Living in a student house is arguably the most enlightening and entertaining part of going away to university.
If you're about to move in, keep an eye out for these things - as they'll likely happen soon enough...
Someone asks for everyone’s share of the water bill and before you know it, someone else has brought up their weird ex that everyone hated when she started an argument with everyone at 3am. Memes, gifs and savage banter follow for a further 200 messages until someone remembers Southern Water do actually have to be paid.
Katie hates it when Sam helps himself to her granola, while Becca is being driven mad by Callum leaving empty Pepsi cans all over the living room floor. Living with other people creates tension over the smallest things but five minutes later all is forgotten. Until someone leaves toast crumbs on the side. Again.
Just as it started to turn dark and cold at the beginning of term you all decided to stick on a new show. Before you know it, everyone starts cancelling plans, including lectures, to stay in and watch it.
Beware though, when you all go home for holidays, there will be one snake who marches on ahead with the show with no regard for the rest of you. Of course, they will be mercilessly berated for their betrayal on the group chat.
A pile of washing up in the sink of shame that everyone claims isn’t theirs, a garden that’s getting more overgrown by the day (“Guys, I can’t see the garden chairs anymore!") or a bathroom that’s a literal biohazard. The only people who do notice are everyone’s parents, who voice their disapproval every time they visit. Not that spurs anyone into action to sort it out.
After living in close quarters for some time, you become immune to each other, there's basically zero shock factor. Instead you’ve gotten to a point where you dish out advice to each other and revel in knowing every detail from blind dates to bodily functions. You all just need to remember to shut the bathroom door when guests come over.
You all sat around in early December over a bottle of own brand mulled wine deciding whether to go out for a meal or, as one yuletide fanatic will campaign for, a homemade Christmas dinner.
Inevitably though, you won’t have enough oven space and the yuletide fanatic will be a hilariously subpar cook, so much so that the biggest advocate for going out for dinner will end up cooking everything.
The sparse supermarket value tree will have equally subpar homemade decorations and feature everyone’s Secret Santa gifts. You’ll still have a better time than at home though.
Jars of Nutella, those reduced Waitrose cookies and your favourite type of tea, you’d like to think they’d be safe out in your cupboard but sadly, you’ve learned, they’re not. You tried it once, or accidentally left them on the kitchen side and learned your lesson. Better stashed away in your room to avoid the passive aggressive message on the group chat.
Jumping in the shower at 1am, having dinner at 11pm or hoovering the whole house at midnight fazes no one. You text your mum at 2am asking how you turn on the washing machine then forget she’s asleep like the rest of the country. If someone wakes the whole house up for their 9am lecture though, there will stern words for bringing everyone back into normal waking hours.
They seemed perfectly pleasant when you signed the contract, but now you’ve moved in, you can see that deposit fading each time someone causes a bit of damage. It’s a bit like Love Island when the lead tenant gets a text from the landlord that there’s a viewing. Everyone runs to their battle stations to clean up and be out the house so they won’t be the one to take the telling off over why the bathroom door is hanging off.
Everyone remembers when Chloe got a cab back to her fresher’s flat by mistake, when Dan caused an hour of delays around the city moving road works signs or when Zoe got banned from the local kebab shop for the massive tantrum she had when they ran out of cheese for her cheesy chips. They should never see the light of day again but they’re always brought up in a game of Never Have I Ever.
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