Every single thing you learn when you move into your new student house ‘just off Brudenell Road’

Once Freshers Week is over, the next best thing to get excited about is sorting out your second year house. Well, if you've got nothing more interesting going on then it is. Be prepared to spend days looking through what feels like every single god damn house in Leeds, spend a whole term's worth of student finance on the deposit, and get so drunk you even think a night in Space is a good idea to celebrate. Now, the hardest thing is gonna be working out how to decorate right?

Nope. Soz, but you're in for a shock. Second year housing is nothing like halls, and you're about to find out the hard way.

It's actually a lot further away then you thought it was

Jetting about in your landlords car made everything seem like it was only two minutes away. Until you move in, and realise that actually your walk to uni is more like 20 minutes, and it's all up hill. At least there's no need for a gym membership now though. Plus you're close enough to Hyde Park that spending the afternoon there in the summer doesn't seem like that much effort.

All those super helpful landlords? Yeah, they're pricks now

Two hours in and you realise the toilet doesn't flush right, the shower has literally no pressure at all, and your window doesn't close properly. There's also mould on all of your walls, and there's probably a rats nest under the sink. 10 emails, 5 phone calls, and a month later, none of this is any closer to being resolved. Turns out landlords don't actually care whether you have a good time in their house, as long as they still get your money. Which they will, cos if they don't you'll get kicked out. And a shit house is still better than no house.

But it could be worse, just be thankful your house wasn't broken into before you even had a chance to move in.

24/7 Sainsbury's sounded good in practise until you realise how expensive it is

"Erm, excuse me miss, where do you keep your £3.50 bottles of wine? What do you mean you don't have any that cheap? Do you stock anything under a tenner? No???" aka the exact moment you realised you royally fucked up and you wished you lived closer to the co-op. Good luck trying to keep hold of any of your student finance at this rate.

Oh, and having a 24/7 supermarket literally on your doorstep means all those late night chocolate cravings are easily met. So look forward to being poor and fat.

Get ready to buy a load of sweaters and hoodies because there are draughts everywhere

I swear, last year my house was more draught than wall. and turns out, it's quite a lot cheaper to stock up on cheap Primark hoodies rather than have the heating on 24/7. Or maybe buy a blanket?

Just try not to think too much about how amazing halls were with their unlimited heating, and how ungrateful you were at the time.

Don't fill out your itinerary until the end of the year because I guarantee someone will break a table

Every single time you move into a rented house, the landlord will ask you to fill out an itinerary and hand it in the same day you moved in. DO. NOT. DO. THIS. You're gonna break something, probably during freshers when your new crush decides it's a great idea to dance on the table, and you let them cos you want to get in their pants. Just put it on the itinerary that it was already like that, then tell your landlord that you "definitely handed it in, have you lost it? Do you want a photocopy of it, we scanned it into the computer just in case it went missing". And you've saved yourself 50 quid well done.

House parties are amazing if they're at someone else's, terrible if they're at yours

Who wants to wake up with a blinding headache, craving the greasiest pizza Zulfi's has to offer, only to discover that the entire house is wrecked and you're gonna need to clean for 3 hours before you can even sit down. It was alright during freshers, cos people didn't have house parties – everyone still thought clubbing was fine. But now you all live more than 10 minutes away from town, and a party is just way more fun anyway. If it's at someone else's.

Unless it's your birthday, when your flatmate's will probably do the cleaning cos, you know, it's your birthday.

Your amazing bffl you met in first year is the worst to live with

It may sound really fun to live with your best friend, but you can learn a lot about a person when you're stuck with them for 24 hours a day. The best way to maintain your friendship over a long three years of uni – and the rest, cos you guys are bffl you know – live with acquaintances. Never best friends.

If there's more than two of you in the house, at least two people will hook up. Guaranteed.

This probably happened in your freshers halls as well, but it's even worse now. It was easier to avoid people in halls. Living in a house makes everything feel more grown up, so expect them to be cuddling on the sofa, cooking each other meals, and having sex really loudly. Until one of them cheats, and suddenly the whole house has to pick sides.

Everything in the kitchen is sticky, no matter how many times you clean it

And don't even bother trying to work out what is sticky, you'll never find out.

You won't be friends with any of your house mates by the end of the year

One too many drunken arguments about how the washing up is never done, who how someone keeps drinking all your milk, or how that one girl who you hate slept with your boyfriend, and you guys will leave in June and probably never speak to each other again. There'll be teh occasional nod of acknowledgement when you see each other in the street, but that's it.

Just make sure you learn from your mistakes for next year, yeah?