Why you shouldn’t move in with your best friends at uni

Sleepovers are much more fun anyway

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Living in a house at uni with your best friends is the absolute dream right? You’ll spend all day baking cookies and discussing gender boundaries, falling asleep each night content after another marathon viewing of Friends.

Your mates might seem fun and mysterious, but that’s because you don’t spend every waking hour with them. Once you’ve shared a house with people for a year, watched them pick the fluff from their toes with a spoon and eat yesterday’s fish pie for breakfast, the magic tends to wear off.

Here are all the reasons you shouldn’t live with your best friends at uni.


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You can live in the kind of house you want

When you’re looking at houses with your best mates you’ve got to go with what the majority wants, and while they prioritise a house with “character” you’d rather something with a working boiler.

You spend so much of your time in your house it’s definitely worth a few more pounds a week to live somewhere with comfy sofas and double glazing. What would you rather: a Tesco meal deal on Thursdays or a 32 inch flat screen TV?

Moving in with people you don’t know means you can put the house you want first and the people second, so you can find the house of your budget dreams.

You’ll widen your social circles

You can never have too many friends, and this way you’ll always have someone for a movie night in when everyone else is planning to go out on a Monday. YOU HAVE A 9AM.

As much as we all like to think of ourselves as special little butterflies with deep, complex algorithms of thought the reality is we’re all pretty much the same. We all laugh, cry and get a special thrill when we find ourselves in M&S in time for the 90 per cent discount anarchy, and you may even find a new set of amazing friends.

As your mum always said, “strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”


Looking to move in with new friends?

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There will be good stories

As we all know, people are amused by other people’s misery.

Sure, if you move in with your current friends you know what to expect – cosy nights in watching a film, house Sunday roasts and a hell of a lot of organised fun.

It’s like being in a super long term relationship and although it has the benefits of comfort and stability, it’s not very fun is it? Don’t you want to be fun?

Live a little, step outside your comfort zone and embrace the unknown. Whatever happens you can be sure you’ll have some fantastic stories.

You won’t lose your best friends

Yes, you all love each other. Yes, you’re planning to go interrailing this summer and O-M-G Berlin was their top choice too! You’re obviously fated to be best friends forever, move to London together after uni and share hilarious adventures for years to come.

Realistically this isn’t going to happen. Three days in and there’s the first argument about who’s taking the bins out. Two weeks in and you’re instigating a manhunt to find out who left bolognese in the pan because it’s now stuck to the sides and you’re having to chisel it off with a fork.

You can’t afford to lose these people – who else will you cook Sunday roasts and have dance mat competitions with – but that doesn’t mean you want to spend every waking moment with them. It probably won’t end well.


Want a house people will be desperate to visit? 

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You can live abroad with no stress

When you signed up to do a year abroad your head was filled with thoughts of scenic walks through unknown streets and late nights with sexy, sexy foreigners, but there’s also a lot of FOMO and worrying about the next year.

Most of your mates will probably have moved on by the time you get back from your year of fun and although it’s tempting to try and convince them to fork out another £9,000 so you have someone to live with next year, it probably ain’t going to happen.

Let them graduate in peace and embrace the unknown.

 You can indulge in all your annoying habits and still have mates

We all behave differently at home with our family than we do at uni with our friends. We barely wash up, leave gross tissues around the house and get moody when we’re not allowed to watch Storage Hunters at 5pm.

But when you’re living with your mates you need to keep up the pretence of yourself as a neat and easy going individual who’s an absolute pleasure to live with. It can get exhausting.

If you live with strangers you can act exactly as you want and don’t have to worry about the repercussions because your real friends will never have to see it. You can laze about in your crusty dressing gown and eat sweetcorn from the tin to your heart’s content.


Looking for student housing that feels like home? 

Click here to see the huge range of rooms with Student Cribs


You’ll get better at awkward situations

Walked in on someone you don’t know particularly well stepping out of the shower? Accidentally sat on a not-quite-my-friend yet’s laptop but can’t afford to fix the keyboard?

The more times you make a fool of yourself, the easier you’ll be able to shake it off, thus preparing you for a life of inevitably embarrassing situations by dulling your soul till it doesn’t hurt any more.

You can work at home without distractions

With no one to distract you with plans to recreate robot wars out of shoe boxes you can finish your 3,00 word essay in the comfort of your Primarni trackies with a shareable bag of M&Ms. There’s no judgement when you’re alone.


Student Cribs provide individual lets in high quality, modern student houses 

All their houses are decked out with double beds, flat screen TVs and dishwashers to make you feel at home

Click here to see the rooms for rent in your city