Flatmate

Some of you will remember the house I moved into in Kabul with its eclectic group of inhabitants. Five of us initially: Three men, two women; a lawyer, a journalist, an accountant, one NGO head and our baby development worker. A mini NATO: Two Germans, one American, a Canadian and me, a Brit.

A trio of Afghan guards: Nabi, Mohammed Toy and the very tall one whose name I forget (or never knew). The maid, and then her cousin. Two tortoises and then Oscar, our orphaned gutter kitten. We were by no means perfect, but it worked – most of the time. But then came the consultant, who we will call Greg, who initially was gong to live in a yurt (nomadic tent) in the garden, before we all agreed that perhaps he could stay in the basement.

Then the night before he was to arrive, an email preceded him: "I will be coming with someone else. My wife. She's pregnant." The result, so it seems, of an unplanned one night stand.

And so there we were: seven . Well, seven and a fraction at that time. 

It wasn't long before the fractures appeared. The newcomers did not like Oscar. They complained about the risk of toxoplasmosis, even though you're more likely to catch it from uncooked meat than cat feaces. Still, they put up signs on their door “no toxoplasmosis” with a picture of a cat with a cross through it. Oscar was on to them – and would dash out of any room they were in, usually the rest of use felt like doing the same.

Other signs began to appear. We were entreated to close bathroom doors and wash our hands. I was chastised in an email for leaving one bathroom door open. Where the rest of us used what ever was in the fridge and topped up next time we were in the shop, they wrote their names on their vegetables.

Then one day I made the big mistake of asking Greg to wash up at least one of the two espresso makers he used each morning, and to please not stack up all the glasses in the cupboard. Ok, so a bit anal, but I did ask nicely.

Greg, however, did not like being asked to do something. He never used the espresso maker again, and started purposely stacking the glasses one on top of each other. I would take them down, and he would stack them back up …. When things finally came to a head and one of my other flatmates, who they had referred to as the Nazi because she had asked them to keep the kitchen clean on a Friday (no maid day), confronted them about the atmosphere, they brushed her off saying every one was petty and that someone had been eating their jam (I confess, that was me!)

In the end, I was asked to move out, and so Oscar, the Nazi and I left and found a lovely place just round the corner. Greg later did a runner, taking $10,000 from his NGO.

So the point of this story (despite having a little dig at Greg) is that you would have though that after that experience I would have been a little wary of living with a complete stranger again. But no, there I was in Brighton taking a lease on a two-bed place by the sea and advertising on websites for a flatmate.

And along came the mad scientist. At first, it sounded like a pretty good match. He's a physicist at Sussex University, who works on the Hadron Collider, a vegan and loved the cats. But the woolly hat had me worried, and when he showed up with three black bin liners worth of belongings … he's 44 mind you … I was well on the way to saying no, I've changed my mind. But I told myself not to judge – I could be wrong.

It became a three-month nightmare. First, he refused to talk to me most of the time, addressing all his comments to the cats. He would come into the house, completely ignore me in the living room and mumble to Woody and Ray “Oh, hello, how are you, ok, let me put the shopping down first, ….”. The only time he did talk to me was to tell me the cats were hungry/thirsty/tired/upset/bored etc … or to point out that my biscuits were not vegan.

He seemed to have an aversion to any type of cleaning, and became quite defensive and hostile when I asked him to throw away a basil plant, dead for days. He stormed out and came back quite drunk.

Then there was the shouting. Occasional bursts of expletives from inside his room, and what sounded like door kicking.

In the end, I asked him to move out. He responded “It's inconvenient”. I said, “tough”. He then preceded to go to Switzerland to bash atoms together and refused even to answer emails or texts about his plans. Finally, he returned and I confronted him. What are your plans on moving out? 

“Well, I've been away so I haven't found anywhere to live yet.” 

Me: “But you're rent has run out and you are now eating into your deposit.” 

"So, use my deposit." Door slams.

Eventually, he did move out, taking his black plastic bags with him, but slashing my bike tyre on the way out and leaving behind a charming picture of skulls in the bedroom.