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.

Well unless she can afford a flat for one, this is going to be her for the next three years. It's not going to get any better. Get her a small basic cooking set up in her room. A microwave and an air fryer or a little plug-in hotplate and a small fridge. She can cook (very basic things) in her room and wash up in her en-suite.

It's not ideal but it's doable and certainly easier than trying to get the others to clean up to her own standards. She's just going to make herself massively unpopular if she tries to get student services to intervene or keeps nagging everyone and making a fuss.

This is part of the uni experience and learning to live away from home and rub along with other people who are different to you, as she will also have to do in the workplace eventually.

Or perhaps she should just live at home or switch to halls that are fully catered. But she'll still have the same issues in years 2 and 3.

the problem with this is that if she has real sensory issues around food and mess then it's unlikely to be any different in the next place. They won't help her transfer a third time and she'll just mark her card as someone who is difficult, or unable to cope with uni in general.

If it’s for a disability reason then the uni pay only charge the lower shared price for a studio or Dsa may cover the difference.

Disability service can help her get moved. My flat was a stinking den of debauchery back in the day, I couldn’t live like that now. Don’t bother trying to engage with the flatmates if they’re party animals who already dislike her - not worth the stress.

No catered halls at Newcastle since they knocked Castle Leazes down.

DD only had one flat mate but the issues were the same. No airfryers back then, but we bought a microwave and a slow cooker, a large plastic lidded storage box in which she kept a set of crockery and cutlery and food prep essentials. She managed for 2 years, then moved to another flat, which was better. It was very stressful and difficult. She lived on salads and stews.
When DS moved into halls, he persuaded the other 4 people to club together with him to pay a cleaner to come and clean the kitchen once a week. He emptied the bins and did a bit of a clean up himself though in between.

Your post sounds like the university halls version of victim blaming.

Most halls ban those things from rooms.

Not all shared flats have mucky kitchens especially if fewer people. My DC have lived in a few flats and apart from the one one DC left, and even that was less about mess and more about partying, none have been like OP describes. When DC moved flat he was able to view the new flat first so could see the kitchen was reasonable before moving. There are other students who like clean kitchens too.

Don't you think autistic girls should be suported to go to Uni if they have the aptitude and want to? I have two autistic DDs who both want to go. They may choose the studio accommodation option or one may go to a local uni and keto the option to live at home, but they would be missing out on so much by just doing an Open University course from home. And would that prepare them well for the world of work?

Both my dd1 and my dsd struggled with this, they both opted for bedsits in year 2&3 luckily were in cheap cities. Dd2 coped better but has a forceful personality and her flatmates onto a cleaning rota before the end of freshers using carrots (well cake, excellent baker) and sticks she was straight over to the office to report anything

My daughter had this last year in her first year. I think there were 8 or 12 of them on the floor with a shared kitchen. She ended up like their mother and would get up early on a Monday to gut the kitchen and do her washing. They were filthy and she was shocked at how many of them had no idea how to fend for themselves at all. This year she’s in a shared studio with her friend but he’s not great !! We’re 4 weeks in and there’s already been ructions over his lack of consideration and filth. She’s coming home for the weekend this weekend 😂

We’re in London so Newcastle is a bit of a hike to come home for a weekend. She will take comfort in knowing she’s not alone in this. She does struggle with thinking she is the problem and if she wasn’t autistic, she’d be able to deal with this better. I’ve reassured her that having an expectation of basic hygiene doesn’t make her the problem.

second year my daughter was on campus god the girls she lived with were pigs, as PP not clearing up not emptying bins et al. In fact when I took her back after the Easter break the food waste bin was crawling. We took it downstairs and threw it away. The uni admin actually thanked her when she emailed to tell them what it was like.
shes in a house now with 3 friends although it is untidy they keep it clean

When I was at uni, as well as getting fresh sheet/duvet cover and towel every week, our kitchen was cleaned and our kitchen bin emptied. We were expected to leave it in a reasonable state for the cleaner (I can’t remember how often she came), she also cleaned the corridor and stairs. I do remember putting warning notices on the fridge that I would chuck out anything out of date the next day though and doing so (and learnt to never sniff out of date milk).

