Be Excellent To Each Other

I'd do Phoebe. Every day and twice on Sundays. Mmm.

Most people give their little chaps a masculine name, you know. But that's alright, shows you're at ease with yourself.

You can get machines for that, you don't have to get wet yourself. Get a grip Mang!

Damn, didn't spot the typo. But someone did.

Damn you Kropotkin!

I spent the last year living with three thoughtless cunts who never lifted a fucking finger. They didn't seem to realize that not washing their own dishes would just mean more work for everybody else at the next meal time, so the kitchen quickly became like the kind of place Sinister Agent described earlier. One time it was so badly cluttered and dirty that one of 'em bought himself a couple of new pans and plates just so he wouldn't have to, y'know, make a clean spot in all of his mess. Their rooms were absolutely filthy, too, but even if I lived like that, I'd still show a flicker of responsibility in the communal areas, so as not to look like a prize prick.

I gave them plenty of bollockings about it, initially, and did a lot of the tidying up myself, but there was a period in which I could have the place spotless and it would be a shithole again literally 2 hours later, so I just gave up and spent more and more time in my own room - which they would often retreat to, it being the only pleasant room left - or out. They left the place about 2 months earlier than me, without doing anything to their rooms. It was blissful to be able to just clean the house and have it stay that way for those 2 months, but the amount of work I had to do in their rooms - including removing broken armchairs and piles of undies, fixing kicked-off locks and re-attaching smoke alarms - was ridiculous. One of them was poncing around France at the time, and I didn't have any of their numbers, so I couldn't even phone them up to shout "CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT" at them three million times each.

I'm also the only one the landlady can still contact, and while she always saw me as 'the good one', I have a feeling a bill for all their braindead, deliberate damages (one of 'em ripped out the entire burglar alarm system one night, because he hadn't bothered to learn the code and had set it off) is gonna flop through my letterbox any day now.

Lesson learned: never move in with anybody you aren't sleeping with.

It's comforting to know I'm not the only one who's had to do a Kim & Aggie Extreme. SA's experience sounds far worse.

(I probably sound like a 'clean freak', but I'm actually not that fussy at all. It was just that nothing ever got done at this place, except by Captain Mug here.)

I can't match SA's story -- thankfully -- but I did once share a place with a couple of guys, one of whom showered literally once a fortnight at most. Mind you, when he did shower, he was in there at least an hour, and often quite a lot longer. That could be quite annoying if I was trying to get ready for work at the time, of course, but hey...

The dude in question was working evenings in a call center, and looking for a better job at the time. He once was really excited about a job he was being interviewed for, and even went to the barbers and had a nice neat haircut and shave in preparation for it. The day of the interview came, and I came in from work that night at 10pm to find him sitting, still in his suit, in the living room, watching the TV. Reeking. Apparently, despite it being well over a week since he'd had a shower, he'd just stuck on his suit, and gone to the interview.

Strangely, he'd wash his clothes regularly, just not himself. Things go so bad, that I could tell from downstairs if his bedroom door -- upstairs -- was open, because I could smell it. Despite repeated comments about how both he and his room reeked from both myself and the other guy who shared, he never seemed to care. He'd just laugh.

He had a major addiction to porn too. He would try and chase women but given his approach to personal hygiene, success was, unsurprisingly, not to be had.

I did venture into his room a couple of times to fix his ever-breaking PC -- he wasn't very smart in his porn-surfing habits, so it was constantly getting fsck'd up with trojans and the like -- and most of the surfaces in there appeared to have an odd grease-like substance on the surface. After that, I'd just tell him to bring the PC downstairs, and I'd plug in my own keyboard.

He also somehow managed to mess up the ball in his mouse (remember those?). It ended up oddly-shaped and the metal ball bearing inside had room to rattle. I've never been quite sure how he managed that.

The odd thing in all this is the guy himself was reasonably likable, the smell aside. Very amiable, but completely lacking in anything resembling common sense.

That, among others, is excellent.



So many times, yes!



No, but see, it's horrible. I almost never go out when I can't afford it, because having everyone else pay for me is just horrible and means I'll feel cheap and lousy until I can pay them back, and will probably end up avoiding them until I can because I feel lame owing them money. I can't be magnanimous if I can't throw drinks at people or get something to eat without having to balance the cost against next week's bills. It just doesn't feel comfortable, and there's only really one person I know where money and buying stuff is simply an eternal non-issue because we're basically brothers, except we like each other.


