Rats in your kitchen and a pigeon in your room: I’m a Fallowfield student, get me out of here

So I’m a Celeb is finally over and everyone’s favourite Lioness has been crowned Queen of the jungle. We were all getting pretty sick of seeing Matt Hancock’s face on our screens every night and some of you are bound to be thinking about how you basically survive on rice and beans anyway. For those of you complaining about your blocked shower, you need to stay quiet from now on and count your lucky stars. Some of us are living in a real life Bushtucker Trial.

If you were lucky enough to endure Oak House in first year, you have probably come across a couple pests before. However, some of these are pretty rare sightings in Fallowfield.

Heads up, read on at your own risk. We accept no responsibility for nights of sleep loss at the sheer fear of what is beneath the floor boards. For the record, this is not all in one house.

Time for a mouse-warming party

Starting off fairly mellow with this one. Being in the presence of a mouse is pretty much a rite of passage as a Manchester student. Landlords are pretty quick to chuck down a few mouse traps but generally you just learn to live alongside them. We imagine it is a lot like sleeping in the jungle… only much colder and wetter.

Rat-a-tat-tat

For some reason, rats are so much more alarming than mice. No-one needs to walk into the kitchen to make their breakfast and be greeted by a rodent. By the way, have you seen the size of rats near Unsworth. They are huge.

Suited and newt-ed

Now this is an iconic picture for the history books. I can’t imagine the Dragon Soop is what attracted the newt (at least that’s what we think this is, any amphibian experts please get in touch). This is definitely a slightly more rogue pest. We’d be pretty shocked if we saw this in the shower tray.

It’s giving Mrs Trunchbull. If you know, you know.

Better look nest time

Now this is a pretty im-peck-able story. This poor pigeon was trapped in an Oak House room for almost ten days and the flatmates didn’t suspect a thing- they must just be used to strange noises coming from their flatmates next door.

Shrooms anyone?

At first glance, you may assume that this is an outside garden wall. You would be wrong. These poor tenants actually have fungi growing in their living room. We know that owning house plants is all-the-rave, but this is not what we had in mind.

You’re a fun-guy

Unlike the celebs in the jungle, us Manchester students put up with a lot of rain. Sometimes living in Manchester is pretty comparable to the Celebrity Cyclone with the amount of water we have to endure. The inevitable consequence (combined with a few leaky doors and windows) is an obscene amount of mould. Things growing inside your four walls (unless bought at the SU plant sale) are not that great.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• What on earth is going on at the Owens Park bus stop? An investigation

• Hot or not: Everything you need to know to stay hot in Fallowfield

• Fallow-een is here and so is a round up of all your best looks