Come help the marsupial - my housemate is driving me nuts and I can't handle it.

[LotusElise]

Has anyone successfully dealt with a problem housemate in the past?
This evening, I had my dinner ruined by a ridiculous row with one of mine, and I know I'm not handling the situation well.

She moved in after swapping rooms with another girl, without actually telling anyone, which caused confusion and suspicion for me and the other woman I live with. She has some very odd ideas about things and gets indignant when pulled up about her lack of consideration and poor knowledge of how UK houses wok (she is not English).
She is obsessed with the air quality in the flat and complains constantly about humidity, how stuffy it is, how it is too hot etc, when the rest of us find it quite cold. To supposedly deal with this, she goes round switching on the bathroom extractor fans and the cooker hood constantly, believing them to be air conditioning units or similar. This means that the flat becomes very noisy, especially in the middle of the night, and electricity is wasted. When confronted, she refused to believe that the extractors were just that, refused to apologise and accused me of being smelly. She has accused me again today of being smelly, in what I suspect to be a racial slur. (I don't smell, by the way.)
It's not just the extractor fans rumbling away, there are various other things she does which we have asked her not to do, such as using the sink in the toilet to wash her clothes, locking the door behind her and preventing others from using the toilet - she has access to a washing machine.
If anyone has any advice to prevent this blowing up further, please come forward! Also, if anyone has any funny dodgy-housemate tales, let's hear them.

[Drew]

Yes i've had quite a lot of problems actually.. I lived with a hippy that never cleaned up in the kitchen, she literally left food lying around for 4 days plus. I lived with chinese people who would at 10pm cook tea and invite all their chinese friends round and essentially block the kitchen until 1/2am, all the meanwhile shouting. Then in Spain I had the luck of living with 2 weed addicts and they even grew it in their wardrobe and never cleaned the flat! So yes, I've had my fair share!

And about your housemate, well I dunno everything about her, but it's tough! Believe me! I'm a pretty shy english guy living with spaniards in Italy! It's tough there's a lot to learn and things are just done very differently. The only way you'll ever sort any problem out is by talking to her. Preferibly with your house mates, just to show it's not only you that thinks this way.

[Daniel]

I will give my standard response which I give to all such questions. Kill them, kill them till they die of death :angryfire

On the subject of housemates I've only ever lived with my parents, my brother and Caroline. Apart from occasionally snoring which is usually sorted with a bit of a kick she's the best! I'm definitely the less tidy person in the house compared to her but our new dishwasher has helped very much :uhoh: If only there was a machine to tidy up the computer room :mark:

My brother was an absolute nightmare to live with. He would get violent and he'd shout if he didn't get his way if I didn't do exactly what he wanted when he wanted me to do it :mark: He cracked my bedroom door in half one night when trying to barge the door open. Also, rather than allowing me to go out and buy whatever food I liked he went out and bought the cheapest nastiest rubbish and would buy meat which was reduced because it was close to it's best before date because he was wanting to save money to go on a round the world trip. Food is something I enjoy rather than just something I eat for sustainance so you could imagine I wasn't particularly happy with his crappy food and crappy cooking. I was so happy when my parents said they were moving back into our family home (they bought a house in a country town and were trying to sell their home) and said I could move back in. Never before had living with your parents seemed like such a damn good idea.

[Rollo]

One of my ex-flatmates thought that the dishwasher was a difficult concept. He could put stuff into the dishwasher but it never occurred to him that if it was full, one merely had to press the on button and is if by magic, and after making some noises for a period, there'd be clean stuff ready to take out. The latter was most difficult, as even with a load of clean dishes ready to be put away he'd still put stuff into the dishwasher.

For a while I lived with a nurse who had magical one-way soundproof doors. When she wanted to play her guitar at 3 and 4 am during the week, somehow according to her the sound never left her room, but if we had friends over to watch the football on a Saturday night at half midnight, that soundproof door never worked and we were always too loud.

[LotusElise]

I will give my standard response which I give to all such questions. Kill them, kill them till they die of death :angryfire


Believe me, I would like to. Is it me, or is it plain strange to demand that we have a schedule for when the lights and bathroom extractors are left on? Apparently my habit of switching the light off when I leave a room is a strange think-I-know-everything-about-electricity Western affliction.
She burps and trumps really loudly as well and thinks other people can't hear it!

[donKey jote]

Ah student life...
When I was in the UK we didn't have a dishwasher. When the sink got too full one of us would just empty it... into the garden. :)
Then we simply hoped it would rain before the next party, or else they'd get bio-rinsed. :dozey:
We all drove eachother nuts all the time, but great fun was had by all. :D
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_3_166.gif

[MrJan]

I didn't have a difficult housemate at Uni, largely because I was that difficult one. My housemates often complained that they would wash my stuff but I never did anyone elses. They all neglected to notice that the only reason that they were washing my plate (I only had one) was because I'd put it down one day and then they piled all there crap on top because they all had 4 plates each.

I also managed to go 3 years without once cleaning the bathroom, largely because I could put up with more mess than them. Don't get me wrong though, the house was never as untidy as most student houses, just I seemed to be living with 3 neat freeks. It didn't help that the landlords son was living there and basically felt like it was his duty to be all grown up and responsible. At one point I had to fork out the whole 50p to pay for a new light fitting which I broke and was made to feel like I'd kicked the front door down.