CUS... lawks. Keep us posted, man.

If I offer to buy drinks for someone who otherwise can't afford to come out, it's because I count the value of their company as fair exchange, and I always mean it. No-one should feel guilty about being treated to a night out unless they invite themselves along knowing they have no money, without warning people of that fact.

Hear hear, Mr Craster. Hear hear.

I suspect that I would be great to live with, but I'm not moving in with anybody (even though they keep asking me).

They're arguing about the size of a burger from a kebab shop (or something). I can't wait to live on my own!

Doesn't the burger van decide that?

Apparently they ordered large (double burger), with salad and tomato relish, they got a single burger with no salad or relish. Lisa ordered but will not phone up to complain. Sheesh.

If you won't complain, you shut up. Them's the rules.

I read all that, thought "wow that reminds me of someone I used to know" then saw it was in Canterbury and realised it may well have been said person...

Having done 2 years of Uni sharing with just people I knew and a third with 1 person and 2 randoms and having a lot of good luck, I'm expecting the other shoe to drop shortly as I try and track down a house-share in Leamington Spa for September.

I like my housemates, however three of them are incredibly untidy, and the other can keep a place but has low tidying morale from sharing with aforementioned three before. I tidy, and I wash up, but I wonder how long I can keep washing up knowing that when the others do it through my genial nagging they are completely horrendous at it. Seriously, when I told them it was their turn after I cleaned the kitchen as well as washing up the previous night, I took a pan off the drying rack and it still had my old vege soup encrusted on it. Completely feeble. They also never wash UNDERNEATH THE COCKING PLATES, DESPITE THEM BEING STACKED ATOP EACH OTHER.

Grrr.

He was obsessed with music and apparently a very, very good guitarist, if that helps. He moved out to a house near Christ Church College, as I used to walk past it on the way from the Cathedral (work), and he popped his head out of the window once and scared the bejesus out of me.

Do you know what happened to him? I could really do with my bejesus back.


Pete, I feel your pain. I'm repeatedly astonished at how few people are even moderately competent at washing up. It's annoying when they do finally do some washing up, and you want to appreciate the effort, but you end up having to do it again anyway because you don't want bits of crusty tomato sauce in your next curry.

However, I still think I knew someone who can out-gunge anyone's housemates. Examples? Okey dokey. You know when you have a tissue, right, and you blow your nose, right, and you simply drop the used tissue on the sofa with the other tissues you've used and leave it there indefinitely?

Apply that also to crusty socks, biscuit wrappers and potato peelings.

And sanitary towels.

I agree, but it wasn't Lisa's order they got wrong, it was Darryl's, but Lisa had put the order in and needed to call, she refused saying they had only missed a burger off and it wasn't worth it. Kids.

That seemed fine. Lisa acted in this instance as the purveyor of meaty goodness, therefore it is entirely correct that Darryl escalate the issues with the product he received to her, for her in turn to take up with the vendor at her own discretion. It is worth Darryl contacting the CAB to see what further action may be appropriate in the event of Lisa failing to make good on the service she initially promised.

I have no chuffing idea what's going on here so on going to make the totally crazy move of posting something to do with the actual topic, which I believe once upon a time was nightmare housemates.

I once had a housemate who was a demon beauty therapist. Her main aim during the 6 months we shared a house was to give me a Brazillian wax. Having been sacked from a beauty parlour for waxing off someone's eyebrow letting her near my minge was the last thing on my mind. Oh and that she used to tell me she really wanted to have sex with a woman. Ange in attracting lezzer shocker.

Although not a housemate, I now live with Myoptika. I don't really need to say anything else do I?

Have you waxed him?

I had almost the exact same experience, although rather than being a beauty therapist, my housemate was a Christian, and rather than wanting to wax my bits, she wanted me to also be a Christian. Actually, the more I type the less this seems like your experience.

I once lived in a very odd house where the eldery landlady would live downstairs with three tenants upstairs. We had to pay in cash. Other than sleeping I tended to avoid this place as much as possible as it was on the wrong side of town, had no living room, and was, frankly, even crapper than Kern Hall. I returned from holiday to find that one of the housemates, a mature student, had disappeared leaving most of his stuff behind. A few days later a policeman showed up to speak to the landlady. It later transpired that this guy had been arrested for fraud. Oh well.

+10 points to Craster for useful forum moderation.

I hate splitting topics. It makes my brain hurt.

Did he leave anything good?

That is a lovely forbidden screen certainly.

