You can’t live with everyone – full stop. You may be friends with someone in every other scenario – or they may have seemed nice on Spare Room.com – but as soon as they're branded a Housemate the dynamics between you inexplicably change.
Unfortunately, we're not talking about a nightmare housemate like Notting Hill's Spike as, though useless, he's undeniably loveable (and does deliver the line which ultimately makes Hugh Grant's Will run after Anna - 'You daft prick') We're talking about roommates less affable and, well, nightmarish... (You realise that which ever side of the tidyness spectrum they are positioned, the hysteria a dirty plate can cause is unthinkable pre house share.)
If you’ve ever had a nightmare housemate – whether as a student at University or as an adult in a bid to save money – you might know these things to be true...
1. Spotting a Post-It note means war
Nothing says passive aggressive like a Post-It note. On a dirty mug, in the bathroom, on piles of washing; when there’s a point of contention in the house a nightmare housemate will whip out their yellow sticky pad and Sharpie pen and a leave a ‘polite reminder’ for you to be better. Eye roll.
2. Things go missing/get broken
You wonder if your housemate genuinely thinks that if something of yours is in the public domain (the living room/kitchen/bathroom) it’s there’s for the taking/using. Unfortunately, you can’t scream at them like you would your sister if she ‘borrowed’ your top, instead you've mastered the art of swallowing your rage and decide not to invoice them for breaking your beloved lamp.
3. They let you know whenever they’re doing a chore
In their sanctimonious endeavour to constantly ‘out do’ you in every Best Housemate category, they’ll indirectly let you know exactly when they’re emptying the dishwasher or taking out the bins.
4. You know every drama in their life
Every emotional state they are experiencing is unapologetically broadcast to the whole house: an argument with the boyfriend, an anecdote to a friend on FaceTime, a recount of their drunken antics – you have, unwillingly, relived it all.
5. You only communicate about house domesticities
You will engage in small talk when you come home from work or when you hurriedly make dinner - and you will exercise the Good Samaritan within by putting them to bed when they arrive home drunk - but mostly your exchanges will revolve around chores and bills.
6. They don’t replace the milk
Milk is like gold dust, but is also one of those things that is unofficially communal. So, when you come after a long day at work, feeling a little sensitive, and no one has replaced the milk it can be enough to make you shed a little tear. The same goes for toilet roll.
7. Disruption before 9am on a Saturday is not cool
Come on, keep your shrill cackle on lockdown out of hours.
8. House group chats are for passive aggressive utterances
Your WhatsApp tone of voice on the house group chat (which is unenthusiatic, to put it nicely) is a dramatic departure from how you typically communicate over text. This is down to the chat’s inevitable trajectory from being a space of shared excitement, house emojis and group plans, to a chat that is abandoned except to moan about mess, call ‘house meetings’ and where the sentiments of passive Post-It notes (see #1) are expressed in cyber form.
9. House meetings never end well
Never in the history of house meetings has one ever resolved in an unadulterated well-wishing truce. Whether you meet to discuss cleaning, bills, rent, someone moving out/in - somebody always ends up emotional.
10. Having the house to yourself is absolute bliss
Finding out that you will have the house to yourself is enough to make you squeal with excitement. Cue a trip to the supermarket to buy ingredients necessary for a night-in of fine dining, playing your music louder than you've ever felt comfortable before and pouring yourself a glass of wine to celebrate the occaision.
11. Their boyfriend/girlfriend is your unofficial housemate
So, they’re contributing towards bills and rent, right? They better not be in the bathroom when I need it.
12. You suffer from cabin fever
Most of the time you're happy just sitting in your room to avoid your nightmare housemate, but this makes you angst-y (feelings reminiscent of being cooped up in University halls). You resolve to making evening plans 4-5 times a week.
13. You never hang out together
Granted, a lot of these issues could probably be diluted if you spent some more time together, but you seem to see them less now than you did when you weren’t housemates.
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