from uni, Giles. His parents owned the place. Giles was (and is) a reckless pisshead, so I'd forever be having to put him to bed or help him up the stairs. When I first moved in it was me, him and another chap who was studying pharmacology or some such and was forever receiving packages of exotic tree barks and fungi to try and distil them into mental drugs. He had a lab set up in his room, proper mad scientist stuff. One night we're all at the local and their friend Max starts looking ill, so they took him back to ours. I went home an hour later to find an ambulance outside. It turns out Max had decided to do heroin in our bathroom and then collapsed. I got back just as they were putting him in the ambulance. Two nights later, my housemate let the bastard back in the house, against my advice. Come four in the morning, and he's refusing to leave, and has punched Giles in the face. The other housemate panicked and knocked my door so I ended up thumping the guy, then feeling a bit sorry for him. He apologised and said he was scared to go home in case he bumped into his dealer, so I ended up walking him home.

 

I had a pint with Giles two weeks ago and he basically collapsed drunk at the table so I had to carry him home. Ten years and nothing's changed.

[niff]

I shared a house in Preston whilst at uni with a snobbish South African fashion student. She decided to melt down some fat in a baking tray, forgot about it and ran herself a bath so by the time I had returned with my other housemates from the Spar it had set fire. She then decided to take the flaming tray out to put it outside nearly burning her face off. Instead of taking notice of the fireman telling her off later she was flirting with them.

All the nearby worktops and oven were ruined so there went my much needed deposit to live on at the end of the year.

[John Matrix]

I made the stupid mistake of getting a place with a friend when leaving home for the first time.

 

He was my best friend at the time, one of those inseparable, always hanging out kind of friendships, one I was pretty sure was fairly solid.

 

The problem was that his sister was also moving in with us, everything split three ways was infinitely more affordable, so I didn

[Dead Mike]

I lived with a friend in a rented house for about 2 years around 2001/2 before I bought a place of my own. All was cool at first, we both had semi-decent jobs at the time & were both massive wrestling fans. This was at my tape trading peak & our days revovled around working in the week, watching wrestling every night & all day Sunday & going out on the piss Fri & Sat nights. At the time is was briliant.

 

He then lost his job & everything went to shit. He got into reverse sleep patterns & would stay up loudly watching TV, playing Xbox til' about 4am every night. Rather than look for work or clean the house etc he'd get up at about 3pm & start getting pissed on tramp cider. A mutual friend (who was a career dole scammer) would come round every day & when I got in from work they'd both be steaming pissed sparked out on the sofas. Fortunately his circumstances meant he couldn't afford the rent & had to find somewhere cheaper, my circumstances were improving & allowed me to buy a place on my own.

 

I think house-sharing/flatmates etc is a young mans game. I don't think I could put up with living with other people for any longer than a week these days.

[Up Chuck]

One of my uni housemates lost 2 of my favourite albums when I lent them to her. Somehow managed to "leave them in the old house" when we moved. Fuck knows how you manage that. I obsessively went through my room about 20 extra times to make sure I hadn't left anything.

 

In our last year of uni, we lived with a mate of ours who worked at McDonald's doing ridiculous hours, and would come in at about 2 in the morning and just have a whole garlic baguette and nothing else for dinner, pretty much every day. Which meant every morning, I got up to a kitchen that smelt of garlic and an unwashed baking tray with bits of bread burnt onto it stuck in the sink.

 

The same guy also had a habit of going drinking on his own. My room was next to the bathroom, and one night I got woken up by retching sounds. I went and knocked on the door and asked if he was okay, and got no response, so I tried the door to see if he'd left it unlocked, and walked in to found him asleep, draped over the edge of the bath, with his trousers round his ankles and vomit still dripping out of his mouth. I managed to wake him up and sit him on the toilet, which he promptly fell off. I got him back on it, promised to wash the puke out of the bath, then fell asleep. I left him there. Next morning, he'd made it to his bed, but I had to wash the dried-up vomit.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

I think house-sharing/flatmates etc is a young mans game. I don't think I could put up with living with other people for any longer than a week these days.

