House mates and the kitchen

One of the greatest aspects of university is the ability to meet new people from different parts of the country or even the world. However, the biggest difference to meeting people on a night out or at work for example is that you don't need to live with them and forced to live with their habits.

I live in a 10 bedroom house in Coventry with 8 of the 9 guys here being people I was aware to be living with after knowing them through first year. This meant that a certain ease was felt when we changed from halls in first year, where you have your own room and that's it, to sharing a house and all of the facilities that comes with it. Yet even though I knew who I was to be living with, there was a little twitch in my mind towards how I might find their way of living and if it were to disrupt mine.

I like to think I get on with all the people I live with and that arguments are kept to a minimum but something that has become increasingly apparent whilst living in a house is the difference in opinion over something as simple as cleanliness. This isn't to do with personal hygiene as most of us smell relatively decent for 20 year old lads. The problem lies in the heart of any house, the kitchen.

We can all cook to a certain level, some prefer to really cook their food but really we don't require that much assistance in the kitchen individually. However, only 50% seem to know how to clean up after themselves. 

I would consider myself pretty good at keeping the kitchen clean and will happily do a bit of extra washing up that doesn't belong to me. But after about a month of these kind gestures I realised they weren't being returned and someone thought that this extra work I was doing was to allow them to not wash up at all. 

This is John, the worst culprit.

Washing up is boring as hell and sometimes disgusting but why do people think it is fine to just not do it?! And what's worse is that people who leave their stuff piling up in the sink say 'it's my stuff, don't worry about it'. I'm not worried about it at all. I just would prefer to have a kitchen to not stink of cooked egg and chicken from two days prior. And if you are aware that you haven't done the washing up for the day, just go do it! 

I have learnt that it is just best to be firm with the slobs and to tell them to do it at the time of asking. If they say no, just raise the volume and they usually do it. Or just move their stuff to somewhere they can't find it till they ask and promise to do it. 

Now if you're reading this and agreeing then I feel your pain. If you are reading this and don't know what I'm talking about then I am sorry to say that its probably you who is the irritant. And others who probably think I am being over dramatic over a bit of washing up, you try finding your fork in a water filled sink cloudy with used food only to bring out with your bare hand a piece 3 day old wet chicken (if identifiable) that wasn't even yours in the first place.