An open letter to the worst flatmate I've ever had

Nightmare flatmates are universal.

Ask any person, at any age, who was the worst flatmate they’ve ever had and they’ll have an answer for you. This person may have drunk the last sip of milk 20 years ago, and it will be remembered, because it was really, really annoying.

Often when people have undergone a traumatic event, they’re encouraged to write (and burn) a cathartic letter in order to let go. So here is my humble letter, to the worst flatmate I’ve ever endured the pain of living with.

Hear about Jarrod’s life in the gift economy on Somewhere Else : 

I distinctly remember scrubbing the walls and ceilings of the three-bedroom apartment I shared with – let’s call him Jack – after he moved out, so we could get our bond back.

It was impossible to tell what the crusty, brown, really-stuck-on-there substances had been in their previous lives as food, months earlier.

One sunny afternoon, Jack and his mates had decided to have a food fight and left it to rot. I had waited a week or so before eventually resigning myself to cleaning the visible mess, but forgot to check behind the furniture.

At this point in our tenancy, it came as a surprise that Jack had any fresh food at all. He mostly subsisted on servings from a 10kg bulk bag of penne and beer.

He kept all the empties religiously because he had ambitions to construct them into a throne. (This didn’t happen – when they occupied more than half his bedroom, I think his girlfriend put an end to it.)

Jack liked to buy fresh fruit and leave it to mould, then disintegrate into a fine goo in the refrigerator. His preferred method of emptying the rubbish was to create a towering Jenga stack on top of a full bin. He was quite skilled at this and could sometimes go up to a week before knocking it over.

This, combined with his frequently damp and BO-ridden laundry, made it quite difficult to figure out exactly why our lounge smelled so bad at any one time. With just one window, which opened about 2cm from the wall, no airflow could save us.

The thing is, Jack wasn’t messy. Jack was dirty.

Inexplicably, he would leave a layer of black grime on the shower floor each time he used it. He rarely bought toiletry products or groceries but any snack foods and toothpaste of mine would disappear at pace.

Jack liked to host parties for large groups of “the boys” in the lounge, which was all good. Not all good? He left every mug, plate and pot he ever used unwashed for a minimum of five days.

He would use every last dish in the apartment rather than touch soap, and then complain that it must have been our third flatmate, a Spanish exchange student in her mid-20s. Jack and her would frequently have shouting matches.

This was all made worse by the size of the kitchen, which was roughly the length of a standard office desk. It was impossible to cook without first clearing the mess.

Similarly, no part of the floor in Jack’s bedroom was visible. It was hidden beneath hoarded dishes, laundry, trash and papers. To enter, he had to push hard against the door because of the debris it would open onto.

 At one point, Jack’s long-term girlfriend refused to set foot in our apartment. I don’t really blame her but this was a blessing, as even conversations could be heard word-for-word between the three bedrooms.

The building was a kind-of hostel that randomly assigned flatmates to apartments, and if I wanted to move into another apartment, I’d have to find someone willing to swap, and pay a large fee. This made it hugely difficult to get out.

I ended up coping by spending the majority of my time at my partner’s house, so I was effectively renting my bedroom as a storage locker for $200 per week.

This letter is not an argument that women are by-nature, at all cleaner to live with than men. I’ve heard just as many flatting horror stories about members of my own gender. Although, I can comfortably say that in my five years of flatting since then, I’ve never lived with someone quite like Jack.

I sincerely hope that in the time that has passed, wherever he is, he’s learned to appreciate the smell of clean air.