Out There Blog

I’ve had several weird housemates. One girl, who was blonde, petite and gorgeous to look at, never washed her clothes or underwear and would simply sniff out the cleanest pair of pants from the heap of dirty clothes stacked at the end of her bed.

Another girl had OCD and was anorexic.  She had a timetable for everything and so every Tuesday from 6:00pm to 10:00pm the kitchen resembled a Chinese laundry whilst she meticulously washed, dried and ironed her clothes so no one else in the house could use the kitchen.  She was always complaining of the cold and in the height of summer would insist on having the central heating and the fire on full blast.

And finally the bloke and his ever present (non rent paying) girlfriend who loved to walk around naked even though they had bodies that should have been covered up.
Linda, Birmingham

My ex-flatmate was so disgusting that one day my boyfriend went into the bathroom and notices something wriggling on her face cloth.  When he looked closer he could see that it was a load of tiny little worms!  He showed it to the girl and she just shrugged and put it in the washing machine!  Uuuurrgh!
Tricia, Lossiemouth, Scotland 

I shared a house with a girl who was so lazy and amazingly dirty that when she was eating an orange she spat the pips onto the living room floor because she was too lazy to get up off the couch and this was in front of house guests! When her boyfriend came to stay they slept in her flatmate's bed when she was away, as her own was too grubby for her boyfriend!!
Ann, Ireland

I've had two flatmates with disturbing habits and behaviours - both female! One used to apply fake sun tan lotion in front of us in the lounge, completely naked! Another flatmate used to steal and wear my underwear, forcing me to rifle through her washing basket on numerous occasions to retrieve (and wash!!) them.
Frances, Brighton

They say you never know someone until you live with them. I shared a house with a fellow teacher(female) who had me there to pay for her mortgage, and definitely preferred her own company. We used to share a lot of takeaways, and share the getting of them from the various eateries. One cold night, on the way back from the chip shop, I got a bit peckish smelling the sweet scent of hot chips and vinegar. So I ate maybe half a dozen. When I got home my housemate went bananas, for, I discovered, she always counted how many chips she got in her portion. She stormed down to the shop and I was forced to admit my theft.
We never spoke again.

Within a few days she had left a note on my bedroom door telling me she thought I should leave her house, and giving me two weeks notice. As I left the house she actually chose to ignore my departing handshake.

My fiancé told me she thought Id had a very lucky escape.
Peter, Liverpool 

I currently live with a rugby player housemate who despite having to eat healthily for his sport, puts away at least three bowls of jelly a day!  He preaches to me about healthy living, yet puts away so much of that florescently coloured muck it would make most people sick. He is 26yrs old but consumes it like a child at a birthday party!

Also he is strange when it comes to his cats - He has had one for years and has never really played with him, yet about a year ago we inherited a tiny white kitten and this 6ft5, 17stone rugby player will spend hours teasing this cat with string and talking baby talk to it.

Put all that with his pathelogical need to leave his muddy kit at the bottom of the stairs after practice and games and you have a very wierd housemate - someone save me!
Helen, Bristol 

I shared a house with a friend from school, which was brillant for about 2 1/2 years. Then we decided we need more space and he asked if I'd be all right with his girlfriend living with us. I'd got on well with her so I said yes; the worst decision i have ever made. She was a nightmare, she had just quit her job and spent all her time eating and watching TV. Plus she was a the orginal cat lady she brought with her three cats and had three more at her parents - they stunk the house out. The house was a mess and I even found a cup under the couch than had its own eco-system.

The situation got so bad that couldn't bring any of my mates back i was so  ashamed of the house. By the time I had lived there for two months I was planning to leave. Lucky I got a lifeline as we could only just cover the rent (due to the fact his girlfriend wouldn't get of the couch to get a job) my best friend agreed to move in and get rid of her. My nightmare housemate lasted a week and its a warning don't ever get on my best friend bad side.
Caz, Manchester 

 
I used to live with a very friendly Chinese girl who was so dirty her room smelt of rubbish! She once used my toothbrush to unblock the hair out of the plughole, but at least she didn't put it back! I once found sticky stuff all over everything in my freezer drawer, I thought it might be melted ice lolly but when I smelt it, it smelt fishy, it turned out to be squid slime! We are still good friends but I am thankful we no longer live together.
Clare, North West

I lived in a shared house years ago, and one of the guy's who lived downstairs was always wearing his pyjama's night and day, he'd be shuffling in and out of the kitchen (we never saw him in the bathroom). 

He was so inconsiderate that once when I had some baked potatoes in the oven , he came into the kitchen and took my yet uncooked potatoes out and put his meal in!!! the cheek of it.
Ros, Edinburgh 

In my second year at uni a guy I lived with only wore the same minging tracksuit for the three terms. The smell got so bad that the cleaner broke into his room thinking someone had died in there! It turned out to be a festering pile of his washing!
Viv, Oxford

I lived with a lovely girl about three years ago whom I am still great friends with.
 
