h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Who you live with has a dramatic effect on what happens, I shall now recount what happened in excruciating detail.

Second year of Uni in Nottingham:
(Four girls and me) We split into two groups who alternated washing up every other day (the fifth person did her own and wouldn't let anyone else use her stuff). We also had a cleaning rota that sort of worked. Sex wasn't really a problem - and no it wasn't me and the other four. Gas and electricity bills were split evenly. Telephone bills were itemised so I always had the lowest bill.

Third year:
(Three of the same girls, one had a year out and was relaced by a Man U fan)
Basically the same as above though a smoke alarm had to be fitted as the Man U fan had a tendancy to come home drunk, try to cook something and fall asleep. I never understood why he didn't just make toast.

Fourth year:
(Everyone else had graduated and I moved into a Uni flat, five men in total):
People did there own washing up occasionally. I tried my best to keep my stuff separate and thus vaguely clean. Fridge space was a problem as two of the flatmates took up about 3 and half shelves out of four. I was not happy. One of them threw up on my friends carpet and he moved out. So I had less friends in my flat. The other went back to France as his time was up so that left me with the two g*ts (Ican think of other names to call them but that wouldn't be publishable). They also had a tendancy to be noisy at the worst possible times. I could here there stereos/ guitars more clearly than my own. The rota for buying the electricity cards didn't work do to their laziness. It worked in other flats. The kitchen was rarely clean. Two Asians moved in but that didn't seem to make much difference though I got on better with them. Luckily I've graduated and shouldn't have to see those two again.

First year in Reading (A corridor of eight, mixed)
There wasn't really much of a problem. There was a bit of noise and for a change that was occasionally due to me. The kitchen was filthy but I kept my stuff separate which other people thought a bit wierd but by the end they regretted not doing the same. As it was a hall there were no bills to fight over and people got on more or less anyway. Those who moved wanted to be their friends. I moved but that was to move in with my girlfriend (one of the people I lived with in my second and third year in Nottingham) and had nothing to do with the hall itself.

Basically, how things work out depends heavily on who you live with.

2nd yr:
lived w a complete stranger, in her b/f's house. she was rarely there, which was great cos it meant i had the place to myself most of the time. unfortunately, when she was there it was usually w b/f which was a bit awkward - him being my landlord n all, i didn't feel too relaxed around him! he was a right little hitler too - i wasn't even allowed to hang any xmas deccies cos "they will damage the walls" !! what a scrooge.

3rd yr:
lived w 3 complete strangers, turned out to be a nightmare cos they were all bestest buddies. they and all their mates monopolised the sitting room and kitchen. communication was minimal, often of the 'short sharp note' variety. they ate my food without asking (or threw it out, and it wasn't even going mouldy). they trashed my bedroom when i went away for a weekend. i spent the year either ensconced in my room or round at friends' houses.

4th yr:
lived w 1 girl i vaguely knew + 2 other complete strangers, one of which was best friend of the girl i vaguely knew. they turned out to be v friendly and welcoming, spent 2 terms having a whale of a time. unfortunately, everything went sharply downhill at the start of the final term - the 2 bestest mates fell out then both decided to take it out on me (tho i never figured out what it had to do with me, cos their quarrel was about a hol the 2 of them were supposed to be going on, plus they fell out when i wasn't around, but anyway), so i became the big bad evil flatmate from hell who could do no right. from then til the end i spent as little time as poss in the house. i guess you could blame it on pre-finals tension, but it weren't a lotta fun.

i had considered sharing w my 3 bestest mates in 4th yr, but didn't cos i ended up being on a completely different campus to them. glad i didn't cos they all fell out big time and have never spoken to each other since.

the moral of the story is: i don't think it makes any difference whether you live w friends or strangers, sharing accommodation is stressful and will only work if *everybody* is prepared to both give and take - don't point the finger at somebody else without thinking first about what you might be doing that gets up their nose. personally, i think living by yourself is the best option...

I found hugely varying differences in flatmates while studying at film school in Western Australia.

1st year: Lived in a huuuuge unit in Fremantle with a girl I didn't know who was older by a good 10 years. I had a misconception that girls were generally tidier than boys. Hey! I was only 19...
To my horror she was rude, arrogant, smelly and the laziest house keeper ever. I'm not the neatest person but I had to draw the line when she left fresh food on a plate on a work surface. That's not so bad? Try until it spoiled, liquidised into a primordial substance and oozed disgustingly off the plate and onto the lino. Blergh!
Her incense (which she insisted burning 24/7 made me ill. And to this day if I smell anything vaguely like her and the incence I start gagging.
Stupidly I didn't want to rock the boat so I rarely said anything. Eventually I moved out into:

2nd year: A compact little 2 bed unit with a good friend of mine from high school. We had a pretty good time, he was pretty easy going and had no real irritating traits (you tend to discover them when you move in with people you THINK you know). It was pretty sweet.
After a month a mutual friend of ours moved in while he tried to find a job and a place of his own. Crashing on the sofa he pretty much stayed there until both of us moved out 6 months later.
We found that he had no real intention of getting a job, or a place of his own. His druggy friends started hanging around the place and eating our food. One time I went away for a long weekend and found my bedroom had been rummaged through.
Slowly the place dissolved into a den of filth and I found myself back in my previous unit. Tensions mounted until my good friend and I left our ex-friend to rot.

Now I live with my brother...after trying a brief spell by myself (I couldn't quite cover the bills!). It's not perfect, but he's a lot more tolerable and being fairly close siblings makes it easier.
Eventually though, I want to move in with my girlfriend. That's understandable isn't it?

For 2 years I lived with 5 other lads in a shared house, to say it was messy was understatement. My parents would refuse to come in through the front door it was THAT bad!!!!! We lived by the idea that if stayed messy it was bever anybodies fault for creating the mess!!

the best bit though was when we convinced a house mate his room was haunted. We wired up a speaker under the floor boards, and dragged the cable through the floor boards to another room with a mic setup! Then we wired up lightbulb so that we could turn it off and on from another part of the house(and just for extra measure it had a timer setup as well, for when we were otu, for extra effect!). We would get up in the middle of the night and turn his light on and off, and sending banging noise down the mic. He got so scared for 2 weeks herefused to sleep in his room...in the end we felt so sorry we had to tell him, shame he had no sense of humour after spending 2 weeks on the living rm floor!