Student houses are notoriously dirty and loud. It’s no different during the pandemic, other than having even more time to get triggered by the cleanliness of your flatmates.
Living with your mates is all fun and games for the first week when you’re high on the buzz of moving in together, decorating your room and finally settling down to Netflix binges, all crowded round a single Macbook laptop. Ahh, perfect. Crack open a beer.
Then, as time goes on you begin to realise that living with your friends is very different to seeing them through virtual lectures. You’ll struggle to do your dishes as plates pile up high, you’ll get the munchies at night for no apparent reason and you’ll find yourself arguing with your besties. But hey ho, it happens to the best of us and it’s a learning curve. Here are the main reasons living in a student house is very different to halls, and here’s the ultimate list of what you can look forward to:
1. The musician who doesn’t respect your precious beauty sleep
Of course, there’s always a musician in the group who will decide it’s their time to get musical past midnight. Just pray they take the basement room where the sound won’t be able to travel as far.
2. Disappearing food
Without locks on your cupboards and barely enough fridge space for an open tin of Heinz beans, you’ll find that food goes missing on the regular. But, you can get even by nabbing something of theirs too, so it’s not all bad.
3. Expensive bills
There’s always one flatmate who will invite their boyfriend or girlfriend over constantly (or maybe move them in for the entirety of lockdown, eek). At first, you won’t care, but then you’ll realise that they’re not contributing to the bills or rent, and they will soon become an unwanted guest. Awkward to remove them though, bonus points if you can.
4. Your standards slip
It’ll soon become apparent how your mates are used to living at home - the one with the butler doesn’t even know how to clean a toilet, and the perfectionist is used to doing it all and can’t stand it being anything but spotless. But, over time you learn to live with the grossness of being a student.
5. You’ll hear things
And you’ll get used to it. Moving on…
6. The internet will cut out
If you’re in a big student house with eight others, then the likelihood is that even the best fibre optic broadband isn’t going to cut it with all your online university courses. Avoid arguments by buying wifi boosters.
7. Time spent together
You actually won’t hang out as much as you thought. This is a weird one, but turns out when you live with your friends you sort of end up making less effort to actually hang out. Unless you’re still in lockdown, in which case they will become your family.
8. Moving out
When it comes to choosing your next digs, you’ll all have grown up a year and want different things. Some will want to live further away from university and some will want car parking spaces or bigger rooms. There will be arguments, but in the end it’ll strengthen your friendship.
All in all, who you live with can really define your year. Being a student and living in a student house is a rite of passage, despite all the mess and arguments it might bring with it.
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