Housemate icks are real and these 22 examples will make you want to live alone forever

No. 3: When they pretend not to hear the doorbell

3 years ago

It is an unfortunate fact of life that we all have to live with housemates. Like it or not, when you come to uni you’re just arbitrarily shoved into a small, smelly space (with no windows, if you’re really lucky) with six other equally clueless people, and forced to live together for at least a year. Everyone has a housemate horror story, but what we need to talk more about is all the everyday icks your housemates give you.

If you don’t know what an ick is, it’s basically that feeling of mild horror and disgust that shudders through you when someone does something – it’s often something everyday and quite petty. Icks usually come from people we’re dating or in relationships with, but your housemate and even your mum can give you the ick, too.

Now here are 22 housemate icks that will make you want to move out right now:

1. When you overhear them phoning home and calling their parents ‘mummy and daddy’

This will absolutely never fail to make you shudder.

2. When they get you to transfer them for literally everything

Do you really need me to give you 12p for that clove of garlic I used last Thursday, Chloe? Do you really?

3. When they pretend not to hear the doorbell

Look Emily, I know you’re annoyed you got stuck with the downstairs room but you don’t need to remind me of it every single time I have an ASOS order on the way – now I have no nice top to wear on my night out.

4. That walk of shame they do to the kitchen with all their mugs

You have not known horror until you see a grown man walking down the stairs, trying to balance what is essentially the Leaning Tower of Pisa made solely from mouldy mugs.

5. When they sit and eat an entire pack of ham at once

This is something I have had the misfortune of witnessing no less than three times in my life, and each one was even more horrific than the last.

6. Speaking of ham, when you have to witness them eating any of the following:

Monster Munch; any form of egg (but especially boiled); dipping anything in mayo or salad cream; spaghetti hoops; fig rolls.

7. Or – the horror – when they lick their plate at the end of their meal

Getting the last dregs of sauce up with their finger is gross, but potentially acceptable. Full-on picking up their plate and licking it clean? Ick ick ick. My body has gone cold at the thought.

8. When they put used teabags in a bowl

Rather than, you know, putting them in the actual bin, you for some reason end up with a bowl full of squashed, cold, dried-up tea bags.

9. And while we’re still on kitchen icks: When they don’t wash the sides or bottoms of their pans

Why, god why?

10. When they can’t deal with any silence and have to talk the entire way through whatever you’re watching

I just want to watch Bake Off in peace, Lola, I don’t need to hear about every single thing you did in the library today.

11. When their friends from home come and suddenly you’re living with a stranger

They literally transform into someone completely different. Sorry Tom but I have quite literally never seen this version of you before. Why have you put on a posh accent? And why are you suddenly interested in brand new things – I’ve never heard you talk about cricket in my entire life?

12. When you get in the shower after them, only to be greeted by clumps of hair all over the wall

I mean, at least it’s not clogging up the shower drain, but come on guys.

13. And then you open the toilet, only to be greeted by some … very suspicious hair all over the bowl

I don’t even need to say anything else.

14. Or even worse, when you find it in the actual sink

Brb, bleaching my eyeballs in the hopes I erase that from my memory forever.

15. And arguably the only thing worse than hair in the sink – when they’re sick in the sink

Sick in the shower, sick down the back of the radiator, sick literally anywhere other than the actual toilet, which they are undoubtedly sat right next to.

16. When they never take their key with them

Cue violently ringing the door bell at 3am and text #571 to the house chat: “Heyyy guys! I’m locked out again sorry!! Is anyone still up xx”

17. When they force the cleaning rota on you

Look, the cleaning rota is a time-honoured tradition. I know this, you know this, the Queen herself knows this. But, and I cannot stress this enough, nothing will make you want to clean less than when your housemate decides to become a walking ick and send you pass agg reminders that it’s your week to do the stairs. I KNOW, LILY.

18. When they never shut up about being the house mum

At the start of the year, one housemate will declare themselves “the house mum” and quite literally never stop talking about it, despite the fact that they don’t do anything mum-sy other than annoy the shit out of everyone. This is inevitably the same person as the cleaning rota enforcer.

19. When their boyfriend all but moves in and you can no longer do anything in peace

I just want to be able to get to the toaster, and now there’s a MAN in the way because you two are insisting on cooking together whilst holding hands.