To ask you about your worst flat sharing stories?

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

I had in the past lived in flat/house shares for quite a few years.
My worst by far was a girl I was in halls of residence during my postgrad year at uni. It was a 5 room flat in a big halls building, and the room right next to mine was occupied by a girl whose boyfriend lived on the same floor (flats were not mixed sex, so they could not live in the same flat).
For whatever reason, they never went to his flat for anything, but kind of lived in ours, both of them. They were both extremely loud and expressive, talked like if they were shouting. Also leading an owl lifestyle, they would eat late and stay up until early hours of the morning, hangind around between her room and the kitchen, banging the door every time they entered/left the room making my whole wall shake. She didnt have to wake up until 10/11 am, so had plenty of sleep.There were no earplugs that could cancel the noise and vibrations, and I had to also hear the alarm clock in the morning. My degree was super intense and I had to be up every morning very early, and worked until late and the whole year I hardly could get any sleep, it was so miserable I don't know how I actually made it through the year on 4 hours of sleep a night (if I was lucky).
Funnily enough when the exam session was on, she banged on my wall when I was skyping my family at 8PM as she 'had to study,' the only two weeks of peace I had between September and July. I spoke to her a few times, to no avail, she was actually louder out of spite.
The other girls in the flat did not experience that as none shared a wall with her, so they never got how stressful it was.
I had had great experience of living in halls up until then, but that year exhausted me.

1 of my housemates used to piss in his sink rather than use one of the two bathrooms.

Another, we all got woken up at 2am as the police smashed the door in. Apparently his gf had reported him because she found indecent images on his laptop. He went on the run when they released him on bail.

I lived in a small complex of about six houses which were reserved for postgrad students with between 6 and 8 in each house. In my house we were all trainee teachers so a fairly intensive course, the two lads I shared with were a complete nightmare, they both liked to go out on weeknights and come in loudly in the early hours, leaving the front door open and going through everyone’s food to see what they fancied. One was very aggressive to me when I challenged it, I laughed when I found out one hadn’t passed his skills tests and couldn’t graduate with us and the other was under investigation for plagiarism (another teacher at his placement had given him old essays!) the one who wasn’t aggressive to me had split up with his GF just before uni started, while they’d been together they’d planned to go to separate unis for teacher training, after they split up she decided to come to the same uni as him and got a room in the same complex in a neighbouring house, he kept shagging her and they were very on/off, but on one memorable occasion he’d bought a random girl home and was shagging her when the ex CLIMBED IN HIS WINDOW!! they had a blazing row whilst the poor girl he’d bought home did a runner!

My DH once shared with two junior doctors who were doing surgical training. Their mealtime talk was.....unedifying.

Most of mine have been okay, but thats because it was mainly our small friendship group sharing together.

I guess our worst one was a girl, lets call her Jenny, now none of us were hugely tidy but she was almost a competitive mess maker. If she put something down somewhere it would stay there until she needed it again. At first we started putting things just outside her room, but it made no difference so we stopped. She used to take her socks off on the sofa every night and just leave them there, she would genuinely leave them untip she did laundry (which was rare).

She never cleaned anything, so she would cook in the kitchen and wash any item that belonged to her, but anything else would be left dirty. So she would wash her plate, knife, fork etc, but if she had used someone elses saucepan she would just leave it, she also never cleaned the work surfaces, hob etc.

We had a cleaning rota so everyone had to deep clean a communal area once a week and it had to be done on certain days ideally. She never ever once cleaned any part of any communal area.

She was solitary, which is fine, but she maybe spoke to me 3/4 times in the entire time we lived together. She was a nurse, she worked at a GP surgery rather than a hospital.

Thankfully she moved out after six months, when the landlord came round to check her room it was full of rubbish, anything she had used, crisp packet, potnoodle etc was just strewn in the room. There were even disgarded sanitary products, but my favourite bit (and I remember it well) was a co-op carrier bag full of dirty socks!