Well I had a mega-tidy on my day off yesterday. I slapped on some choral works by Grieg and went mental. Cleaned the lounge and the kitchen top to bottom and mopped the floors. Its now spingly spangly sparkling clean. There were various cheesy smells y'see, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I also managed to guilt the slobbiest house member into vacuming upstairs landing and stairs.

No idea how long it'll last but at least its tidy. For now.

Also, I hate beer cans left everywhere. They smell, don't people realise that?

I may be this flatmate, because while not dirty, I don't notice dirty very well. Certainly long after my flatmates do.

I'm entirely willing to clean up, and frequently do the bathrooms on weekends because I reason it probably does need doing even if it doesn't look it and I've no problem with dealing with dirty bathrooms etc and I know some people don't like it.

But usually if there's what they consider a mess (especially the girl) they prefer to clean it themselves when I'm not looking and go into a sulk instead.

That said, I never leave dishes. EVER.

I always do my own. I do not, however, feel obliged wash up other people's dishes if I haven't shared in the meal.

If there's sometimes just a couple of you, even if you've not shared a meal, one can do the washing up and the other the drying up, and then swap about as whimsy takes you.

You have to get on quite well for that though.

Yeah, I got one of those. I'm annoyed that my work bans gaming sites, whilst allowing knitting sites and trout fishing sites. They're hobbies, damn you.

My works bans nothing, it's some hotlinking protection.



I'll do em if there's a couple in there, mainly because, as noted I get to do fuck all other cleaning, which is apparently my fault in some fashion

To avoid sounding like an obnoxious prat, there's a difference between a couple of plates and filthy stinking pans.

Yes indeed. But a true gent should always be a willing pan handler.

When I was at uni, I live with a guy we'll call Bob.

I'd never met Bob before me and a mate decided to go for this house. I moved in first to find Bob already there. In fact as I first entered the house he met me in the hall wearing a towel too small for his girth. He'd just had a shower you see (one of the four that we'd confirmed he had in the 9 months I lived there) and was shaving in the living room mirror. Despite me being 20 years old and clearly able to shave myself, Bob spent 20 minutes attempting to give me a shaving lesson, while I stuggled my stuff through the house.

Bob was a compulsive liar (he got out of his rent one month by claiming his mum had fallen down some stairs and broken her leg. Taxi fares to hospital you see. Shame she rang the next day and when asked "how's the leg?" knew nothing of said tradgedy), comulsive gambler (once won 2 consecutive £250 jackpots* on the fruit machines in the union and refused to pay back the fiver he owed me) and a compulsive masturbater (we had a PC in the living room for server and routing duties, my pc and mouse I might add. Bob was caught oooh, 2 dozen times wanking to anime in the living room, at all times of the day).

He did have a dreamcast though.

*£250 in pound coins fits exactly into a pint glass fact fans

Are you calling him Bob because it's someone on here?

Yes, it's Bobbyaro.

nope. He real name was Robul, I'm just not that creative

Robulyaro?

You are the above and I claim my £5.

Smell Ronald.

damn. rumbled

Quite. I lived for many years with a somewhat obsessive-compulsive nutter who would hoover four times a week and scream for two hours about a single plate in the sink. I am quite content to let the house be untidy and washing up to wait for a day or two (although not in the height of summer), but a lot of people really are just vile grotbags.



Yeah, and they also make most any place look like a shite student house. Ugh.

I still think that totally blitzing your kitchen is one of the most satisfying experiences that can be had for under three quid. The other two are having a cheesecake and swinging a bag full of pennies into a journalist's face.

200 pennies?

One thing that wound me up, is we used to have a cleaning rota. Problem was, people took 'cleaning rota' to mean 'I can make as much mess as I like as it's someone elses turn to clean up'

I have a theory that there are two sorts of 'clean' people. Type A is more common - they're not messy but when they make a mess they just leave it until 'cleaning day' after which everything gets 'blitzed' and is nice a shiny again. Type B is me - if anything gets messy, we clean up there and then. Spill something, gets all mopped up and cleaned. Prepared food? Wipe down all the kitchen surfaces when we're done. Had a shower? Wipe down the basin/doors. Eaten food? Wash the dishes right away.

You do that and you only have to do a 'proper clean' about once every 3-4 weeks. Problem is you do that with a bunch of Type As and you're not only constantly cleaning up their mess as well but they're yelling at you when you haven't bleached down the bathroom when it's your turn on the rota...