Housemate From Hell
(March. 05, 2007, By: Julia Norvidaite)
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They say misfortune comes in pairs. Once upon a day, the sky fell on me. It was a regular, less than average day in the less than average week when things started to go wrong all at once.
I will not go into much detail as to what happened and why. Having resolved most of the domestic tragedies I was left with a task of finding a new home as fast as possible. I do not need to say how unfavorable London’s housing scene may be to the poor; to the poor and in a desperate need of moving in the matter of days it is a banshee in danger of loosing its head from laughter.
Having looked for studio flats I came up with a genius idea that I could actually save some money by sharing a house with all of those Odysseuses fighting their wars in the land they now call home. Armed with elevated enthusiasm and already living in the dream world of potential storylines for my unwritten books I joined the web community in search of a perfect flat mate. Little did I know, that all the ones who seemed most sane and well brought up and educated turned out to be the biggest circus freaks of all.
Now, I am a very tolerant individual. I will put up with almost anything as long as it is not too emotionally damaging to my already dysfunctional self. But what I saw was beyond acceptance even for my standards. The rooms I saw would qualify for the smelliest, nastiest, dirtiest, the most horrible room awards in any country of the world. And these where not the cheapest rooms either! I began to wonder that perhaps money is not the reason people share flats and houses. Perhaps it is a way of getting all the weirdest friends you would never otherwise have and having a bottomless pool of stories to tell at dinner parties?
The one that stood out by far throughout those few days when I was running around from place to place like a headless chicken was called Nicholas. He emailed me to say he is looking for flat mates to share HIS flat in Zone 2, London. Fantastic, I think. Eloquent young man who has a digital studio in his flat, works for London Fashion Week and enjoys cinema? Just the right kind of spicy supplement to my uneventful life. Wrong! Nicholas’ flat is made of that stuff that gives you nightmares irrelevant of what age you are. It was painted in black from top to bottom (perhaps an extension of a dark room in the back of the flat?!) with half a million of cushions resting on all possible surfaces (a cross between a Moroccan restaurant, a harem and a mental ward). Leftovers of all kinds of illegal substances, a good half dozen of locked up suitcases mysteriously lining up the walls of each room, four macs and a newest vaio, a couple of ipods, cameras, projectors, empty bottles of liquor, sheets that probably have A.D. written all over them, the most ugliest Christmas lights inside each room and plastic flowers that made it all look like a scene from some creepy experiment on human nature under the influence of ennui.
I do not have to tell you I did not take the room, even after repeated attempts to persuade me to join the household as one of the “mates” (as in: we live together-we share each other type of mates). It was fascinating of course, hundreds of stories to tell, dozens of faces to forget or remember, but please trust me when I say a quiet life can often be as inspiring.
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