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4 Types of housemate – and how to deal with them

Moving into a student house and living with your mates sound like the best thing ever right? It is – for the most part. If you’re moving from catered halls or just living with a completely different set of people than your flat mates there’s a few learning curves you’ll have to navigate. As a little heads up here’s four types of housemate you may encounter and a few tips on how to keep the peace.

The clean freak vs the messy one

Some people argue there’s a spectrum to student tidying habits but in reality you’re only ever the clean one or the messy one. This is something that’s sure to split your household in two. For those of a clean persuasion the thought of leaving a bowl to soak overnight, cluttering the sink, is the ultimate sin. The messier housemates will either take no notice of such an overreaction or claim ‘it will be extra clean after a soak’. Which may be true after an hour, but four days down the line with a nice colony of mould established? Not so clean.

Top Tip: As a house decide on a cleaning schedule to suit everyone. You might also want to put dishwasher to the top of your list of house hunting criteria.

The borrower

However slight it may be, every household has a borrower. Familiar quotes will sound a little like ‘can I borrow that necklace?’…’can I borrow a splash of orange juice?’…’you don’t mind if I borrow last weeks seminar notes do you?’ All too often you’ll find yourself answering yeah sure only to realise halfway through the year you’ve funded their orange juice addiction. More often than not there’s a lack of repayment or even return – their excuse? forgetfulness. It’s hard to be mad at them though, it seems to be a programmed character trait at this point.

Top Tip: If they’re borrowing from you simply borrow back! You’re much more likely to get your favourite jumper back if you’re in possession of their favourite skirt right!?

The one in a relationship

So you sign up to your four bed house and suddenly there’s five tenants!? You wonder how could you possibly have miscounted, uni’s hard but not that hard. Turns out the (almost) permanent extra resident is your housemates s/o – mystery solved. The one in the relationship is relatively untroublesome but getting home to witness 24/7 PDA is something you could do without. Chances are this housemate was one of your best friends in first year but now you’ve been replaced and you can’t help but feel a little bitter. ‘Do they really have to spend every waking hour together?’ you’ll ask yourself over and over again. The reality is their relationship is completely harmless, you just miss your best friend.

Top Tip: Suggest having a house movie night or house meal every now and then – invitation being strictly rent-payers only! That way you’ll get to spend time with your housemate, inappropriate PDA free.

There’s many more housemate tendencies to be tolerant of and you’re sure to find out what they are, for better or for worse. It’s important to remember that you’re not innocent in all this either. The only way to have a peaceful household is compromise, compromise, compromise…

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