Fridge politics: The four types of share house dwellers

Sharing a flat is an exercise in patience. No two strangers, or even friends, who share a roof are likely to share the same expectations for cleanliness and daily routines.

It’s a universal truth that splitting the rent an extra four ways is great, while splitting the space in the household’s singular refrigerator is, well, not.

Bathroom aside, the fridge is the most commonly used area by all flat members.

It is near impossible to rent in a shared house without encountering one of these four people — you can choose to keep the peace with them, or keep the shelf.

Hear tips on how to live more sustainably on Somewhere Else:

The Meal Prepper

The meal prepper is an entitled fitness fanatic or aspiring chef. They can be found setting up camp in the kitchen each Sunday evening for a five-hour chicken and broccoli frying extravaganza.

This isn’t so bad when the rest of the flat is nursing hangovers with reheated pizza. The problem is navigating the rest of the week, when you can’t find any groceries of your own behind a Sistema fortress.

By the time you’ve shuffled tupperware around more than a rubix cube and dropped at least one thing on your foot, you’ll be cursing their name.

Get real: Tell the meal prepper some of it has to go in the freezer, or in a separate fridge that they fund. One person is not entitled to more shelf space than all the other flatmates combined, regardless of how much protein they can consume in a single sitting.

Get even: Stack your shelf with pizza boxes so there’s no room. Meals prepped.

The Food Forgetter

This flat mate loves the idea of going for a big grocery shop, but would rather live out of UberEats bags than actually touch a frying pan.

By the time they go to cook something with the fresh veggies they lovingly curated last month, all that remains is a selection of brown goo at the back of the crisper.

Every other flatmate is forced to sniff test their way through various items until the source of the smell is discovered.

Worst of all is milk, which you may pour into a cup of tea unsuspectingly, only to heave back white curdled chunks from whence they came.

This person also adds ice cubes to every drink they pour, but never refills the tray.

Get real: Pick out the grossest item(s) from the fridge and point blank ask the food forgetter who they belong to. If they deny ownership, stand your ground and repeat as necessary.

Get even: Start tossing every potentially forgotten food item before it goes bad. If a few aren’t actually bad, that’s not your problem.

The Thief

The thief finds it very hard to unstick their fingers from the last third of a bottle of wine, or that expensive cheese you bought especially.

In their eyes, everything in a flat fridge is up for “borrowing”.

An unskilled thief will brazenly use your groceries in front of you, or move them around. A skilled thief will put other people’s things back where they found them, so you have to monitor how quickly your food is used up.

This can lead to paranoia; Am I going crazy, or were there five biscuits yesterday, not two?

Get real: Set up a communal shelf for basics like milk, butter, garlic and sauces. Pool some funds to buy these staples for everyone and agree to take turns replacing them.

Be clear that anything on the communal shelf is for borrowing and anything on individual shelves is not. If the thief is a friend, say you don’t mind sharing things if they ask you first.

Get even: Take their last biscuit, or, call them out in the group flat chat. Even if they leave you on seen, the embarrassment might deter the swiper from swiping again.

The Boozer

The boozer loves a cold box, not a cold one. They’ll stack up at least one full shelf and the fridge door with beersies (and their mates’) for the weekend.

They tie with the meal prepper for creating the worst game of fridge Jenga, by shoving bottles in every direction with no regard for how many will topple when the door gets opened next.

Get real: Have a chat to the flat party fiend about their bevvy supply. Ask if they can store some of the drinks in the cupboard and put them in the fridge as they get drunk.

If they love to host, ask them to sort a bag of salt ice in a chilly bin or a separate beer fridge.

Get even: Clear a path to the rest of the fridge by stacking the extra drinks on the kitchen counter.

• This article was originally published on Stuff.co.nz