 

THIS. I've just moved to Melbourne (well ten months ago) and I thought it would be cool having another couple move into our flat. I thought they were great, Whilst my girlfriend warned me that within a month I would hate their guts. She's a smart one is my lady love and within a few weeks I was ready to stick an axe in their heads.

 

Basically I'm 30 years old now and I've realised all I want is a mug of horlicks and a cat on my lap. And wrestling on my tv. Oh and i want to take as long as i want on the bog with my newspaper. Housemates sucks.

[wandshogun09]

Best story of him though, was one night after the pub, I'd become sick of one of the other housemates leaving her socks everywhere, so I made one of them into an omelette. Best one I've ever made, perfectly golden folded unbroken omelette with a sock in the middle. The next morning we came downstairs and the fat fucker had eaten it. There was just the sock left on the plate, carefully eaten around.

 

Haha I love that story. Amateur though, stingersplash would have eaten the sock as well.

 

I shared a flat with two mates (a lad and a girl) for about a year when I left home at 19. The bloke mate was sound, he was at work a lot and when he was home he pretty much just watched telly and slept. The girl though, was by far the messiest and laziest of the three of us. I'm no housework freak either. As long as I can see what colour the carpet is, have space to put a cup down and can see the telly I'm happy. Obviously I like the place generally tidy and clean like anyone else but I'm not one of them twats who goes mental if you crease a cushion. But she was ridiculous.

 

She had a good job, well dressed, pretty, polite, well spoken all that. A really nice girl to be fair. You'd never guess what a filthy bastard she was if you met her in any other situation. And not filthy in a good way. Unwashed plates all over the shop, she'd dump her washing by the machine for someone else to do. Even used fucking tampons just strewn about the bathroom on a few occasions. If you went in the bathroom after she had a shower you'd find anything from hair dye all over the towels to dirty clothes left on the floor. We had a fair few rows over it all, just basically consisting of me telling her to sort herself out around the house and her telling me to fuck off.

 

We generally got on well, still do, but I was chuffed when she announced she was moving in with her boyfriend. Basically she was 18 and had never had to do fuck all for herself up to that point because her mom did everything for her. That was about 7 years ago now though. She seems to have grown up since. Got married, got a house and had a kid. I've been round a few times and there wasn't a used tampon in sight to be fair.

 

Some people just aren't meant to live together.

 

Most recently I had my brother stay after a row with his wife, and basically he wiped out half the contents of my fridge, broke my Sky remote and stunk my bog out like it's never been stunk out before. Repeatedly. All in the space of two days. He's a dirty cunt my brother. I managed to mend fences between him and his missus and he's back stinking his own place out now thank fuck. Having to get up for work, walk into the bathroom for a shower, only be engulfed in a cloud of my brother's shit fumes is an experience I'm never putting up with again.

 

I've had some great housemates as well though. My cousin from Canada stayed with me for 6 months when I was around 21/22, and he brought his girlfriend and her fit French best mate with him. I somehow got lucky, a few times. To this day I don't know how. She didn't even seem to mind the Brummy accent or my God awful attempts at French..

 

 

"Au revoir, creme de la menthe"

[Nexus]

Meet Jed

 

My own housemates have been slightly less disgusting, but I've had a few shit ones.

 

First year lived in halls with an awful misogynist who didn't wash up and when challenged almost attacked one of the female housemates (he was a big bloke ffs)

 

Second year lived with a suicidal fantasist who lived on value beans, chips, tuna and bread. He would often leave massive logs in the loo and not flush them. Coming back from Xmas at home to one of them was a particular highlight. He also had long, dyed, pink hair, which got everywhere. The year after I left he slashed his wrists in the bathroom...lucky escape.