However (and this happened twice in the one year) once when she was drinking at home, on her own - she had a phone call from her boyfriend at the time which unsettled her.
 
When I came home from work that evening, I found broken glass, smashed china, upturned tables, picture frames, crystal ornaments, mugs at the bottom of the staircase, broken crockery out the kitchen window, precious antique mirrors completely smashed up etc.... my heart was pounding as I walked through the debris to the living room, which I then found completely demolished. Nothing was in its original place, things that used to be at one end of the room were upside down at the opposite end including the CD player and widescreen television, even the scart leads were bent!
 
I sadly found her, face-down passed out on a smashed full length mirror in her bedroom. I thought she could be dead! My other flatmate came home immediately after I told him what I'd found and we couldnt wake her up so he had to carry her to bed and we had to take a day off work the following day to clean up what looked worse than the worst ever break-in mess. Not a fun day off I can tell you!
Elise, London
 
At university, one of my housemates moved in a couple of months before the rest of us did, so we never saw what was originally included with the house.  Later on in the year after falling out with this housemate, we came home from a night out and couldn't work out what was wrong with the house. It transpired that the clock in the kitchen was missing.  The next week the doormats disappeared!

It turned out that stuff which we thought had belonged to the house, had in fact been purchased by this housemate and she was slowly taking everything back.  It became a guessing game each time we returned from a night out - what will be gone tonight!?! We also had to put up with her boyfriend, who practically lived at our house, leaving rather nasty deposits in our toilet.  Gillian McKeith would have had a field day!
Melissa, South East 

 
I lived with a guy who perpetually talked about himself and also had bulimia (apparently supposed to secret disease). We found due to the fact every time he sat down with us to have meal, he would make gagging sounds and the big giveaway was he also left sick on the toilet floor and seat.

The situation got progressively got worse as I soon realised he was an alcoholic too. One night he accidently opened the door to my bedroom to which I then heard the  dull trickling sound against carpet to which I realised he thought my bedroom floor was the toilet.

He then lied about it saying he had spilt wine and thought he was sleepwalking to which this was final straw and we got rid of him.
Umaa, Cardiff

At uni last year, my five friends and I shared a house with two guys we didn't know very well....big mistake. They were disgustingly messy and had the attitude that someone (the 'cleaning fairy') would always clean up after them.

One of their rooms was so dirty the carpet was buried under at least six inches of stuff and always had this horrible musty, dirty smell.  He couldn't actually get into his room at night so he used to sleep on the sofa, leaving piles of hair on the cushions because he is prematurely going bald.

On the rare occasions we managed to get them to do some cleaning, they were shockingly bad at it - I caught one of them trying to clean a cooker with toilet roll! They used to invite their strange friends round in the evenings - some who would arrive carrying huge mock swords and covered in mud after playing a roleplay game in the local park, essentially forcing us out of our living room.  It took a lot of nagging to get them to pay their share of the bills.....as a matter of fact, they still owe me.
Katie, Epsom

I shared a house with a guy and came home one night to find him painting his toe nails on the couch and wearing my silk dressing gown!  he also shaved his legs in the bath and never cleaned it out  and on more than one occasion i stumbled over his 'toys' in the bathroom!
Barbara, Surrey

My current flatmate does not use a sheet on his mattress, he's lived with me for ten weeks now and has never washed his duvet cover or pillowcase, he "airs" his skanky socks in MY WASHING BASKET on the balcony ...

I am continually having to close his bedroom door as if left open, a musty stench fills the rest of the apartment. Yesterday I worked from home so took the opportunity to leave his patio door open all day in order to disperse the smell. When in his room I found a bottle of "Febreze". . . it seems he thinks he can use this instead of actually WASHING things!!!

Jo, Sydney, Australia

I had a really odd flatmate in my second year, who was extremely possessive over all our stuff - unlike me and my other guy flatmate who were possibly the most laidback and well humoured people ever. She was a bit of a neatfreak and I am quite tidy, and accused us of not talking to her when she hid in her room for most of the time. But unfortunately it got worse as the year wore on, she called the police on us for using her computer, and locked herself in her room for the rest of the year only surfacing to complain or write notes about us on our shared noticeboard. At the end of the year she alledged that we refused to allow her to use any electricity and water, and refused to speak to us for the rest of the year.
Becca, London

I shared a flat at university, one of the guys I lived with was a compulsive liar and was always seeking attention. He told us that he was studying Law at uni, then he changed his course to Medicine, we found out he never even went to uni! Then he told us his girlfriend was pregnant and one of my other flatmates said congratulations to her and she said she wasn't. We continued to ask him questions about it i.e. when was it due and he continued to lie.

One night after being out he brought two girls back to his room and then asked us do we know a priest because he wanted to get married to them (he wasn't joking)! As well as all this he would invite random people from the street into out house saying they were his friends, everytime they came round all our food would go missing. He would also always have the police round in our flat, for reasons we aren't sure of. Then eventually at the end of the year he was removed from our flat by the police!
Amy, Newcastle