Have you found a house for next year yet? You ought to have done; and if you haven’t then you really should be panicking a lot by now because there’s not the teeniest potential shard of a chance that you’ll be able to find anywhere half decent now, not least with someone you actually like. So you’re essentially now doomed to live with a pack of socially inept maniacs in what could accurately be described as a shack, inclusive of mouldering walls and a bog where most likely dwells a crocodile named Constipation…
Or so a panic-stricken moron would tell you whilst managing to successfully smear some of their idiotic house hunting notions over you like the plague. Well, at least I thought you would’ve had to have been a moron to think that.
That’s right, after two months of university, my friendships still in their infancy, I wasn’t quite ready to commit myself to live with people off-campus for an entire year whom I’d known for less than a week.
A fable if I may: Last year, I made the dreadful mistake of (dare I say it?) leaving finding a house until AFTER Christmas. That’s right, after two months of university, my friendships still in their infancy, I wasn’t quite ready to commit myself to live with people off-campus for an entire year whom I’d known for less than a week. A year is three hundred and sixty five days in case you had forgotten. Obviously we were all placed in accommodation randomly in the first year but it’s different when one is on campus and there is a plentiful supply of alternative society nearby.
Therefore, I deemed it a matter of utmost import to live with people I did like off-campus and as a result I was selective, picky if you will. Is that so wrong? Apparently so. On returning to university following the holiday, the terrible and sudden realisation swept over me like a wave of, well, realisation: Everybody had signed for a house but me, and I was reconciled to the idea that most people were in fact, what I deemed moronic. However, my rationality and supposed wisdom didn’t aid me in my search for the perfect housemate given that there were none left.
Of course, I exaggerate. Not everybody had signed for a house; the dregs of uncivilised humanity yet remained but their appeal was non-existent and quite frankly, I think I would have preferred to live with the croc rather than them (I feel at liberty to write this without offending as I have since left the university that I attended last year and the chances of said dregs perusing this are slight).
The moral: First years, even if the first superficial bonds of friendship end up a shattered mess all over the estate agent floor, learn you this: leaving housing until January or even worse, February, is a bad idea no matter how unwise panic-signing may seem at the time. In order to help you, I have arranged a little mantra for you. If you sign, you’ll be fine. Leave it late, you will hate (your house/housemates).
This year, I have united with the morons. In mid-December 2008 I parted with a ludicrous sum of money for a deposit (£130 of which is purely the administration charge, otherwise known as day light burglary) in a surprisingly quick and harmonic agreement as a result of six people’s mutual love for a great house, and fortunate affection for each other.
Despite the fact that my act has (in my mind) rendered me a moron, I comfort myself with thoughts of how I will decorate the house when it is finally in my possession, what poster I shall stick up in the bathroom for example. Sadly, I don’t move in for another six months, which frustrates me more than I can say. If only everyone would leave house-hunting until March….
