Lockdown has not been kind to my roomie. She has always been a bit lazy, but now, given the excuse not to exercise or go outside, she spends every hour she’s not working sat in one spot on the sofa, normally snacking.

She tells us she is not happy and wants to lose weight and that we “need” to help her. We are happy to help. 

So far, by her request:

We’ve removed all of our snacks from the communal kitchen and then the alcohol; this doesn’t work. We’ve started to make an extra portion of any healthy food we made for ourselves; she won’t eat it. We’ve invited her to join in our running and workout apps and DVDs; she can’t be bothered. We’ve discouraged her when she wanted takeaway, etc.; she just gets angry.

After a few months, we are all fed up with her and ready to give up on her. I go to talk to her one more time and find her sulking into a tub of ice cream. 

Roommate: “Why is it so hard to lose weight? I’ve tried everything!”

You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. She keeps complaining and sulking but we tune her out.

I am not deaf, but my mother is. Both she and my hearing father taught me sign language from an early age. When I start university, [Housemate #1] finds this out, and I teach her some basic signs.

About a month into the first term, [Housemate #2] comes running up to me after I get home late.

Housemate #2: “[My Name]! I heard from [Housemate #1] that you’ve been teaching her IBS!

Me: *Very tired* “I’m… sorry?”

Housemate #2: “Could you teach me some? I’m a quick learner!”

Me: “Teach you some…”

Housemate #2: “IBS!”

Me: “I don’t… What?”

[Housemate #2] is getting steadily more irritated.

Housemate #2: “IBS! I-B-S! I… B… SSSSS!”

[Housemate #1] comes racing down the hallway toward us.

Housemate #1: “BSL! SHE MEANS BSL!”

Housemate #2: “Wait… What was I saying?”

She actually ended up being quite a quick learner, as promised, and when my parents visited, she was able to talk to my mum quite well! I still sometimes tease her by asking her if she’s practiced her IBS.

I’m a university student sharing an apartment with two other people. Despite the health emergency, my flatmates have decided to keep inviting people over for the night, albeit at specific four-person schedules. Aside from not being too keen on their behaviour right now, I usually don’t mind it too much, as we eat at different times and they take care of aerating places and wiping things down after all is said and done.

I go to bed rather early on a night when someone’s been invited over. The morning after, as I wake up, I feel something blocking me from rolling over. Startled, I look to my side and see a person curled up next to me.

Me: “Holy f***, who the h*** are you?” 

I hear a groan.

Girl: “Don’t be so loud. I have a headache.”

Me: “I’m going to give you more than a headache if you don’t get off the bed!”

The girl groans again as she slowly sits up and massages her head. At this point, a foul smell hits me, so I crane my neck over to the other side and see there’s a puddle of vomit on the floor and some of it splashed on my sports clothing.

Me: “That’s nasty.”

Girl: “Look, man, I was drunk, and now I’m hungover. Just let me get out of here. I need to get back home before my parents rip off my arms.”

Me: “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and who let you in my room, and you help me clean up.”

She sighs and gives out a pained moan.

Girl: “Ugh, and here I thought you were chiller than this. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to [Bad Flatmate].”

My eyes go wide open. I get up, put on my slippers, and furiously bang on [Bad Flatmate]’s door.

Bad Flatmate: “Jesus f***, mate, calm down. What’s the deal with you?!”

Me: “What’s my deal? What’s your deal?! Why is there a girl in my bed and why did you let her in?”

Bad Flatmate: *Annoyed, opening the door* “Because she came here by car and was drunk. We didn’t have enough room in the living room, so we figured you wouldn’t mind if—”

Me: “When did I say you could enter my room to give a bed to random people?!”

Bad Flatmate: “What, did you want to have a dead girl on your conscience? She couldn’t drive!”

Me: *Gritting my teeth* “You shouldn’t bring people home to hold parties, yet here we are, with a hungover girl that shouldn’t be here vomiting on my clothes while sleeping in my bed, when I didn’t ask or explicitly allow it, because of you, you f****** moron.”

Bad Flatmate: “You’re a little b****, you know that? Y’know what, fine. I’ll help you clean up if that’ll shut you up.”

By the time he agreed to help me clean, the girl was already gone. I think I’m going to need to invest in a new lock.

Back in my university days, I have three extremely immature housemates. The worst part about living with them is them constantly throwing tantrums, or worse, breaking things. For example, one day, I come home to find them randomly punching holes in a bedroom door because “it’s funny!” We are clearly on our landlord’s bad list and there is little chance of getting any deposit back.

