Fallen in love (couldn't afford to rent a one bed on your own) so moved in with your partner? Is your partner imaginary and so you're forced to continue living with 'friends' well into adulthood? Prone to having four dinners and nine wines if no-one's watching and judging you? So you've decided to rent with strangers to save your health? Perhaps you're still a child and incapable of living without adult supervision? There's millions of great reasons for cohabiting, but they never make it any less irritating. Living with yourself is hard enough. Enduring the nested behaviour of others is unbearable. Until now. Here's a few survival tips.
If you've been stupid enough to live with a couple, there's a chance you're having to withstand 'sex noise'. May I recommend any of the following:
- Loudly play REM's 'Everybody Hurts'
- Clapping and cheering
- Thanking them, over breakfast with a wink. Then pat your genitals.
That first solution, alone, is usually enough to curtail even the most determined love-making.
Are you unfortunate enough to live with someone who leaves passive aggressive notes around the home? I've lived with people so irritating that they even wrote notes to me from inanimate objects.
"Oh. Mr oven is super sad that when you cook on me you don't polish my hobs after :("
"Mrs fridge here. I love it when you buy skimmed milk most please. That green label milk feels all heavy for me to carry in my shelf :("
"YOU LEFT ALL THE LIGHTS AND TAPS ON AGAIN JESS. FOR THE LAST TIME: STOP IT. PLEASE."
And so on. Now, I know what you're thinking: simple! Do a murder. Well, no. That's both disproportionate and you will not get away with it. Unless of course you're a white, male, famous and in South Africa.
Instead, try one of these:
- Claim an inability to read. Say you're ever so embarrassed but these notes mean nothing to you. This will force the offender to at least draw their muted fury out as pretty pictures.
- Cover the notes in lighter fluid and have the letting agent/ landlord inspect whilst you happen to drop a lighter near one. Thus proving how dangerous they really are.
- Every time a note is left, pop a photograph of some roadkill on the offending roomie's bedroom door.
- Loudly play REM's 'Everybody Hurts'
Maybe you're the note leaver? Maybe someone you live with isn't doing their fair share of cleaning? Stop leaving notes, for a start. Try one of the following solutions instead.
- Emptying the kitchen bin into their bed. It's fine if they're in it. Better in fact.
- Spray them in the face with liquid, like an errant cat. If nothing else, at least their face will be clean, which is a start
- Take up the recorder. If you can, try and learn REM's 'Everybody Hurts'
Perhaps you live with someone who steals your food? This resolution is so easy: poison. What? You can't be expected to eat out all the time. Again though, easy Oscar, I don't mean poisoning them to death. Merely give them acute diarrhoea. Make a human horror-fountain of them. Make of them a liquid ticking time bomb. Get them to eat some prune dust or similar. They'll have their mitts off your Brunswick ham in no time.
Is one of your house-party spending so long in the shower that it's cold by the time you get a look in? Couple of cubes of ice in all their cups of tea should sort it.
Is someone you live with not paying their bills or even being hard to approach about money? Evict them. There's no room for humour once it's that bad.
And now for what I deem to be the most irritating of all the irritating things about cohabiting: someone wants your attention. More than you've got time to give them. Sometimes it's your time they want, your company, other times it's worse, it's your affection they require. Ugh. I know. Try these:
- Get more jobs
- Get an 'I heart Jesus' lanyard
- Constantly use your new catchphrase 'Keep Calm and Carry On'
- While they're talking to you, hum REM's 'Everybody Hurts' and don't forget to cry along. - Especially if they're giving you good news.
- If none of these work, then I'm afraid next time the offender asks you for a 'chat', you will need to wet yourself.
Good luck please.