Until we find that special someone, most of us are more or less guaranteed to live with people. If you have friends, shared living is quite easy. It might even be enjoyable. However, if you are more of an individual with a wider palette of acquaintances, or just a complete misanthrope, you are plunged into semi-familiarity with some random cohabitors. Even most bedsits and ‘studios’ share bathrooms and kitchens.
For most of us the answer is quite simple- get rich or get hitched. Leaving London just won’t do.
The Washing Machine
Most of the time it’s empty- until you need it. Your kitchen is too small for a basket so you can’t really interfere with the finished load in there. But leave your load in just a while because it finished while you were out in town and you are guaranteed to find your’s dumped on top or bagged up with accompanying complaint.
“Noise”
If you are single, the sound of passion from next door or across the corridor reminds you just how empty your bed feels. Of course most of us don’t realise quite how agreeable that is until we miss it and are clamping the duvet to our side. Nevertheless, the warm embrace of a loved one, or just a cold hearted union out of desperation and mutual benefit, is something we all desire. Also, they woke you up. It is especially entertaining when the signs of another inhabitant, such as more door slams and tea making, don’t seem to appear. Oh the wonder of the internet…
Reverse the situation, and one is likely to receive all manner of notes, knocks and fatigued-eyed looks. One housemate works from home, another goes to bed at eight. You’re going to piss someone off.
Failed Aspirations
How many films have you seen of the batchelor/ette lifestyle, city living in a sleek apartment? Instead you’re microwaving noodles because you couldn’t be arsed to clean a pan, and your room is back through three firedoors. You feel blessed if your shared living is in Zone 2 and vaguely near a tube station.
Waste Disposal
Bathroom bins and kitchen bins are everyone’s business- and therefore no-one’s business. Additionally, the outside bins are.. outside. Down two flights of stairs. Recycling? Put it this way- two hands, three tins, a crapload of paper and a bag of food waste. A front door and lids to every bin with your hands more than full. It’s raining. Food waste can’t be bagged. You dump it all in the landfill which you open with your elbow. Screw the polar bears.
Kitchen Standards
So there’s some peelings left out, so what? Maybe you’ve stacked up a few week’s worth of tins to take down to the recycling bin at some point. These are small concerns compared to, say, a pig’s head left rotting by the nutribullet. Not all share this philosophy, however, and will respond accordingly. Not by taking the actions to quell their personal preferences but to complain to the rest of the household. Don’t even mention it- I provide you with bog roll. We’re busy people. With so many London residences carpeted with rat traps, any intruders will not last long before they take some tainted bait.
Friends Elsewhere
Your cousin in Manchester is 25 and owns a house. In fact, they have a lodger. They can pay their mortgage with loose change. Their boring life actually sounds quite agreeable given thoughts of armchairs by a fire with lofty ceilings and chandeliers, while you go out multiple times a week just so you don’t get cabin fever in your shoebox.
A friend from school has moved in with his girlfriend in Reading. How nice. You are shocked that his rent is the same as yours, has Crossrail had that much impact? No wait, that’s what they pay together… you nob.
The Bog Roll Dilemma
You buy it and it goes. So you sit it out (no pun intended). Are these people even vaguely regular? Or do they carry a private stash they only use when your communal one is out? Eventually the price of white label seems not worth worrying about.
Especially as you feel getting caught short with a long walk to the local cafe rather outweighs the value of making a point. But still, chip in 50p each and we could get fancy stuff?
The post Things You Hate About Shared Living appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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