The very worst things you can do that are guaranteed to annoy your Edinburgh flatmates

Honeymoon Period: ‘A timespan during which problems known to exist are either not manifest or are ignored.’

A rose-tinted and carefree timespan, encompassing Freshers' Week and the first few weeks of term, in which the teething problems of living with new or even familiar people are ignored entirely in a haze of hangovers and peaceful coexistence.

You glance at the family photo your parents sneakily placed upon your desk when they dropped you off – sigh – why can’t life at home be this harmonious?

The elusive flat honeymoon period: a time of hugs and harmony

It is at this point of smug contentment, however – likely around the fourth week of term – that the illusion will shatter. The flat honeymoon is over, and just as you might suddenly wake in the night to find the incessant ticking of the clock above your bed too much to bear, so too might the actions and idiosyncrasies of your flatmates start to get on your nerves.

Dish Deniers

It's the bane of all the tidy flatmates out there.

You're standing at the sink, dutifully dousing your pan in Fairy liquid and furiously trying to remove the baked-on beans from the bottom. Enter one of your flatmates, who, finishing dinner, bypasses the sink entirely, adding their plate to the small pile of dirty dishes on the counter.

Let's be reasonable, you think, and give them the benefit of the doubt – surely they'll come back in a minute to clean it?

'The heart of the home' – and never to be this clean again

Hours pass, and then days.

The dishes remain and, shock horror, the same suspect has continued to stack them up. Soon the pile is so large that it has emigrated from the counter to the floor. It's going mouldy.

Breaking point, officially defined as the point at which there are no plates left to eat from, has been reached.

Nobody is completely innocent, (it was just too tempting to lob that teaspoon onto the pile) and so you accept that you need to pull together to clean the mess up. And now it happens.

The flatmate whose initial reluctance to clean up set off this chain of chaos – the reason you are all standing together covered in soap bubbles and four-day old baked beans – utters the dreaded phrase, cementing their place as the Flat Dish Denier: 'Honestly, guys, I swear that none of this stuff is even mine!'

'Honestly, none of this is mine' – the hallmark of the Dish Denier

Bathroom Betrayers

We all know the feeling. You've had a few too many one evening, and wake up just in time for that 9am seminar. The beer hasn't done your stomach too many favours, but, as you rush off to uni, there's no time to worry about that. Fast-forward a couple of hours, and, heading back to the flat, it is clear that a prolonged trip to the toilet is imminent.

Rushing in, with eyes only for that glorious throne, it is not until a few minutes later that the panic sets in. Turning around, expecting to be greeted by mountains of Andrex's finest, it dawns on you that your flatmate – the one whose turn it was to stock up, and who promised they'd remember – has once again forgotten.

Facing a choice between antibacterial wipes or the cardboard tubes left from old rolls of paper, you opt for the former – it might sting, but it doesn't sting nearly as much as the betrayal.

A sad choice, and the symbol of your betrayal

Scatter Shavers

The electric shaver: a wonderfully versatile, practical invention – perfect, in the right hands for trimming beards to the highest degree of precision.

Unfortunately, in the hands of your hairiest and clumsiest flatmate, whose over-zealous 'scatter shave' approach manages to scatter hairs around the sink to a degree no-one ever thought imaginable – this device is transformed from an instrument of precision into a weapon of mass destruction.

Though they surface rarely – sometimes only once every few weeks – when the Scatter Shaver strikes, and you enjoy a mouthful of hair on the end of your toothbrush – you're sure to know about it.

Toothbrushes – often the first victims of the scatter shaver

Secret Stashing

This one will really get on your nerves. One day, during a time of flat crisis, you will notice that one flatmate in particular appears to have everything under control while chaos reigns over the rest of you.

Maybe they've managed to locate toilet paper during Bathroom Betrayal season. Or somehow they've found a plate even though Dish Deniers have relegated the entire pile of plates to the floor. How can this be?

Top of the wardrobe: a favourite haunt of the secret stash

The answer, though well hidden, is to be found in their room.

Somewhere – likely above or below their wardrobe – lies a secret stash of those most precious of flat commodities. Stacks of clean plates and rolls of glorious quilted Andrex have been in the flat all along, hiding away from everybody except for their subversive storer.

Rooting around in someone else's room might be a bad habit, but if it catches out one of these sorry individuals, then it was surely worth it.