 

Third year lived with an insomniac, a girl who spent more time gnoshing her Irish boyfriend off and a tea addict who kept herself to herself. The insomniac would cook at ridiculous times, leave pots everywhere, and was mostly found sat on the sofa in his dressing gown. I had some friends round once - we were playing D&D (I was a cool student), when he decided to get his cock out in front of everyone. He wasn't even drunk. The girl got a boyfriend around Hallowe'en and she spent the time at home cooking, eating then leaving all her shit out, then going round his house and not coming back for a few days. Extra washing up. Tea fiend was alright, she didn't do much. The problems all came to a head when I was away having an operation, I came back to find one housemate moved out, the other refusing to speak to the rest of us, and the friendship group completely splintered. That was fun.

 

This last year was alright, I had two Burmese housemates who were insomniacs and so cooked at weird times, were weirdly anal about the kitchen when it wasn't their turn to clean, but when they did have to clean, they didn't do it. Oh and I was constantly answering the door to their pot dealer, and having to take charge of their weed until the chaps returned. That was fun. My third housemate was a really nice guy though, so this year was the best out of the four.

[Philo_Vance]

Forgot to mention in my earlier post, my ex used to share a flat with a couple of members of hardcore act Your Demise, who I understand are now fairly popular. Place was grim. Despite one of the band members (I forget names, this was a few years ago) having his rent paid by his parents so he could concentrate on the band full time, he still stole all her food. Bathroom was grim too, even by my standards, and I can be pretty slovenly.

[Nexus]

Awful band. Lead singer was a cunt when I saw them supporting Enter Shikari.

[spotlightmagnet1]

First year in uni was weird, most of the people were very nice, and I was new living away from home so I made silly mistakes, I like to think I learnt from them. You know when I first felt unwell and was woken up at midnight I put a note outside like a dick, next time I got up, explained the situation and everything was cool. But there were one or two.

 

There was this girl who hated me. I was one of two people called Rob, so she decided to call me scary Rob. Why? Cause I was fat with big hair and spot marks. She use to congregate outside my room and slag me off. She also use to complain I never cleaned the kitchen, I didn't eat hot food unless it was takeaway for a year as I could never get to the oven and always washed up plates, cutlery etc. Eventually I called her on slagging me off, she denied it saying it was someone else and they told me differently, I pointed out I could hear her voice (twice as loud as everyone elses) so I knew it was her.

 

One night I made the mistake of calling my flatmate a cunt during a jokey session. He called me prick and other stuff but then he strangled me, pinned me up against my window and told me he'd kill me. Sadly only my best friend there even tried standing up to me when I said I didn't want to go back there the next night. Especially finding out he stationed himself outside my room. But we cleared the air.

 

Second year was cool, my best friend from the first year and a gig going mate staying with an Irish nurse, who was lovely. She kept herself to herself and often talked to her boyfriend by Skype or whatever it was then. But when we talked she was super friendly and really kind.

 

Third year we moved to a house with a friend of the other two. She was friendly enough but really untidy. Her worst traits were piling the bin up until, as my mate put it, it became 'an horrific game of Jenga'. And making Weetabix for herself and just leaving the bowls around. We went home at Christmas and came back to find three bowls of black gunk. It was absolutely horrible. Plus, my mate Mike got a girlfriend, who was lovely, but every morning we got woken up by her sex sounds. Sounded like a Manatee getting run over by a steamroller.

[Green]

The list of things my slob of a flatmate did while living in halls in Uni:

 

- Lost the grease collecting tray for his budget George Foreman grill so just left the grease leak all over the work-top and floor whenever he cooked anything.

- The food he would cook was usually stolen from me or one of my other flatmates.

- The food he bought himself seemed to consist entirely of potato waffles and Smash. He would eat the Smash out of a plastic jug, which he rarely washed afterwards...more on that one later.

- He borrowed several DVDs off me without ever giving them back, including my first season on The Wire. Again, more on that later.

- He very rarely showered and always seemed to wear the exact same hat and wife-beater vest whenever he was about the flat. Seeing his pale, acne-ridden skin complete with hideously overgrown armpit hair every day wasn't the most pleasant of experiences.

