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.

I had a new flatmate who tried to ban me from the shared kitchen as she needed it as a study and was generally passive aggressive. Breaking point came when my then boyfriend called when I was in the bath, she answered the phone and shouted down the hall to me that "the your bloody (N-word) is on the phone". I rang my LL, told her what had happened. She told me to wait till she went out out, pack up her stuff and put it outside and the locks were changed. When she came back she stood outside screaming racist abuse - a big mistake in South London! Someone called the police and she was arrested.

My first year at university, in a shared flat with four other girls .... the university had selected flatmates based not only on sex but whether or not they smoked. I was a non smoker but I wasn't concerned about passive smoking because obviously I was immortal. But one of my flatmates was very anti-smoking, and when I said I had thought about starting smoking, she said 'well you would have to find somewhere else to live'.
Anyway that was in the autumn, when we came back after the Christmas break she had taken up smoking heavily and was complaining she couldn't quit. I didn't remind her of what she's said a couple of months before ...
In the same flat, the first quarter's gas and electricity bills were about £6 each (35 years ago). We didn't put the heating on so the next quarter's should have been similar, but they were more like £26 each! No-one owned up to being responsible, but at the end of the academic year when I was the last to leave the flat and was sorting things out with the maintenance guy, he mentioned that 'the heater you hired had been returned'. One of the girls had hired an electric heater and kept her room warm while the rest of us froze and all shared the bills! I was sad because although the others were a bit off with her, I wasn't and I thought she was my friend.

My ex-boyfriend signed an agreement for a 3 room flat. It was him, a couple (boyfriend girlfriend) and her brother.

The first week of them moving in they moved 3 more people. You couldn’t get in the shower at all.

I am so glad I never flat shared!

I also have an amazing almost flat share story. My friend was looking for a flat in a major city. A guy got in touch with her and she asked for more details. He said he was renting a double room. Later in the conversation he admitted his girlfriend had left him and he was actually looking for someone to take up the other half of the bed!

@dentydown

My ex-boyfriend signed an agreement for a 3 room flat. It was him, a couple (boyfriend girlfriend) and her brother.

The first week of them moving in they moved 3 more people. You couldn’t get in the shower at all.

I'm not surprised you couldn't get in the shower. Sounds like they'd put a bed in there.

The flatmate I shared a wall with who had about half a dozen alarm clocks going off at 7am (tough course) but she slept through all of them for hours (I didn't - my course never started before midday!!)

Also she had a stalker who used to bug us on the shared phone and at the door. We eventually had to call the police as he wouldn't accept no for an answer whether she was in or not!

I had a mostly lovely time living with 6 friends for the last 2 years of uni. Later on I found out that at least 2 of the housemates had been voting Conservative the whole time! 🤯😫🤮

When I was 22 I moved into a house share with two really nice 21yo guys - a couple. Things were great for a couple of months but out of the blue, R up and left A, moving out and leaving it just me and A.

I was working full time 9-5, A was in his final year as a student teacher. Money was tight for him after R moved out so he started working in a bar a few nights a week, which is when things went south. He would get home at 3am and cook food with the extractor fan on, which shared a wall with my headboard. He'd bring random people back to party, blaring music and shouting. One night one of the girls starting hammering on my bedroom door, threatening to beat me up if I complained again about the music. Sometimes he'd just come home and have loud phone conversations in the middle of the night.

The worst, though, was his family. They were dotted around the globe so when they visited, it would be for extended periods of time. They would sleep on our sofa, totally taking over the shared area, and he wouldn't have a firm timeframe. His dad came to stay for a few nights, then about a week later his sister turned up straight off a flight from the US. She stayed for over a week, then immediately afterwards his mum stayed for AGES.

it was bad enough having a stranger take over the shared area but not knowing when they were leaving was awful.

I moved out a month early and the little prick started dodging my phone calls about bills I had agreed to pay half of until my contract ended. A, you still owe me £60.

@BrandoraPaithwaite you sound to young to have gone to University.

*too

I am bumping this thread. Because its amazing! More please!