The whole situation was odd, we did wonder if she was unwell, but the state of her room when she left confirmed that really.

Apart from her I haven’t really lived with what I would call a bad housemate.

Did a house share with my then bf (now DH) and two of our male friends for six months (I shall call them A & Z).

We had a rota for washing up/ hoovering/bathrooms etc. A was so pedantic about it that he wouldn't wash a single thing if it wasn't his week to the point that when his girlfriend came round, he made himself coffee but none for her as there was only one clean mug. He also ran up a huge telephone bill on sex chat lines (this was mid '90s). He was unemployed and would spend all night gaming and then moan if anyone made any noise before 3pm. Nothing was ever his fault and despite him being the oldest of all of us, it was like living with a twelve year old.

We had six months of A's stroppy, entitled behaviour and decided to get our own place. The other two were going to continue the house share. A few weeks before we were due to move out, we were all at a party for Z's 21st when news came through that his grandfather had died. He was understandably devasted. We took him home, leaving A at the party. He arrived back about an hour later with a group of people to carry on the party and couldn't see that he was being completely thoughtless even though the whole house could hear Z sobbing. There was a massive row and that was the end of sharing.

I lived with a girl who I didn't really know too well to be honest. I worked and she did but it was a bit of a party job, she asked to hold a house party on a Sunday night. Fine, I went to stay at a friends as work the next day. Came back at 7.30am as I'd forgotten something before work. It was horrendous, the house was completely trashed.

My bed had three naked girls in, my bedroom had been completely turned upside down. They're been through everything, smashed things, eaten the chocolate from my stash, used condom on my floor. I asked the girls in my bed to leave and they didn't give a shit.

I used to house share with a girl who was an alcoholic and instead of eating dinner would drink a bottle of red wine followed by a bottle of white every single night. She’d sit out in the garden every evening (under an umbrella if it was raining) and chain smoke while she drank her two bottles of wine.

One time she had some time off and I came downstairs in the morning to go to work and she was still out there from the night before.

Unfortunately drinking made her angry and we’d frequently get ranting messages about our apparent misdemeanours. I once got sent a photo of a tea spoon I’d left in the sink

We also lived with a guy who she fancied and she was jealous that me and him were very good friends. So she started taking her anger about it out on me so would drink any wine I had in the fridge, leave me out of anything she asked the rest of the house to do. Oh and one night told the girl who lived with us with her boyfriend that I was sleeping with her boyfriend! Thankfully she was sensible enough to realise it was a complete lie!

Theft.
Cameras, laptops, money - basically could have no possessions of value.

Was visiting a family
Member who stayed in a flat share. 4 females. I’ve never seen such disgusting mess in my life!! There was dirty washing, food, debris and dirt EVERYWHERE. My fm room was spotless btw... but the absolute worst thing was the RATS. Huge fucking cat sized things that roamed the place and scurried about when they weren’t in it it had fallen silent.... I was there ONE NIGHT and couldn’t get out fast enough

I had a lodger once for a few months who was really grubby. He never put stuff on the fridge, so he’d keep stuff like pizzas in his kitchen cupboard even when they were mouldy. I had to throw his stuff away countless times because of the smell. He never ever showered. He told me he showered at the gym but a mutual friend who went to the gym told me he never showered there either. He smoked a huge amount of weed, the house used to stink of it. He moved out after a few months, when he left, I had to redecorate his room to get rid of the filth and smell. He was only living with me for a few months thankfully.

At university, in halls. Was in a flat share with 6 other girls. One of them would not spend any money on anything and refused to allow us to have any heating on. She came out with us once in freshers week, then never again. She didn't go out with anyone else either. Just stayed in her freezing cold room, went to lectures and her Saturday job. She moved her boyfriend in during the last few weeks, he seemed ok but she wouldn't let him talk to us. I came back one day to him sitting outside in the rain as she was at work and he didn't have keys. I offered to let him in (obviously) but he said he'd better not as she would be mad at him for talking to me.
Wonder what became of her.