- Due to his lack of showering and his complete apathy to do anything but lay on the common room couch watching my Battlestar Galactica boxsets, the common room soon began to constantly reek of BO.

- He somehow managed to get a girlfriend who wasn't completely repulsed by him (I have absolutely no idea how this was possible, the guy's hair was practically dripping with grease even when he dressed up nice) and had her around constantly. She was ok in small doses but soon became grating with her ridiculously loud voice that could be heard from the common room at all hours. She was also a compulsive liar, so we had to put up with stories of her being "raped" as though she were bragging about it. Awkward silences became very common in any conversation with the pair of them.

- He would get stupidly drunk or stupidly wrecked on drugs on a weekly basis. I fondly remember one time him phoning me from the cinema, in tears, explaining that he got lost in there and had been forced to sit through two films he didn't want to see because he was scared that he'd be stuck in there forever. The cinema closed at some point and presumably sent him home.

- On top of the previously mentioned BO issues, it should also be noted that, despite being a heavy smoker, he never brushed his teeth. If you caught a whiff of his breath while venturing to the common room to cook some food it'd instantly ruin your appetite.

- He always seemed to be sick, which isn't surprising considering his lifestyle, and he'd always seem to infect everyone else. Also not too surprising, seeing as he was prone to enormous sneezing fits where he'd rarely cover his mouth or anything and instead just spray the general vicinity. It makes me sick thinking about it but sometimes you could clearly see snot-rockets being launched across the room.

 

I'm sure he's responsible for more things that my brain has thankfully blocked from my memory but as a sort of culmination to all the above I can tell you what we found when we entered his room after he'd left. I have never seen anything like it. The smell of stale smoke and BO was so thick you could literally see it hanging in the air, which gave the room a weird Wizard Of Oz style colour drain. On top of finding every DVD I'd lent him thrown out across the floor, including my (now mostly snapped) Wire season one, we found several plastic jugs. Similar to the jugs he'd eat Smash out of...the ones he wouldn't wash. They'd been used as make-shift ashtrays it would seem, as the contents of the jug were now a weird green/purple mould decorated with a mound of ash. We also found a pint glass, filled to the brim, with mould and ash...and we also found a large mixing bowl in very much the same condition. Along with the DVD discs, the floor was covered in rubbish and unwashed clothes. There was even a used condom. We just accepted that we'd lost our deposit and decided to leave the room and never re-enter.

[BiffingtonClyro]

A guy I shared a flat with nearly burnt the fucking flat down like a cunt. He would leave the house at 7 am to go to work. Return about 8 pm shattered, and then proceed to spend the night drinking wine and getting off his face on valium. He was like the walking dead. I walked in to the kitchen one night and there was some chicken in the oven that was like fucking charcoal. I obviously took it out. Put the fucking charcoal chicken beside the chicken and the next day he asked me how I managed to burn the chicken that badly! I couldn't be arsed with him and fucked off a few months later. People fucked on valium are really unnerving creatures.

[NEWM]

I was very fortunate to not have anything like any of these horror stories in the 4 years I was renting before me and Mrs NEWM bought our first house, but this does trigger memories of lots of the little things (notes being left, dodgy kitchens, shared common areas etc), that just remind me of a million tiny headaches and issues I'd never want to have to live through again.

 

God forbid me and the wife ever get divorced, but if it did happen, I don't think I'd want to go through that again, cheaper rent or not. The extra cost on a place by myself is worth every penny when you don't have to put up with the realisation that a good mate happens to be a fucking nightmare to live with. Because that's the worst bit when you've chosen the people - it's not so much what they do, it's the fact that you liked them to begin with, and it's often tough to come out of a shared accommodation scenario with the friendship in one piece. It's also why I insisted on renting with the missus before the dreaded marriage/mortgage combo - you never know what new shit you might find to fall out about. You can't help the fucking oddballs you find yourself with in Uni Halls, though. That's a very valuable learning curve I'd recommend to anybody going to University, but not one I'd want to live through for more than a year.