I had a flat mate in my 20s who woke up every week day at 3 f*%ing am^ to start her morning shower, hour in the bathroom spa treatment, hair blow out make up routine so she could leave for work at 7. She woke up a little later, maybe 5-6am on weekends.

I was a typical 20 something with a flexible job and a busy social life so was regularly out til 1,2, 3am. We’d often pass each other in the hall as I was coming home and she was getting up to wash her hair and start her relaxing facial.

It was weird. She was otherwise perfectly lovely, if odd (never saw her cook actual food - she lived on cereal and cake and biscuits, always had a bowl of cereal at 7pm just before bed!). But she was just a bit odd.

Uni house share in my second year with 3 other girls. We all went home for Christmas, except one girl who stayed. Found out later that she had shagged her bf in all of our beds while we’d been away - and my vibrator (hidden at the back of one of my drawers) was found laid on top of my bedside table when I returned.

I honestly started reading this thread thinking I didn't have any bad stories.

Then I remembered the landlady who didn't flea treat her dog and used to bring him into the room I rented, infesting the whole house. I honestly looked like every one of my limbs had acne with the bites.

I also rented a room in a house which didn't have a hoover. I thought the carpet was a tawny brown colour, it took me weeks to realise it was actually matted with dog hair (yes, dogs seems to be a theme).

But my best story was moving into a flat where the smoke alarm had a flat battery and it would just 'ping' every three minutes or so. It became a massive Mexican stand-off about who would actually fix it (to be fair, I didn't actually know how) so we just ended up living with it. For 9 months, till I left.

I rented a room from a landlady who was about to get engaged and gradually relocate overseas; in the meantime her various hobbies would keep her away for weeks at the time. I’m an introvert so the setup sounded lovely. It turned out that the ‘fiancé’ was an ex she was hoping to reconnect with but never did, the hobbies were things she tried once or twice and never made an effort with and when she wasn’t making me listen to her (most ridiculous, unhinged) boyfriend dramas, she was talking to a psychic. The psychic told her there was someone close to her who wished her harm...she started keeping a very close eye on me including pretending to go to work and turning up to see what I’m up to

I moved into a houseshare with a gay bloke and his friend from overseas, who was sleeping on the couch in the lounge "for a couple of weeks till he found somewhere to live". He was still on that couch seven months later when I moved out.

I worked nights and when I came home late at night I couldn't relax and watch TV as the couch surfer would ostentatiously start making his bed up as a cue for me to go to my room, as he wanted to go to sleep.

And they were horrendously untidy - the sink was constantly full of dirty dishes and the place was a tip full of clutter.

Rented a room as a student in a 5 bed house Two of the students moved out and the landlady didn’t live nearby so she just hid a key under a rock and told prospective tenants to let themselves in to look around. Didn’t even text us to let us know. We’d be cooking and people would just wander in.

I needed a room and found one on gumtree. Met the landlord and he seemed really nice. He was upfront about being gay which I had no issue with (one of my best friends is gay) and showed me the room which was a decent size and had plenty space for all of my stuff plus a lock on the door.

I paid my deposit and first month rent on the Friday and agreed I’d move in on the Monday as he didn’t want me to move in whilst he was away that weekend.

Saturday he messages me asking how many boxes I’m planning on bringing so I tell him. He replies that that’s too many boxes so I explain they’re mostly books. He tells me he’ll need to inspect everything as it comes in and I refuse as it’s going in my room. He then tells me he’s removed the lock as he needs to know I won’t be having homophobic friends round.

I’m like wtaf?! I tell him I don’t have any homophobic friends and that we’d agreed there would be a lock on the door. He then calls me homophobic and tells me he’s afraid of me “sending in my heavies” to “rough him up”. I said I’d like my deposit and rent back and he goes radio silent. The Sunday I message him saying I’ll be coming round with my mum to get my money back (£700 which was a full month pay when I was 21) and he tells me he’ll get the police round to arrest me for harassment. My mum refused to go round in case they sided with him so I was stuck having been scammed. Took me 3 and a bit months to save up enough to get somewhere else and had to stay at my mums with all my stuff in her garage