I was the only female in an all male house share, they were all lovely, totally respectful etc I absolutely loved living with them all.
There was an empty room we couldn't fill so our landlord found someone, he seemed ok, quiet, always at work mostly.
Well basically he turned out to be beyond dodgy, one of my housemates caught him peeping through a gap in the door while I was in the bath and swiftly and loudly chucked him out.
He left owing us a fair bit of bill money etc and more importantly really shook me up.
Total creep

When I was in second year at uni, I shared with three other girls and all four of us were batshit crazy. One of the girls was the type who never washed up and used other people's stuff because she'd run out of plates. One time I went in her room and found one of my plates in there, with a sweet wrapper stuck to it. It took 2-3 washes to get the thing clean. I was not impressed. I like to wash up while I cook, it saves time later, but it was impossible to do when the sink was full of other people's crap. She left the heating on over Christmas and we had a mahoosive heating bill, and she put peppers in a cupboard instead of the fridge and they turned into goo. She also wrote 'I HAD SEX' on the board on the fridge after she hooked up with some bloke and I'd just split up with my girlfriend at the time, and part of the reason was because the meds I was on killed my libido, so that was a kick in the teeth. Another one had a phobia of fish and had a go at me for leaving cod fillets in the fridge. Not fish with their heads on. Cod fillets. They were also in the habit of leaving notes everywhere. I ended up leaving after I had a mental breakdown and a huge fallout with them - the disability office at the uni managed to get me into halls for the rest of the term. My mum came over to help me move all my stuff out and we were trying to do it while one of my housemates was in the house at the time, without her noticing. It was like that bit in Disney Robin Hood where Robin Hood and Little John are trying to steal Prince John's gold while he's sleeping.

The halls I got moved into were another thing entirely. It was a flat full of rugger buggers, I was the only girl, and the kitchen looked like a bomb site. I rarely used it - I pretty much survived on cold foods and did the dishes in my ensuite bathroom. It was that bad.

I did have some rows with my housemates in first year, mainly over noise or them using my stuff, but in general they were a nice bunch of people.

I had some brilliant times housesharing but there was one girl who became a problem. She was the girlfriend of one of the owners (who also lived there) and was lovely. Then she moved in and became moody and resentful. One day she came at me brandishing a handful of long black hair, calling me disgusting for blocking the bath plughole with it and generally letting rip.

She had long black hair. I had short red hair.

One of my housemates when we were students just stopped paying bills. She was a bit of a drama llama and had been in a sulky mood with the rest of us since she’d drawn the short straw for the smallest room (5 of us in a house share). Bills and anything else were pinned up in a notice board in the kitchen so we could all see what we had to pay, and her solution to this was to stop going in the kitchen - she used to eat out or at a friend’s house! She avoided us by slipping straight up to her room and as we all were in uni/work at different times she could manage this most of the time. She stopped replying to messages and moved out when no one else was there.

She’d also never pay to top up the gas (done with one of those stick things at the local shop) and have long showers, leaving not enough gas for the rest of us to have a shower.

If you’re reading this you still owe the rest of us £6 each for the last water bill

I lived in a houseshare of six and one of them was a phantom shitter.

They would creep into someone’s room at night (generally at the weekend after everyone had had a big night) and poo on the carpet. So weird. There was much discussion and speculation and we decided that it was someone from another flat - our house was chaotic, with lots of people coming in and out). Eventually one of the housemates was caught red handed one night.

Have of course over the years lived with my share of messy or noisy people and those that didn't contribute properly to the bills.

Had a flatmate who kept all their pairs of shoes in individual plastic bags which was a bit odd.

I also had a lodger once who was in a viral internet video (too outing to share, but think funny not weird). They opened all conversations with new people by explaining and generally showing the video because otherwise people would spend ages trying to think how they knew them.

I told my housemate there was too much clutter in the kitchen. The next day he had cleared everything away. No plates, kettle, nothing.