Thinking of which, I wonder if some of these students ever wash their bedding

A friends son went to Newcastle, he experienced something similar as well as constant weed smell. He had autism and she contacted the disability team who stepped in and got him moved quickly. Accommodation

Accommodation team wouldn’t help

As @HikingHippo said, I would have thought that an intervention with the accommodation people stressing that she is ND would mean they would be willing to intervene, though they might only be willing to speak to her about it. Also it might take a while for them to find somewhere. In the meantime she could prepare food in her room and just go into the kitchen to cook it - or have a microwave in her room. I'm not sure if she has a small fridge in there?

Filth is most accurate way to describe my DD’s yr1 uni halls 12 share flat.

On move out day there were commercial bins with duvets and pillows piled up that were grey with grime (previously white)

Private halls are now often built with studios, lots of students prefer them. Don’t assume they are prohibitively expensive I’ve been pleasantly supposed it’s cheaper than her shared private flat.

This. It’s outrageous the cost of- my dd is over £8k a year for a tiny en suite room with disgusting communal facilities. It was never that bad when I was at uni as the cleaner would go nuts and we would all get a letter threatening to kick us out. Warden lived on site. Rooms were vacuumed weekly and communal showers were actually pretty spotless. It was loud though. We partied constantly. Now they are maximising rent every step of the way and I am really shocked there is no regular cleaner.

Can't she keep things in her room, buy a
Microwave or air frier, and cook simple things by herself? Not ideal, but using a filthy kitchen everyday will be soul destroying...

Unfortunately they’re really strict - we’d bought her an air fryer, mini fridge and coffee machine last Xmas but they don’t allow any food prep in rooms. No idea if they have smoke and steam sensors that she’d ever get caught but being an autistic girlie she’s a stickler for rules and would be too afraid to bend them. I was speaking to a parent on the Newcastle uni parent facebook group whose daughter is in the same halls, having similar experience - along with actual bullying and eating her food so we’ve connected our two girls and they’re planning to meet up this weekend. Hopefully she will find comfort in knowing that a) she’s not the only one and b) there are people like her out there.

Oh OP - your daughter has my sympathies!!!

I stayed living at home when I studied at Uni but one evening I went to my friend’s house who was living in Uni Halls and the communal kitchen/eating area was fucking disgusting. The living and sleeping areas weren’t much better either and everywhere just felt and smelt dirty. It was awful. I couldn’t believe how much students were paying (or their parents were paying) to live in such awful conditions.

I really, really hope you find a solution for her.

Of course they should, but at the end of the day, going to university means being around other 18/19 year olds, many of whom are, as the OP's daughter has already found out, filthier than most animals. I never had a studio option at university, and the local accomodation situation was grim outside of halls. If she needs to live on her own at university, IMO, she might as well save the money and live at home or do an OU course. There's no indication of what she's like socially, but if she has local friends from school or 6th form college who are still in her home town, she may well be better off with them for a social life than being at university.

If you think most universities prepare students for the world of work, I've got a bridge to sell you.😆

Well maybe it does, but I'm being pragmatic. She is going to be a lone and very unpopular voice trying to persuade a bunch of freshers to keep on top of their washing up just because it gives her the ick. Don't you think?

You can have all the sympathy with the 'victim' you like, but while no crime has been committed beyond a bit of slovenliness in an environment where it's totally normal and to be expected, then what do you suggest is the solution?

If she wanted a regimented and pristine environment she should have joined the army, not university. She'd have been better suited to a course at a nearer uni where she could continue to live at home.

Perhaps they ought to put the students with autism and sensory issues all in together. Although my experience with a couple of young men with autism has been that they were the scruffiest, most undomesticated and disorganised people ever, with poor personal hygiene so I dread to think what their homes were like and the OP's DD probably wouldn't be happy living with them either.

I'm guessing if the ND kids had gone to student services and said 'we can't live with this bloke's stink and general chaos' they'd be told 'he's autistic, it's disability discrimination so you are stuck with him.'