9 recognizable irritations when you have housemates

Sometimes I can intensely long for those carefree student days. Every day three hours in the lecture halls and then immediately diving back into your nest, because in the evening you had to of course go out again. Such an evening started with a delicious frozen pizza and ended back in the kitchen with a toast and milk. That ritual actually repeated itself daily. What a life, huh?

Well, I really don't miss everything from that time and I shouldn't think about sharing my house with housemates anymore. Despite the fact that I lived with my best friends (whom I actually don't even want to call ‘housemates’), I wouldn't trade the following irritations for gold:

1. Stealing each other's food
You had been looking forward to those noodles for the entire lecture, knowing you had one pack left. But once home, the worst thing that could happen occurred: you opened your cupboard and found an empty shelf. Someone had just eaten your noodles. I was totally guilty of this too: when I came home hungry and had nothing left, I would eat all the supplies without guilt. That was just part of it. Still, it was incredibly annoying when you were the victim of this.

2. Having a different rhythm
One housemate had classes in the early hours, while you had them at the end of the afternoon. All those different rhythms could cause quite a bit of irritation, especially when you had worked all evening (part-time jobs in the hospitality industry were also part of it) and were woken up early in the morning by your housemate who was making noise getting ready in the bathroom. There you were, wide awake after just five hours of sleep.

3. Sharing the shower and bathroom
Speaking of getting ready: that shared bathroom was also a bit of a thing, especially when the household consists of four women. Despite the different rhythms, it somehow always happened that everyone wanted to use the bathroom at the same time. This was especially the case in the evening when we had to wash our hair, blow-dry it, and do our makeup. Then it was really a battle for the bathroom.

4. Shared groceries
We almost never did shared groceries, which meant that there were always crucial products missing like toilet paper and dish soap. Somehow, it was always the same people who would buy these things every now and then. I won't name names, but you understand that this caused quite a bit of irritation.

5. Cleaning
Cleaning also went very awkwardly, of course. When you decided to scrub one day, it was only a few hours later that it was already a gigantic mess again. And after a house party, you never wanted to come home again. At one point, we decided to hire a cleaner, who came every two weeks. I still feel guilty that we did this to him. What a filthy mess.

6. When someone got a lover, you suddenly had an extra housemate
As soon as one of your housemates had a fling, it could happen that that fling suddenly sat on your couch every day for weeks. Well, nobody was waiting for that. These flings had no sense of boundaries, so you just hoped this phase would pass quickly.

7. Those life-threatening piles of empty drink bottles
Don't count on anyone walking to the glass bin, so that pile of empty drink bottles grew larger by the day. At one point, it was so bad that you couldn't use half of the living room anymore and regularly tripped over it. Well, anything was better than a walk to the glass bin.

8. The washing machine that always seemed occupied
Just like the bathroom, the washing machine always seemed occupied. When you tried to change your bed (like a real adult), there were always clothes from your housemate in it. In the worst case, they would stay in there for days, creating a smell that made you utterly unhappy. Then you had to wait another week with that duvet.

9. Lending something and never getting it back
Exchanging clothes with your housemates was of course fantastic, because suddenly you had a few extra closets at your disposal. This way, you didn't have to wear the same thing to the club every night; much more pleasant. However, there was one major downside: mysteriously, some clothing items disappeared without a trace. You would be quite upset, especially if it was your favorite top. Even after moving, I never saw several clothing items again. Ah, those tacky crop tops are probably somewhere at home with someone's old fling.