How to live with your hermit housemate

We’ve all got one. And if you think your house doesn’t have one, it’s definitely you.

This is the housemate that barely ever leaves their room. The housemate you bump into awkwardly in the kitchen whilst trying to drain your tuna, the boy you know who’s listening to you having loud, passionate sex, the girl who unexpectedly walks in on you watching porn on the flatscreen, or having sex on the kitchen table.

The shadow in the doorframe, the mysterious creaking floorboards, this is most probably your hermit housemate creeping. Check for these signs to make sure they’re alive.

“Do the creep”

Have you ever come back from a night out and found your bread full of holes? A cold tin of baked beans and a load of tissues on the side? It probably means the hermit has left their lair for a snack, safe from the disturbance of others.

When entering the house, search the perimeter for the twitch of a curtain. It knows more about your social life than you do. Use a mix of skittles, fit people and the promise of some form of social life to lure it out of its cave, remind it that it needs air to survive.

Taste the rainbow, bitch.

Cook outside their door

If you ever hear sniffing noises and loud appealing grunts coming from the door – you’re doing things right. Let the strong smell of smoked bacon in the morning waft under its door to remind him that there’s more to life than Basics pot noodles and Doritos.

It might think it doesn’t need food but the reminder of mum’s breakfast might just trick them into exiting their cave.

Bacon my way down town.

Make them jealous

Play a FIFA tournament in the living room at the highest volume. The sound of the soft voices and great chat of Martin Tyler and Alan Smith might just have the power to peel him away from their furious masturbating. 

Set fire to their food cupboard

although this might not be very effective as you and your housemates have probably eaten all the tuna, tinned tomatoes and Heinz tomato soup its mum bought it anyway.

Check their freezer drawer for Ben & Jerry’s – take advantage of their mum and her generosity, they’re not going to.

Before…

…After.

 

Scare them

Pretend there’s a worldwide apocalypse and the only way they could save themselves is to leave their room and socialize.

Get your mate’s best zombie/mummy/white walker outfit and pop out from under its bed when its least expecting it. Hide under the covers, behind the poster, or even better – creep up by the window in the middle of the night. You may just catch a glimpse of them fleeing the room.

The smell of loneliness and stale cheese.

Cut off their wi-fi

Life as a hermit is nothing if you can’t play World of Warcraft, and without WoW they have nothing. You’ve taken their food, their wi-fi, and scared them to their very core.

All that’s left for them to do is face the music and make a name for themselves, who knows – maybe you just created the next BNOC.