Every type of housemate you’ll live with in Nottingham

Which one are you?

10 years ago

Sara Les | Brands

So, you’re in second year. You’ve made it through the obligatory Freshers’ and have found yourself washed up on the other side. You’ve escaped the hell of Rutland where you were piled into sub-par rooms with a bunch of random people you had nothing in common with. Now you’re free to choose where you’re living and more importantly who you’re living with.

But as Zygmunt Bauman once said: “Freedom is the illusion of an imprisoned mind.”

Human variety is also limited, and you will therefore end up living with a combination of the same types of people as everyone else – it’s inevitable. Here’s a handy guide so you can spot them.

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The Karni Promoter

Illustration by Morgan Harries

Cut from the same cloth as your everyday club reps but by no means the same, these guys take promoting to the next level.

Living with a Karni promoter means you’re living with the most popular kid on campus, and some of their cool is bound to rub off on you. All the initiations and bar crawls mean that your house will always be full, so you no longer need to go out to find the party.

You’ll have to go to all of their club events to be a good friend and although this will seem like the best thing ever at the start of term, spending every night in Crisis or Stealth will eventually drive you mad. Get ready for you average weekly alcohol consumption to treble.

They’re super sociable and always up for a good time, but you can’t help but wonder if there’s a hollowness behind their eyes that they hide with the endless LED light shows.

The Surrey Girl

Illustration by Morgan Harries

She rolled up to Lenton & Wortley on the first day in her brand new mini convertible and her life has pretty much continued on that level from there.

She went to Nottingham because it’s easily accessible via the A1 and there are a high proportion of ensuite rooms available in first year.

She’s the adventurous one of her home friends, because for them Nottingham is basically the North, and she was very brave to come all the way up here.

Her room is filled with lacrosse sticks, yoga pants and Nike trainers that somehow always manage to look brand new. You are envious of everything she owns, but also know that if you had any of this stuff you’d ruin it instantly. Her offers to let you borrow her things therefore fill you with a mix of joy and absolute fear.

She goes through life as if it’s something enjoyable rather than the soul-crushing, dream-destroying schlep that the rest of us know it as. She’s always well-dressed, always looking good, always smelling great.

You resent her for all of this, but she always lets you get in on her Ocado orders, so you’re great friends.

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The Varsity player

Illustration by Morgan Harries

Wheyyy Varsity.

Do you know they play for Varsity? Of course you do, because they’re always telling you – although you could have guessed from all the stash they’re wearing.

Their life is a hedonistic blur of gym sessions, nights out and powder – protein powder. Their room is a disgusting pit filled with sweaty sports clothes piled on every surface, but they’re never around to clean it because they’re too busy pounding weights at the gym.

They always cook family sized meals and eat it all because they’re “bulking”. Amazingly they never get fat and you have to sit there eating your lentil dahl, tasting the earthy mush that is somehow both too dry and too wet, while they pile their plate with delicious bacon and carbs without worrying about the consequences.

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The Arts Student

Illustration by Morgan Harries

Despite their reputation for cultural snobbishness and pretentious speeches, arts students make great housemates because they’re always around and so bored they’ll agree to do anything.

Need a partner for your morning jog round Uni Park lake? They’re around! Want someone to go for lunch with? They’re free. Fancy seeing that play tonight but have no one to go with? Guess what – they can come. And you can be certain they’ll be with you on every Ocean night out because they never have to be up before 12.

With less than 10 contact hours a week arts students have to find alternative ways of filling their days, so don’t be surprised if you come home to freshly baked cookies or a living room decorated for Christmas in October.

The Medic

Illustration by Morgan Harries

You can hardly call it living with them since they’ll never be in the house, but this is a key group of people you’ll occasionally bump into in Nottingham.

They’re clean, they’re efficient, they’re great with paper cuts.

You have to be careful coming home after a night out because you might get a tirade of anger from them, complaining how inconsiderate you are and how they have to be up at 6am for their lectures tomorrow. Their degree is more important than yours.

However, when they go hard boy do they go hard. Forget anything you ever knew about alcohol units and limits, it all goes out the window when the medics are on the lash. They’ll still be out when you wake up the next morning, but the evidence of their mental night will be all over the house in the form of biology themed shot glasses.

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The one from Derby

Illustration by Morgan Harries

You’re thinking – Derby? Derby’s just down the road from Nottingham. Actually you’re more likely thinking where on earth is Derby, but assuming you have heard of it you’ll be wondering why anyone from there would go to Nottingham. You might as well stay at home.

And you’re right – they might as well stay at home.

They only hang out with each other, forming packs of Millets sweater wearers or sometimes pairing off into Gogglebox watching couples that will eventually move back to Derby, settle down in a nice two bed and breed more boring, boring children.

They are the most unadventurous, uninspiring people you will ever meet. They define vanilla.

Occasionally their voice wheedles into your conversation, and it takes you a couple of seconds to recover from the surprise that they’ve actually spoken. Once the initial excitement wears off however you realise that what they said was so heartbreakingly banal that they might as well not have spoken at all. Ever.

They fill their time doing the simpler things: watching TV, writing letters home and cooking. They can spend hours making dinner, taking over the shared kitchen all night and talking about how funny it is they’re spending so long in the kitchen.

But you don’t complain because they’ll occasionally take pity on your Tesco value tortellini and give you a slice of their nutritious vegetarian lasagne.

The Antisocial Ghost

Illustration by Morgan Harries

You think you live with them but you can’t be sure.

You haven’t seen them in weeks and their kitchen shelves seem untouched, but the occasional patter of feet on the landing assures you they do in fact exist.

Every now and then you make the trip up to their room, which is inevitably the one at the furthest end of the house, and tentatively knock on their door. Nine times out of ten there will be no answer and you can retreat back downstairs, safe in the knowledge that you at least tried.

The one time out of ten they actually answer the door you’ll be filled with a sense of excitement and dread akin to Indiana Jones opening the Lost Ark. But when they do finally get to the door there will be no face-melting for you, only your very ordinary housemate asking what you’ve interrupted their nap for. You realise that you only checked on them because a small part of you hoped they might be dead.

Every type of housemate you’ll live with in Nottingham

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