One morning, I come downstairs to the living room and see a huge greasy stain on the wall. Instantly, I’m confused as to why the h*** that is there. One of my housemates is there watching TV, so I decide to ask.

Me: “Err… why is there a huge stain on the wall?”

Housemate: “Oh, yeah, I bought a burger last night and I didn’t like it, so I threw it at the wall!”

Sadly, I’m not shocked by this, as they are literally so immature that this has become normal behaviour.

Me: “Why didn’t you just throw it in the bin?”

Housemate: “Because I didn’t like it!”

Me: “Really? That’s your excuse? The bin is literally two metres away. You couldn’t have thrown it away like a normal person?”

Housemate: “I DIDN’T LIKE IT!”

At this point, I gave up having any kind of rational discussion with him and just walked away. Thankfully, I’m not in contact with a single one of them anymore. Also, no, we didn’t get our deposit back!

A lot of people don’t realise how laidback Aussies can be, and when it comes to tradies (tradespeople), a lot of foreign friends look shocked at some stories. For us, it’s almost like meeting new mates in the pub when tradies are called in for backyard work. It’s raw entertainment; you learn new skills and you meet some of the best humoured people that way.

Two of my housemates are hanging out on the back patio debating checking out a new movie that had recently dropped, looking up session times on their smartphones. Halfway through the ticket ordering process, a tall, well-built tradie leans over the back fence. This fence isn’t short by any means, so the tradie is huge! He calls out to my housemates in a strong Russian accent, letting them know they’re about to bring a rotting tree down on the fence line.

No worries. My housemates offer assistance and the tradie laughs politely.

Tradie: “Nah, ve should have this vun easy. Thanks, though, sorry for noise!”

My housemates go back to ordering their tickets.

Housemate #2: “So, we have a time now. Where did you want to sit? I usually go for the middle back but I’m happy to sit anywhere. I know your glasses might make being under the projector a little… Hey, [Housemate #1], you okay?”

Housemate #1: “Hmm? Oh, sorry. I just have a feeling we should hold off for a bit.”

[Housemate #1] stares intently at the back fence, the roar of a chainsaw coming from the other side. [Housemate #2] shrugs and starts scrolling on social media, looking up intermittently to see that [Housemate #1] is still fixated on the back fence.

Housemate #2: “You worried about leaving while the neighbour’s tree is being dropped?”

Housemate #1: “Not really. Our fence could do with replacing. I’m kinda hoping it falls wrong.”

Housemate #2: *Laughs* “Yeah. I doubt we will be so lucky, though; those guys seem to know what they’re doing.”

[Housemate #1] just huffs in agreement. We have a really non-active real estate and things have to be either totally dead or dangerous for them to act on any repair orders. Having a tree fall on the patchy, rotted-out, half-fallen-over-already fence would be like winning the lottery.

About twenty minutes later, [Housemate #1] is losing hope and pulls up the tickets on their phone again, hovering over the buy button when [Housemate #2] starts excitedly tapping her arm and points at the top of the tree being removed. It’s starting to tilt, but not in the direction it should be.

[Housemate #1] drops the phone and starts chanting quietly.

Housemate #1: “Let it fall, let it fall, let it fall…”

[Housemate #2] joins, and they start chanting louder and louder until a startled cry goes up from the neighbours’ side.

Tradie: “SCATTER!”

The tree collapses with an almighty crash, right on top of the dilapidated fence. My housemates both let out a loud cheer, [Housemate #1] even flinging her coffee mug up in a concert salute.

(People drinking at concerts tend to do this a LOT in Australia, so if you’re near someone with a drink in-hand and the band announces an album hit coming up next, you find another location to stand if you want to avoid the splash zone.)

So now, both housemates are covered in cold coffee, [Housemate #1] is still cheering while [Housemate #2] is tangled in their chair from trying to dodge the downpour, the neighbours to our right’s dog is going ballistic, and a couple of screams come from the house on our other side.

Silence descends for a second or two, and then the huge Russian tradie appears over the ruins of the fence, scratching his head and looking rather sheepish.

Tradie: “Ve thought ve vere strong; ve vere wrong.”

The real estate replaced the fence, my housemates never got round to seeing their movie, the neighbour’s were horrified, and the property manager was subjected to repeated, terrible attempts at the tradie’s one-liners during the damages appraisal and incident report.

That was the fastest repair order to ever be done on that house.

Related:
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Boris Delivers When Boris Feels Like It
Boris Can See Through You
Boris Now Fights Scammers
Leave The Accents To Boris
Boris Need No Warranty; Boris IS Warranty!

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