Five struggles of living in a student house during winter

Whether it’s your first year at uni or your last, we’ve all experienced the struggles of student accommodation during winter.

If your attitude during autumn was that multiple layers of clothing and duvets would help you survive, you might be reconsidering. Paper-thin walls, leaking windows and temperamental boilers are the daily struggle for many budget-obsessed undergrads. These are five struggles that reoccur in conversations about winter in Soton:

1)   Trying to convince your housemates to turn on the heating

We all know heating is expensive, daring to look at the bills over winter is a mission in itself. There is always one loony who is completely against using any utility if it will rack up gas or electricity prices.You have to pluck up the courage and approach each room in the house and politely remark ‘I’m bloody freezing, are you as well?’, hoping they will suggest turning the heating on, dreading the one who calmly replies ‘I’m not that cold to be honest mate’. They don’t care about you, or your well being.

It’s like it’s mocking you

2)   Getting stuck in the shower for hours due to the fear of the cold

Waking up for an early lecture and braving the warmth of a shower, knowing perfectly well that leaving the shower again will take all of your courage and pain tolerance. Don’t worry, we have all contemplated staying in the shower until spring.

3)   Missing multiple 9am lectures because you truly believe leaving your bed will be detrimental to your health.

Your alarm goes off and it isn’t the tiredness that is holding you under your multiple duvets, it’s your indescribable dread that the cold will consume you. You stare hopelessly across your room for a dressing gown or hoodie to accompany you to the kitchen, before conceding defeat and going back to sleep until the afternoon.

4)   Hiding an electric blanket or electric heater from whoever manages the bills.

Knowing that the resident Chancellor of the Exchequer will confiscate your energy scoffing life support machine, you are forced to find the most ingenious hiding places for your heating accessories. You’ve tried folding your electric blanket and hiding it in drawers, boxes, under the bed, but you still live in constant fear that you will be exposed.

5)   Wearing joggers, trackies, woolly hats and gloves indoors.

Realising at the end of the day that you’ve been dressed like you’ve been on a super budget ski holiday since 8am. Do you regret it? Absolutely. But it’s a matter of life and death. Thermal socks, dappy-style woolly hat, joggers that your mum bought you in year nine and mittens that make any simple task a monumental mission.

Do you have any tips for beating the cold? Let us know in the comments!

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