Hi! Welcome to our home. Bins are Tuesday night and rent is due on Fridays. Here are some other easy peasy rules for living in our share house.
1. Unfortunately, something is not either "clean" or "not clean". Infinite levels exist between these two states, and the likelihood that your concept of "clean" will line up with your roommate's concept of "clean" is one point of one per cent.
2. If your roommate is in their room with the door shut, they may as well be dead. The only channel of communication open to you in this instance is the text message. Knocking is the highest insult to a closed door. Appreciate this unspoken rule.
3. You learn the true meaning of the phrase "no one owes you anything in life" when you find your clean washing in a cold wet heap on the laundry floor next to a humming washing machine full of your roommate's load.
4. Never, ever, move in with a musician unless you somehow have the foresight to invest in soundproofing.
5. If you leave unwashed pots in the sink from your dinner preparation, your washing-up interest compounds. Other people can't wash up their plates because the sink is blocked, so they stack their plates on top of yours. You are now contractually bound to wash the lot. You may be late on credit card repayments, but you'll never miss paying your debt to the kitchen sink again.
6. All sex must be silent. There is an acute desperation and claustrophobia associated with waking up to the sounds of sex coming from the next room and being sentenced to lie awake for hours, listening to thumping.
7. The real estate agent provides the tenant one simple service - to test your capacity for total misery. Never fall for the rouse of them being your friend. They will reinforce your lowly place by putting off repairs for as long as possible, returning your phone calls a full 72 hours later etc. Let this humble you.
8. Observing your roommate's mouldy food in your fridge is great way to generate pent up rage for your next exercise class.
9. Never cross the unspoken line of hooking up with a roommate. That friend of a friend of yours who did it and is now married with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever? Urban myth. Didn't happen. There is no good to come of it. If it's good, you'll want to keep doing it. If it's bad, you just hooked up with your roommate.
10. You will always feel as if you do the majority of the cleaning. This is because you probably had your filth cleaned your entire life by your wonderful mother, who you increasingly realise you owe two decades of unpaid labour wages to. Let this humble you.
And remember, above all else, your roommates are not your friend if it means sacrificing their happiness for yours. They can and will turn on you like a pack of hungry wolves if your runners stink up the bathroom.
Face it. You have no friends in that house. Only precarious allies.
