Autistic DD struggling with Halle of residence kitchen filth

[Jeezitshard]

My daughter is in her first year at Newcastle. She has a lovely room in halls with her own bathroom. The issue is the communal kitchen and lounge. She is autistic and has some sensory issues and experiences overwhelm when circumstances build up beyond her control. I’d warned her that student have dealt with kitchens could be grim but nothing could have prepared her like living with it. There are 8 of them sharing a kitchen. Both sinks are full with dirty dishes and bits of pasta, rice, soggy cereal, there are rotting vegetables leaking their juices over the worktops, if the bins are full they just keep filling it so there’s food all over the floor. She is loving uni but this three weeks in doesn’t bode well for the rest of the year. She’s living with mainly party animals - no one really like her. She’s making good friends outside of the flat but ‘home’ should be somewhere you can relax not somewhere you dread. She spoke to the accommodation office who said it wasn’t bad enough for an intervention. I’ve since emailed them to enquire about a smaller/ single sex/ quiet flat or even if there is any studio availability which she didn’t really want but might be better in the long run. Just wondering how other people’s YP have dealt with issues like this.

We’re thinking if there is a studio flat available it might be for the best. She didn’t want to be that person who lived alone but given she has made some lovely course and society friends then I guess it doesn’t matter too much.

Fingers crossed three weeks into term a fair few people might be having second thoughts either about being at uni or who they’re living with and a space might become available.

I’ve told her to get in touch with her disability advisor who she said is super nice and just get some advice from her too. It’s a massive student village and location is perfect - her room is lovely so she doesn’t really want to change location - in a HoR with 1300 rooms you’d hope a few alternatives might crop up.

She’s a stickler for rules. She wouldn’t even take her heated throw with her so chances of me getting her to cook in her room are even slimmer.

Fingers crossed.

I wanted to share my experience, as an autistic woman who went to uni, but autism has different ways of presenting itself, so if this doesn’t resonate with you and your daughter, please feel free to ignore :)

I found house sharing horrendous. Not the kitchen specifically, but generally living with other people. Like many autistic people (particularly women) I am capable of acting broadly “normal” around other people, but after a while I feel an intense need to unmask, which for me means spending time alone doing a solo activity such as reading, painting, music, or playing a computer game.

At uni I couldn’t do this. Nobody in my house ever spent time alone. They were always in the kitchen or in each other’s rooms, so I felt an intense dissonance between wanting to fit in and be like them, and needing to spend time alone. The more time I spent alone, the more they thought I was an unsociable weirdo. The less time I spent alone, the more I acted like a weirdo as I wasn’t able to recharge my ability to mask. Either way, my relationship with my housemates got less and less pleasant as the year went on.

Second and third year was better as I was in a calmer, quieter, group but still, they were always hanging out together in the communal space, and it caused friction that I was unable to do that without my autism symptoms becoming more apparent.

Long story short - if your daughter is like me and needs alone time in order to recharge her ability to successfully socialise, she is probably going to find house sharing tough. I would see how she is when she comes home for Christmas. If she is reluctant to socialise with you as much as normal and seems keen to retreat to her own space as much as possible, it is a sign she may be struggling more than she says, and you may want to encourage her to live alone or with others who are happy to chill in their rooms and not always be together. It sounds like she wants the authentic uni experience, living in mixed sex halls, but honestly it might not be the best thing for her, and that’s ok.

As for the kitchen situation I think it’s normal for them to be gross. 8 people can’t share a tiny kitchen and keep it tidy, that’s just physics. Sandwiches and ready meals are the way forward, sadly.

I remember trying to make a pot noodle with hot water from the tap in my bathroom because I couldn't stand to go into the shared kitchen. Shudder.

I had a boyfriend in this position in uni. He managed to set himself up with a mini-fridge, a microwave (think that was verboten but he had it anyway) and a kettle in his room. He kept his own box of dried goods there too and managed well enough without going into the cesspit kitchen. These days you could have an air fryer too. Is that an option for your daughter?

As above, reasonable adjustments requested via uni/accommodation and catered halls would be a much better fit as there won’t be a kitchen to worry about. (Or if there is she won’t need to use it).

One of my DC’s also had older students living with them to oversee the accommodation, one to each floor. They were given a reduced rent for the role (Edinburgh) and also warning & fines by the cleaning supervisor for the mess.

Nothing has changed though. In my day I went with two friends to view a student flat to rent. I assumed the three students living there had had a wild party the night before and just hadn’t cleared up. Food left out on work tops & table ,dirty plates, glasses, cans, ash trays etc etc.

It became apparent during the viewing that there had not been any party…😱

You sound very like her. She finds lots of positives in her autism but desperately wants the neurotypical experience - she just doesn’t quite have the energy. Shes already decided clubbing isn’t her thing - she’s found a pub gang though so that’s fine and she had friends over at the weekend and they just hung out ate pizza and watched Netflix in her bed until 3am - absolutely happy with that. But yes she does feel the need even at home especially when we have family visiting or if we go and visit grandparents etc , she needs her space to just decompress and not have to engage in being sociable all the time. She absolutely can be charming and sociable but when it becomes an effort it drains her. She thinks she could live with two other people she’s got close to quite quickly when it comes to choosing a flat for next year. But I think we keep an open mind and do what we can for now to make sure her first year doesn’t become miserable. She absolutely loves her new city and her new independent life - so I was loathe to interfere but given I’m paying 8k for the privilege of her living there I asked if she’d mind me getting involved and she was ok with that.

