The day that FruGuy and I moved into our own flat, completely free of housemates, was one of the best days of all time. No more waiting ages for the bathroom! No more putting up with other people’s friends camping on your couch for a week at a time! No more fishing mouldy plates and cutlery out of other people’s bedrooms when the cupboards run bare! Hallelujah!
In my time I’ve had both good and bad housemates (and I’m sure I’ve been both a good and bad housemate myself). I had the guy who left the front door open – not just unlocked, wide open – so that some dude walked in off the street and stole a bunch of stuff. I had the couple who broke up three months into a yearly lease, leaving the rent to be divided by three people rather than four. Then there are those people who are just lousy to live with, never washing up, never replacing the last of the milk when they use it, and being generally crap.
And when you think about it, a lot of these things can leave you seriously out of pocket. Besides getting robbed and experiencing a rent increase when that couple broke up, things I can think of off the top of my head that hurt me financially are: your things getting damaged and going missing (CDs and DVDs), kitchen items being accidently broken (crockery) or set fire to (good chopping board), or messed up (kitchen knives and non-stick pans); my stash of eggs, butter, bread and milk magically spirited away and never replaced; good and expensive wine being drunk; towels and linen being borrowed and never seen again. The list goes on.
Things like this might not seem like such a big deal – more an annoyance than anything – but then there’s big ticket things, like being stuck covering the rent if you are the ‘adult’ housemate because the direct debit comes from your account and there’s always one housemate who is late paying their share into your account. Being hit with a huge phone bill after someone’s friend used the house phone to call home to New Zealand for an hour. Or there’s the worst thing that has ever happened to us: just before moving to London we spent two weeks in the city house-sitting for a friend and starting our new jobs. When we arrived back to collect our things and move into our new flat, we found said housemate had completely trashed the house – there were literally bags of garbage in the hallway, EVERY kitchen item had been used and left to go mouldy, and there was VOMIT on the kitchen floor (which I STEPPED IN). Needless to say we didn’t get our deposit back on that house.
So yes, housemates can be a costly affair. I suppose it’s one of those things you live and learn from, but if I had some advice for youngsters out there about to hit the share house circuit for the first time, it would be: DON’T have a house phone; Have EVERY tenant’s name on the lease; Have an overdraft set up on your bank account to ensure any household direct debits coming from your account are paid without incurring fees; BUY A LOCK FOR YOUR BEDROOM DOOR; and don’t leave your good wine anywhere in sight!
Do you have a housemate horror story? Please share below!
Hellish housemates are just the worst.
I’d add to your points for anyone embarking on a house share- don’t go in for passive aggression. The post-it on the fridge won’t get the washing up done. You’ve got to be up front with each other.
We used to mark food we weren’t going to eat with a “Free For All” on a post-it note. It didn’t last long after that.
The worst was the milk (the dirtiest roommates all happened to be paper plate and plastic utensil types). On many mornings I woke up and my milk was gone, sitting in the fridge and mocking me with its emptiness. I was almost ready to put a mini-fridge in my room!
What’s worse than being left with no milk is being left with a pitiful amount- too little for a cup of coffee. SO frustrating!!
Mine was a college roommate, my freshman year. I didn’t know anybody so I went in ‘blind’. I stated on the application that I wanted someone reasonably neat. The person I got was a complete slob. Mess everywhere. I finally asked him and he said, yeah I put that I wanted someone cleaner because I knew I wasn’t.
Nice guy but we ended up switching roommates shortly thereafter.
Yep, Still nearly $1000 out of pocket thanks to an ex flatmate who was slack with bills, and filthy, and like a bull in a China shop, resulting in money being deducted from our bond beyond what he had paid in bond. Also, the state of his room…..I had to clean it when we moved out, and the horrors.
It’s been many, many years….but I shared roommates all through my college days. My last year, I was in a small room with 2 other guys. Girlfriends over all the time….it made it difficult to study. Plus, one of the roommates was a slob, which wasn’t good. At least the year was a lot of fun, I’ll have to say that much.
Was lucky enough to never have a roommate from hell. One of the best things we ever did do was set up a separate bank account just for paying rent and bills. Everyone would add their share each month, plus a little extra for food, drinks, party, whatever. Just make sure there are two cosigners on the account in case one decides to leave.
I had a roommate once who burnt my tea kettle beyond repair and refused to replace it, broke a cherished salt shaker and refused to pay for it, and–even though she had a cat–told me that I brought fleas into the apartment!
I’ve been fairly lucky this year (despite the slightly odd one who woke us up at 4am to take her to the hospital because she’d “cut her sensitive lady area” which led to a very boring 8 hours sat in a waiting room as they transferred her from department to department and eventually to another hospital)..
Last year however.. I had the girl from hell! Never paid her bills on time, was inconsiderate constantly and a bully too. An absolute hypocrite – she could play music because she paid rent, but we couldn’t also because she paid rent. She could leave her washing up for a week (solid milk!) because she paid rent, but we couldn’t leave a glass for a day also because she paid rent, the list goes on.. Needless to say, we actually paid more rent than she did. I eventually got to the stage where I left for work at 6am and came home at 8pm to avoid her. Finally, I put my foot down when she decided to start smoking inside our house.
She destroyed half my belongings during the night and then waited outside my room and beat me up at 6am as I was leaving for work. I was left homeless and to add insult to literal injury, she refused to pay her share of the bills and purposely ran up a phone bill which nearly equalled my monthly wage. I was left with over £1000 in debt.
That’s absolutely terrible. She sounds awful. It’s hard to know how to act in these kinds of situations. I’m glad that you’re shot of her (despite the interesting hospital excursion).