I met a few prospective room mates for a house share, they were all horrendous but one seemed normal, worked in fashion, seemed fun. As soon as she moved in I thought it was strange that she didn't seem to have a toothbrush or a towel in the bathroom. Then I noticed my toothbrush was wet when I hadn't used it for hours and my towel was damp. Then I caught thrush (or something similar that made me itch) so I had to keep my toothbrush and towel in my room. Ditto my washing powder and any other food that was opened as she seemed to think it was all free. Then she got a new boyfriend and after about a week he moved in -unofficial of course, but he was there every night. They took over the kitchen to make their cosy dinners and left everything in the sink without washing up and stayed in her room refusing to answer the door. Friends round all the time, people coming and going. When I complained to the landlord he decided to put the rent up - for everyone. I was out of there.

The girl next door to me in halls was an arsehole.
I recognised quite early on she was one. She used to do this pathetic baby voiced simpleton routine with certain people and they used to go on about how ‘cute and nice’ she was. It was all fake. Once she realised I saw through it she was particularly horrible to me and turned them against me. Loads of them ended up living with each other and didn’t invite me.
Apparently the next year she was an absolute nightmare. They had the full effect of how fucking noisy she was, particularly through the night, which only I could hear in first year. Good.
The weirdest thing was 10 years later being invited to her hen do, assumed she didn’t have many mates.

I don't trust people who go on about how nice they are. They're usually terrible people.

Wow, some really bad ones here!

Another one of mine was a lady who decided to open a catering business... from our kitchen. There were 5 of us sharing and the kitchen was an OK size, but she would take up every single bit of counter there was and every pot and pan. Someimes she would leave food cooked in the pots for hours as she was experimenting with 'new flavours'. On one occasion she actually got a proper order via a friend's connection for a birthday party and made a few batches of roast veg, roast potatoes and some lasagna, spectacularly burnt everything, but was happy as apparently it made it taste nicer (lol). The guests must not have been impressed as that was the last big order she got.

I once also lived in a house with a live in landlord. The smallest bedroom was one the hardest to fill so there was a rotation of people. The current tenant was leaving, and the landlord found someone else to replace him from a certain date. Except the dude rocked up two weeks prior and said he had nowhere else to go, and had a job to start etc. Theh landlord let him sleep on the sofa for two weeks while waiting for the room to vacate. The living room STANK. The dude showered supposedly, but in the morning when I was going to work the stench downstairs was unbelievable, it was rank, a mix of fags and alcohol and vomit, never smelled anything quite like it. After he moved to the room, he only lasted a week or two and the landlord asked him to leave, he spent a week deep cleaning the room with copious amount of bleach and the smell was still lingering for weeks.

I have had a few but the worst went full single white female on me. She kept suggesting that we get married so I could stay in the UK (I have a british passport so apart from all the other craziness around that, I didnt need to, nor would I ever commit fraud), she would call me if I wasn't home from work and go crazy screaming that I didnt care about her and how could I have fun without her, she dragged me on nights out a few times under the guise of trying to meet a man but would suggest we kiss to turn me on. This was the tip of a very fucking crazy iceberg. I was 21, had just moved from the other side of the world and was so shocked I didn't know what to do so tried to appease her as best I could. After 16 months I finally escaped her. And then the next one was a thief and drug user so that wasn't ideal either......

@GammyLeg that is crazy. How did you catch the pooing flatmate? Why did they do it? Did they move out afterwards?

Found him doing smack in the front room; apparently I was unreasonable because I'd never specified in our ground rules that it wouldn't be ok. This progressed to threats and getting kicked/locked out the flat when he had his mates round using and I objected.
He then got his housing benefit arrears and spent them all on partying.
I ended up kicking him out, paying his share of arrears, then getting illegally evicted and losing the whole deposit (I'd paid his half on the promise of it being repaid within 6 months. Unfortunately that never happened).