Five worst types of Flatmates

Who will you be living with next year?

Starting at university can be tough, for most it's the first time living away from home and controlling their own finances. Along with this the majority of first year students live in student accommodation, and are automatically chosen to live with people of whom they have never met before in their lives. This blog will be an introduction to the worse types of people you can live with, excluding obvious types such as serial killers. I will also advise you on ways to improve these situations, some of which I wish I knew from the start.

The Unhygienic Flatmate

This is when the good parenting pays off. Unfortunately it seems that by university age some teens are still uneducated about the importance of keeping communal areas such as kitchens and bathrooms clean and tidy, and how to do so. Even if you do have the benefit of cleaners coming on a regular basis, sometimes this just isn't enough.

These types of flatmates will never wash up after themselves after eating, but instead they are likely to leave it until they desperately need those particular utensils again. So that's a lovely packed sink for you and your other flatmates to use when you need it, brilliant. Also, these flatmates appear to go blind when they've dropped food onto the floor and work surfaces, as it's a safe bet it will never be cleared up by them. Other unhygienic traits include leaving opened or out of date smelly food in the fridge, using your own tea towels like mops when they do decide to clean up, and throwing out food into the open recycling bin instead of the rubbish bin with a lid because it's just too much effort to avoid poisoning the air with salmonella and other forms of bacteria.

My best advice to avoid this problem is to outline cleaning guidelines from the beginning, as these people may need to be educated before being able to use a kitchen or bathroom in a clean safe way! If you notice that your flatmate has unclean tendencies, make sure you speak to them as soon as possible, or speak to the appropriate residential staff to help you.

The party animal flatmate

Forget sleep, as your flatmate saves their sleeping for when you have lectures and seminars to attend. With this flatmate your kitchen will be full of drunkards until 1am at the latest, provided that they're not too drunk to go to whatever student event is on that night. Have fun then waking up 3-6am when your flatmate returns home still wanting the party to go on. In the morning you will face a kitchen full of empty bottles and sticky alcohol covered tables and chairs. I'd clean the kitchen before using it if I were you.

This will be a tough one to avoid. Talking to your flatmate about this problem is a suggestion but you may be accused of being boring, or paying for it when they get drunk again and mess up your belongings. Even though this was not a big problem for me in my first year I'd suggest buying ear plugs and talking to your residential advisers about the mess and the drunken parties, which are often against the residential contract agreements. 

The horrible personality flatmate

If you like the possibility of an argument whatever you say, then this is the flatmate for you! It's highly possible to end up with a flatmate who is bossy, controlling, angry, offensive, or someone who is simply a drama queen. This can make social encounters with this flatmate very awkward and uncomfortable, and being a part of arguments and disagreements which are seen as pointless and avoidable. 

No cures for this unfortunately! Hopefully someone in your flat will be doing a social subject and will know how to mediate the situations you'll encounter. 

The missing flatmate

Whenever you're asked how many flatmates you live with, you always end up subtracting this by one. This flatmate will be invisible immediately or you'll lose him/her soon after freshers. You'll never get to know this person as you'll hardly see them, which is unfortunate as the rest of you have made the effort to spend time together.

On the rare occasion you do see this person, try to talk to them as much as possible (without seeming creepy). This flatmate may have got the wrong impression of you all to start with, so try to show how friendly and approachable you all are. He/she may still choose to only socialise with those outside of the flat, but at least there will be no hostility or awkwardness. 

The burglar flatmate

Goodbye ice cream :(

Who needs belongings anyway? This flatmate has been known to constantly ask you for stationary, food and toiletries, and it's highly unlikely you'll see these items again! In this scenario be expected to wake up to find you've ran out of milk, bread, cereal, butter and biscuits. Be expected to run out of pens and paper quicker than expected, and get ready for a shower only to find that your shampoo is still missing from when you last lent it out.

If you have these problems, try to keep as much food as possible in your room. In my case I also had to buy myself a mini fridge but I hope for you the problem will not be that severe. Basically, avoid keeping anything in the kitchen that doesn't need to be cooked, as its more difficult to steal anything that they'll need to spend time to cook without being caught! To avoid having your stationary and toiletries taken, in this situation I'd advise hiding this items out of sight when you're not using them, and tell a little white lie that you don't have them. It may be lying but come on, it's better than stealing. 

They're not all this bad

After reading this, don't panic that your next flatmates will be as terrible as those I just described. Unless you have bad luck in these situations like me, then you're more likely to have lovely flatmates who you will become good friends with for many years!

Hopefully if you find yourself with one of these terrible flatmates then my advice will help you to improve the situation. Also, it may help you to know that plenty of people have flatmates like this, and just because you can't get along well with these types of people it doesn't mean you're not capable of making great friends on your course or with other people at the university. 

Goodbye for now!