Community: Real Life

Housemate hell


Cristabel

Cristabel is a 19 year-old lazy student working towards a journalism degree in between drinking and sleeping.

Living with a housemate who doesn't clean-up after herself, refuses to pay all the bills and is anti-social, is getting on Cristabel's nerves.

Living in a student house can be difficult, what with paying bills, and trying not to destroy the place. The people you live with are supposed to be friends you can have fun with, but not in my case. My friend dropped out of uni before the end of the first year so we had to find someone to fill her place in the house. Now I live with two boys and one other girl who I don't really know, and realise now I don't ever want to know.

One of the main problems is that she's older - we're all 19 and she's 24. Not really a big problem when you're at uni, but she makes it one. Every time we do anything she doesn't like, we're told we're being immature and need to grow up; this is coming from the girl who can't even wash her own clothes properly (seriously, she puts the powder in the wrong place). Also she thinks everything we do is somehow a dig at her, or we're just being odd. She doesn't seem to have a normal person's logic.

She doesn't help with the cleaning of the house. There are four of us living there and she's the only one that doesn't pull her weight. For the first couple of months, when there was washing-up to be done we just did it regardless of whose it was, all except for this particular housemate. We eventually twigged that she hadn't been doing any washing-up when she went home for a week and left all of her stuff in the sink. When it comes to other areas of the house, she will argue about how little she's used it and how she shouldn't have to clean it. Recently we were cleaning the whole house and asked her to clean the bathroom. Her response was: "No, I've only used it once this week." It was then that we noticed she doesn't shower very often either. Nice.

There's a similar problem with bills. Apparently she doesn't use the internet as much as we do, so she doesn't think it's fair that she should have to pay a quarter of the bill. She's started going home all the time and is only in the house for a day or two a week, so she doesn't want to pay much of the other bills either. It's like living in a three-bedroom house but with the costs of a four-bedroom house.

"Recently we were cleaning the whole house and asked her to clean the bathroom. Her response was: "No, I've only used it once this week." It was then that we noticed she doesn't shower very often either. Nice."

When I first told my course-mates about my new flatmate, they thought it was a bit weird. When I pointed out that the housemate I was talking about was in fact a girl, they were disgusted. That's the thing though - you expect poor hygiene and general filth from a boy, but not a girl. Girls are supposed to be nice and clean.

She doesn't think about what she's doing, she just wants it her way, or thinks she knows everything and that's the way it's going to be. Our house came with one parking permit. Originally we only had one car between us anyway so that wasn't a problem. Then we had two, but that wasn't a problem as that car was able to get a temporary permit and that was then our limit for parking. Now she's gone out and bought a car and demands to share the parking permit. Someone, anyone, please explain to me how on earth can you share a parking permit?! If I was to buy a car, the first thing I would think of was whether or not I have anywhere to actually park it, especially after living in the house for a few months and seeing the limited parking we have.

As students we are exempt from paying council tax, but to be able to be exempt you have to prove to the council that you're a student. Simple, you just go to your faculty office and pick up a council exemption certificate then give it to the council. But according to our housemate we hadn't told her that she needed to do this (lies, we've been telling her since before we moved in), and she also thought we only needed one per house. Fair enough, you would think, except we've spoken to her about it countless times already. She's either a bit thick, or just doesn't listen.

You'd think we'd be able to sort most of these problems out as they aren't that huge, but she doesn't talk to us. She only directs conversation towards our male flatmate who's on her course, and rarely speaks to me or my other housemate. When we're all watching TV in the living room, she doesn't come and sit with us - she'll go up to her room, lock the door and watch the same thing on her TV while smoking.

I just don't understand why she needs to be so argumentative and difficult when there isn't really anything to be difficult over. I suppose I should be happy that she only ever leaves her room to use the oven (oven-food only!), go to the toilet, or answer the door for her take-away. At least we won't be stuck with her for much longer - there's only a couple more months left of our tenancy, and then it's goodbye and good riddance!

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