I didn't cook in our student kitchen. It was disgusting. I ate yogurt with muesli poured on it for breakfast. Found a really cheap jacket potato/salad/sandwich place for lunch and ate toast for dinner. The only washing up I had was 1 knife and a spoon. I went home quite a bit at the weekend and ate nice meals there. I worked quite a lot at university, so I ate out at cheap places as well. I don't think finding the hall kitchen unusable is at all unusual.

My DC moved flats a couple of months into term - he was in a party flat. He felt a bit guilty requesting the move but it was the best thing he could have done. The next flat was fairly ‘ordinary’ - got on ok with flatmates but not best friends and the kitchen wasn’t pristine but much more liveable. But it took a huge amount of stress away. Your DD shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to move. DC now shares a flat with someone who moved into a studio a few weeks into their first year for similar reasons.

Aww it sounds like she’s thriving at the moment, pizza in bed sounds like my idea of a great social event too! She might be fine with sharing, especially next year when she can choose her housemates, but keep an eye on it and check in with her every now and then, because the issues relating to being unable to unmask may creep up gradually.

I used to get upset with myself for struggling to do the things my housemates found easy, like having an evening out together and then having breakfast together the next morning. That’s way too much time together in one go for me, I can do one or the other but not both. I accept and love that about myself now, and book social events with spaces in between, but when I was 18 it was challenging as I just saw myself as the weird freak who couldn’t act normal.

I was able to live happily with my parents, and I now live happily with my husband, because with them I feel loved and feel comfortable taking myself off for alone time when I need it. With housemates I didn’t have that. My housemates were generally lovely and at first we got on great. The problem was that because it was just friendship and not love, there was always a fear that if I didn’t behave right, they would reject me, so I was never truly able to unmask while living with them, which made it harder for me to be fun and charming, which naturally lead to them wanting to spend less time with me and me feeling very sorry for myself.

Hopefully your daughter can manage it better than I did by either opting out of the situation all together by living alone and seeing her friends when she actively chooses to, or if she sticks with a house-share then tell her not to neglect her needs just because she wants a neurotypical experience. The problem is if she is in her room and she knows they’re all in the living room hanging out, she will feel left out. But if she goes out to hang out with them she’s neglecting her need to decompress. So it’s definitely easier said than done, but hopefully by understanding the issues and why she is feeling the way she does, she can be a bit kinder to herself.

DD struggles with this too. Last year she was in halls with only 4 people sharing the kitchen bit unfortunately 2 of them were pigs so she ended up commuting for the last term. This year she's in a shared house and already planning on what to do for next year that might minimise the stress.

Are you sure university is a suitable environment for her? I remember how awful university was, and as an 18 year old who was clean, tidy, and hygienic, I was disgusted by the filth of other students. It was obvious none of them had ever done anything for themselves in their lives, and just assumed their food waste and dirty dishes would clear themselves up.

Maybe look in to the Open University, and get her back home for her own good. I moved house 3 times in my first year. There's no guarantee any change will be for the better. Most 18 year olds are vile when they're off the leash and have no one controlling them.

You don’t have to share with other students at university - studios are an option, or even being a lodger with someone more mature/not a student. Halls/house shares are not university - they are just where most students live whilst attending university.

I think asking to move to a studio (with support of disability team) is probably way to go. Or to a much smaller flat.
Mine was in a 12 share first year and the kitchen was disgusting and got worse as year progressed. She avoided it as much as possible.
Mine’s in a studio this year and very happy. She had friends but being able to retreat to a clean space and no drama has been a real positive.

My dd had an enormous box of wooden cutlery (Costco) and some paper plates and bowls when she was in a similar situation. She didn’t use them all of the time but she had them for when she needed them. She also had a drying rack in her bedroom because she found that if she left her clean stuff in the kitchen, people used it. Nobody was awful or anything, they were just lazy. And once it’s messy it’s hard to come back from that.

My other dd was at Newcastle and there was a date in November where they could submit an application to move rooms. It’s quite drastic though.

My dc who was at Newcastle moved rooms at Christmas to a studio. She is autistic and has adhd and uses a wheelchair.

the studio was much better. Two of the eight people in her flat left at Christmas anyway (they were doing no work and just partying and doing drugs and dropped out) plus one of the party animals moved flats so it was a very quiet flat after Christmas!

my dd shared in second and third year with three other autistic girls. It worked very well.

Are there postgrad halls? Consider asking for a transfer to these as older students tend to be a bit tidier.

Mines not the only clean one so it helps but it does frustrate her when they don’t clean. She keeps telling others and calls them out on it . It goes through phases of better or worse just doesn’t eat in the kitchen after cooking .

My DD was a resident assistant and was in 2 minging flats. Had some success in one 10 person flat using the flatify app for tasks such as bin emptying/clearing the sink. They also had a couple of large plastic basins and anything left in the sink got dumped in the basin. In the other flat it was a lost cause (the worst offenders were used to servants and considered cleaning women’s work). She got a transfer after a term.

Other than the flat situation she is thriving. Loving her own routines, cooking for herself etc. her being more independent and not reliant on me is also a good thing (we would both agree on that). She is taking accountability for herself, her exercise and her diet. So I don’t think coming home is the right answer at all. I appreciate for some it might be but that’s not even a consideration for her. She is 260 miles away and that was her choice too.

My daughter is at Newcastle too!

I know, that’s why I mentioned it. It’s a great university and city.