It’s almost a rite of passage for any 20- or 30-something to encounter a shocker of a housemate, though the stories that come out of an often scarring experience make it all worth it.
We’ve all heard a tale or two, whether it be from a friend, a friend’s friend or a second cousin’s friend’s dog’s friend or somewhere in between, so we thought we’d throw a few together — anonymously of course, we’re not here to mediate share house scuffles.
Not so passive, just aggressive
This happened very early in my share-housing days — and it’s a memory I often look back on and laugh at with my mate, who woke one morning to a generous gift left outside his door.
A pile of dirty dishes, topped with a note that read “I cleaned this kitchen, keep it f***ing clean, or I will throw every dish we have in the bin” had been delicately placed outside the door by our housemate.
It didn’t end there, and as my friend walked into the bathroom he stumbled upon yet another note, this time written in red and taped to the mirror like something out of a horror movie.
The note read “Clean the bathroom boys, and mop the floors!”
The note writer had every right to be upset, we had certainly fallen behind on our dishwashing and bathroom cleaning duties, but it nevertheless came as a shock that our laziness had forced our housemate into doing something like this.
Safe to say, we picked up on our cleaning efforts in the short time we remained in that house together after that.
Wave goodbye to that house
I found this share house on Facebook and all seemed normal at first; on reflection, maybe a little too normal.
Only on moving in, my new housemate let me know the house had no Wi-Fi because she didn’t want the radiation — bear in mind we had a microwave.
I would have to go sit outside my workplace at night and use the Wi-Fi to download movies and TV shows.
Finally she caved, but only during the day.
The radiation wasn’t allowed to get to her while she was sleeping.
Time inside at least would’ve meant some peace
I once shared a house in London with two other people — another Aussie and a South African.
Of course, though, under those circumstances, there’s an unwritten international convention that anyone either of us remotely knew or someone who remotely knew someone we remotely knew, was welcome to come and stay with us until they found their feet (and own accommodation).
This would sometimes mean we had people from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand staying with us for months, but given we filled all the bedrooms in the house, that quite often meant we had up to seven extra people sleeping in the lounge room, in hallways and even under the stairs.
That also meant early starts had you stepping over bodies and bags in an attempt to get to the kitchen and then having to wash dishes you washed last night in order to have your breakfast this morning.
At the time, I had a 24-hour day on a Thursday to Friday.
I’d start a cleaning job at a pub at 5am, on Thursday, then go to my regular job at 10am, return to the pub at 7pm to work as a glassy until 2am, go home for a rest before starting the cleaning job again at 5am on the Friday.
When I went home for that rest at 2.30 in the morning, I’d often have to wash dishes before being able to eat anything because our dossers had used them all without cleaning up.
It is amazing I never saw the inside of a prison during those times.
Early worm gets a yelling
I once shared a house with a personal trainer, and being my first ever share house experience, I had never dealt with a person who got up at the crack of dawn.
And not just wake up, but make an absolute racket at 5am.
Every. Single. Day.
So there I would be, laying in bed wide awake, just silently seething, looking at Reddit threads on how to deal with my problem.
This went on for months until one day, my housemate got a little too bold — she turned on the coffee grinder at 5am.
I snapped. I got up and told her to turn it off and put simply, to be quiet.
Fair to say, she didn’t speak to me for a week and coincidentally decided it was better she lived alone. I got a month’s notice to find somewhere else to stay in the middle of lockdown.
∎ Caitlyn Grant and Megan Fisher are opening the conversation for young people on all things from mental health to success stories in their weekly column, Let’s Talk. If you or someone you know has a story, contact caitlyn.grant@mmg.com.au or megan.fisher@sheppnews.com.au
7°C