Flat sharing can be a nightmare,

October 1, 2002 3:10 PM

Flat sharing can be a nightmare, but 'The Spectator' offers some handy hints: "You will most certainly have to live with bits of shaved beard in the sink, and probably not be able to use the bathroom at all on Sundays. Another advantage to female flatmates is that they usually know what cleaning liquid, cloths and bleach all do, and why they are in the bathroom in the first place."
posted by feelinglistless (11 comments total)

Much like being married, save that it requires even more diplomacy in case of crisis...
posted by nick.a at 3:17 PM on October 1, 2002

LOL! I read the title as 'File Sharing can be a nightmare'. Needless to say I was thoroughly confused about halfway through the paragraph.
posted by antidigerati at 3:28 PM on October 1, 2002

Another advantage to female flatmates is that they usually know what cleaning liquid, cloths and bleach all do, and why they are in the bathroom in the first place.

Not my former roommate. The ring around her tub was enough to make you want to slap your granny. Icky.
posted by ChrisTN at 4:54 PM on October 1, 2002

I've had the world's worst luck at having what we Americans call a roommate. Out of eight different roommates, I have not had a single one that was the least bit normal. And when every single one has moved out, they have always stolen something.

The latest stole all of my dishes.
posted by mychai at 5:22 PM on October 1, 2002

Sure sounds hard to find a good room-mate. I'm in the market for one right now. It would be best to have a friend or a friend-of-a-friend as room-mate of course, but I've checked and pretty much everyone has roof over their heads already. Any thoughts on how to find one, without putting an ad somewhere and getting all the weirdos?
posted by Triplanetary at 5:29 PM on October 1, 2002

Don't room with good friends. It's a great way to kill a friendship -- by throwing rent payments into the middle of things.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:15 PM on October 1, 2002

My college-age daughter had a variety of roommates during her undergrad years, which made me smile as I read this. She and her first & second-year dorm-mate are still friends - got along famously and shared houses with others later on. Junior year she shared a house with this roommie and 4 other girls, and couldn't wait till the school year was over - seemed the problem was with the anal tendencies of 1 girl, who was a "cleaner" while the others were more relaxed in their housekeeping approach. Out of the frying pan and into the fire became her senior year nightmare, with 3 girls and 2 guys. The guys never went to class, sat around and played their guitars and had loud company over at all hours, even during finals time. One guy "discovered sex" apparently, with his first-ever girlfriend. How did the others know that? She was a screamer. And they were together, er, often.
posted by Lynsey at 6:53 PM on October 1, 2002

Roommates suck. British people call them flatmates. Wow.

Can somebody explain why this is on metafilter?
posted by zpousman at 7:41 PM on October 1, 2002

Can somebody explain why this is on metafilter?

All human life is here. Tally-ho.
posted by feelinglistless at 11:40 PM on October 1, 2002

Don't room with good friends. It's a great way to kill a friendship -- by throwing rent payments into the middle of things.

That's not a problem if both of you can actually afford the rent. What put strain on the only rooming situation I've ever been in was simply the reduced space. There wasn't enough room to unpack all my stuff and what space there was got cluttered up very rapidly -- more than twice as rapidly, it seemed like. I don't require a spotless house and neither did my roomie, but both of us were shocked at how quickly our surroundings went to hell even after an all-weekend cleanup effort.
posted by kindall at 8:07 AM on October 2, 2002

New MeFi Tagline: All human life is here. Tally-ho.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 12:07 PM on October 2, 2002