Canon events every Fresher experiences in their first year kitchen

Moving into first year uni accommodation? After a lifetime at home, it is completely normal to feel nervous and excited about living with a group of strangers. 

Here are the ultimate kitchen canon events guaranteed to happen in your first year, and how to survive them.

The inevitable flat party

Will your flatmates end up being best mates, bitter enemies, or just people who aggressively avoid eye contact? You will probably find out during the first flat party.

Even if excessive drinking isn’t your thing, get involved and get to know your flatmates. Sitting in your room only guarantees maximum awkwardness when trying to make a cup of tea the next morning.

Ring of Fire the classic drinking game, but anything with dares or Never Have I Ever will also help you get to know each other. Just be sure to set boundaries and know it’s okay to refuse a dare: you really don’t have to eat that teabag x

Overflowing bins

A rubbish situation to be in, but it’s inevitable, the bins will overflow. If you’re fortunate enough to live in halls where the bins are taken out weekly by the cleaner, this won’t be as common. When it’s up to one of you students to do it? Good luck.

No one wants to take the bins out, especially when feeling like you’re the only person who has touched a bin bag all semester. Who will break first when the pile reaches terrifying heights? Save the drama and establish a strict bin rota during week one.

Food blocking the sink

Washing up leads to floating mystery food chunks. Option 1: Get it out. Option 2: Hope the water pushes it down.

Leaving soggy food scraps not only risks blocked drains (which stinks), but gives your flatmates a free pass to do the same. Before long, the sink is full of murky, questionable water and someone has to sacrifice their bare hands to unblock it. To make it easier, just clean up after yourself and wipe plates straight into the bin before washing up. Hopefully, your flatmates will do the same.

An overload of plates

Most halls, unfortunately, lack a dishwasher. So yes, you’ll have to do your own washing up. 

This usually goes one of two ways: either dishes are left to fester in the sink until there is no physical room left to fill a glass of water, or clean plates are left on the drying rack forever. When everyone owns the same £10 IKEA starter set, no one knows whose bowl is whose and the drying rack becomes a ghost town that everyone is scared to touch.

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My advice? Wash up promptly, dry the dishes, and put them away.

Spillages

Accidents happen, usually during a chaotic pre-drinks or a botched attempt at carrying three plates at once. But don’t just leave the mess for the cleaner to sort in a few days, or if you don’t have a cleaner don’t leave it to linger.

Get it sorted. Grab some surface cleaner and kitchen roll and tackle it instantly. Dried-on hob grease from three weeks ago is a nightmare to scrub off.

Blatant food theft

At some point, half a block of cheddar or a splash of milk will vanish. Sure, identical milk bottles mean it might be an honest mistake. But a missing Tesco Finest pizza? Entirely calculated crime.

To prevent fridge wars, allocate each flatmate a shelf or a part of a fridge’s shelf and a freezer drawer. Many halls use cupboards allocated to your room number, making it easier to know your space. If not, arrange early which space belongs to who to avoid the disappointment of a stolen dinner.

Worst case? Label your food.

Mystery messes

Exploded microwave curry, rogue rice on the floor, mysterious sticky patches on the counter. Shared kitchens breed random mess. Perhaps you forgot to put a plate over your meal. Or maybe you just microwaved some cream (?) and forgot about it. 

The hob can also get messy depending on what you cook. And messes occur anywhere, thanks to spillages or just stuff not being thrown away.

Just be considerate and leave the space as it was found (hopefully not disgusting).

Moving into uni flats can be challenging, especially with messy flatmates. It can be infuriating, but be the considerate one and get to know them because if you get on with them, maybe these strangers might just turn into flatmates for the rest of uni.