Living in a sharehouse with friends rocks. You can stay up all night drinking because you can, eat next to nothing for days on end to make the rent and think that having to go to the laundrette is a cool way to live. There is always someone’s friend crashing on the couch ‘Just for a couple of days’ to add extra spice, too.

And I can safely say I will never, ever live in a share house again.

In the beginning it’s all caring/sharing: “Please, you have the last of the milk.”
“Eat my toast. I’ll get the pizza.”

That sort of thing. This is ‘The Honeymoon Phase’, when everything is peachy keen and a pile of dishes in the sink calls for loud music and a communal cleanup. Aren’t we fun?

Pretty soon someone finds themselves either cleaning too much or not enough, buying too much food or not enough or drinking all the booze and getting caught. Someone will be a student who wants quiet, while someone else will be a DJ who wakes at midnight. No-one will clean the toilet and someone will care.

Like Rocky and Bullwinkle rolling down a hill the snowball of grievances only gets bigger.

Next comes a farcical house meeting and the resulting set of house rules. These will always suck (‘All Librans in the house will do the dishes on non-consecutive afternoons except in June’) and mostly be ignored.

Someone will probably move out in a huff and take the stereo with them.

This begins the ‘Revolving Door’ period, during which the remaining original housemates search for the ideal replacement. Then two replacements. Then three.

Then there’s only one person left from the original lease living with a New Zealander, a duck and false hope.

Call me selfish but I like my space. It may cost me more in rent, food and bills but by living alone I can safely avoid disputes over toilet paper forever. And still stay up as late as I want.