On the bright side said son of landlord had a widescreen TV, PS2 and spent a lot of time at college while I messed about on the PS2 :D

[Azumanga Davo]

Tell her to f**k off. Or, failing that, pay for my flight and train fare and I will do so. ;)

[christophulus]

Ah, the great joys of student life. I'm experiencing all this at the moment! In fairness I've been lucky this year with a great group of people, made some new friends, last year not so much...


I lived with chinese people who would at 10pm cook tea and invite all their chinese friends round and essentially block the kitchen until 1/2am, all the meanwhile shouting.

Yep, had two last year who did exactly that! And there was another guy living with us who appeared to use the flat as some sort of social gathering point/homeless shelter, there was always someone different wandering about, helping themselves to the contents of the f***ing fridge and even sometimes sleeping in the kitchen!

Oh, and a guy from India who moved over here, and I'm not joking, didn't even know what the oven was, never mind how to use it, mainly because "the women did everything at home". And then expected me to cook for him! Fortunately he didn't hang around long because I'm pretty sure the kitchen would have gone up in flames before long. I mean, if you're going to live somewhere and feed yourself, at least learn to cook first.

And the person in the flat next door who would make repeated complaints that we were being too noisy, at about 5-6pm when we were making dinner in the kitchen. Yet thought it was perfectly acceptable to play loud music in the early hours of the morning!

I guess it's a rite of passage in some ways, I can't wait for the day when I have my own house :)

[Garry Walker]

Has anyone successfully dealt with a problem housemate in the past?

There is a solution to your problem, instead of writing a long topic about it. Confront the said person and be direct.
Have you not done that because you are afraid she might get offended?

[LotusElise]

Oh, trust me Garry, I've tried that twice. On both occasions she became very indignant and tried to make out it was me who had the problem. The second time, she made some racial comments which I felt were un-called for.

Her latest claim is that the wet puddle on the bathroom floor is not due to people getting in and out of the shower without drying their feet, it's all the evil condensation that's doing it. She got quite angry when I suggested she should wipe the floor if it was that wet.

[stevie_gerrard]

Ive had a housemate this year who has been extremely annoying to all the house, although i suppose he can't help it. Hes from Thailand so is used to being up at different hours of the day, yet hes been living in the Uk for over a year now. I moved into a new house for my placement here in bristol, with the 3 girls i lived with last year and this new guy and a new girl. However after the first month, all of the housemates were complaining about this new guy. He's a decent enough guy, i chat to him reguarly, but:

1) He leaves all the lights on all the time
2) He leaves on all his equipment (i.e.) laptop, console on in his room and then leaves showers turned on when they arent being used, cookers on when they arent used, etc.
3) He is extremely loud in the early hours of the morning. Not only does his singing penetrate all the walls, he stomps about the house at 3am waking everybody up. Im quite a heavy sleeper normally but even ive noticed it lately, the girls struggle to sleep.
4) He makes a hell of a mess in the kitchen and bathroom. I'm not gonna say hes the only one because he isnt, the girls are very messy too, nothing ever gets cleaned, but its obvious that its him reguarly making the mess when it is cleaned because all you see are noodles and rice strewn all over the place, and hes reguarly eating noodles and rice.

I could list a few more but im meant to be at work ,so i shall spare you the examples :p : However, after putting up with 6-8 weeks of this, and also constant arguing between the girls and him, i decided to step in. I'm not a confrontational person normally, but i was straight with him and i said he needed to buck his ideas up and consider others or he might as well move out and find somewhere else to live. I know thats not an ideal situation because he pays rent and bills etc like everybody else, but our electricity usage tripled in one week when he was leaving stuff on :eek: Being the person who pays the bills before receiving the money back off everyone, i cant afford that in this current economy.

And you know what? ive heard very few complaints if any since :) it seems he has got the message and we all live in almost perfect harmony :p :

So i suggest that you have a three tier warning system of some kind for your housemate lotus, "3 strikes and you're out" method if thats possible. I wouldnt condone physical violence but a few threats and warnings should help the situation a little hoepfully.

[Roamy]

Stevie sounds to me like she is just begging for a "pearl necklace"

[Drew]

Stevie sounds to me like she is just begging for a "pearl necklace"

Fousto sounds to me like you weren't really reading it properly :p :

[BDunnell]

Is it me, or is it plain strange to demand that we have a schedule for when the lights and bathroom extractors are left on?

Is she Swiss? ;)

[Roamy]

Fousto sounds to me like you weren't really reading it properly :p :

well fu___it give her one anyway!! :p :

[leopard]

I used to live at base camp, my roommate was a religious person, but together with my another mate next to my room we got used to coming to clubs in the weekend. The last was not good ...

[Drew]

well fu___it give her one anyway!! :p :

The problem (or ex-problem) housemate is a man, unless Stevie swings that way, I think you mean for his female flatmates, who aren't a problem :p :

[Roamy]

yes I will second that one Drew. God help me what man would want another man for a flatmate!

[MrJan]

yes I will second that one Drew. God help me what man would want another man for a flatmate!

Women who you aren't sleeping with are an unmitigated pain in the arse when you live with them, nothing but hassle.

[LotusElise]

Is she Swiss? ;)

No, Japanese.

I don't like the misogynist direction this thread seems to have taken since I looked at it last!

[schmenke]

My free-loading alcoholic sister-in-law just came into town and is staying with us indefinately :dozey: