Holy Mother of God, were you raised in a fucking WINDMILL?!? (kinda long)

The BBQ Pit
1

For the (hopefully) final year of my second course of study, I transferred to a school in the Netherlands. Scored the first room I looked at, unbelievably cheap for the city, mostly clean, fun neighbourhood. It’s in a house with six other students living in it, so it’s not the absolute cleanest, but I thought it would be a great way to learn Dutch, and besides, Ive been living in dorms for the past two years anyway. How bad could it be?

Ha. Ha. HahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAhahah.

Nobody in the house seems to have grasped the concept that DISHES DO NOT WASH THEMSELVES. Perhaps I have wandered into a house filled with biology majors, and they are using the kitchen for their lab projects. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOUR WEEK-OLD CRUDDY DISHES PILED ALL OVER THE COUNTER WHEN I GO INTO THE KITCHEN TO MAKE MY FUCKING DINNER!!! It kind of ruins my appetite, besides giving me no space to do anything. Maybe Im turning into an old fuddy-duddy, but when there are more dishes on the counter than in the cupboards, I think thats a problem.

Also, in my innocence and naiveté, I thought it was self-evident that IF YOU CLEAN YOUR HAIR OUT OF THE DRAIN AFTER YOU SHOWER, THE SHOWER WONT OVERFLOW!!! We wouldnt even need this squeegee-mop thing in the bathroom if you would all just TAKE YOUR HAIR OUT OF THE DRAIN! Plus then I wouldnt have to touch your disgusting collective rattail which has been festering down the drain for god knows how long until it’s practically a new lifeform.

And how oldare these people? Theyre in college, for chrissakes. Theyre not twelve. Is it really necessary to pound back and forth in front of my paper-thin door, laughing and screaming at QUARTER TO FUCKING ONE IN THE MORNING?!?

I know, I know, Im as much as ten years older than these people, and really oughtnt to be living in student housing anymore anyway. But unfortunately, in my current financial situation it’s a necessity. I am a patient, easygoing, and reasonable roommate in general. I just resent being kept from my sleep when Ive spent the whole day moving in and have to be at class at eight o’clock the next morning.

I havent said anything to any of them yet, because Ive only just moved in and dont want to establish a reputation as a controlling bitch. Without even trying Im already the idiot American who cant even speak Dutch.

Rrrrrrrrr.

2

Moral of the story: don’t take rooms that are “unbelievably cheap” and with “six other students”.

Good luck to you.

3

:: reads through OP::
:: reads through OP again ::

So, to recap, you’ve rented a cheap room in a student house, with 6 other dutch students, all of whom are 10 years younger than you.

You are now surprised and disappointed that your fellow housemates are rather messy, and prone to late night parties.

May I ask of the american posters here - are US students really that different, or has the OP just really led a sheltered life?

4

I don’t understand, why would being raised in a wind power generation structure automatically lead to no doing dishes?

5

No no no, Gary, you misunderstood me. They are not “rather” messy. Rather messy I could live with. Rather messy I was expecting. After all, I have been living in dorms for the past two years anyway. But I swear to god, there had to have been at least two weeks worth of hair stuck in that drain. It is much easier to clean out the drain after every shower than mop up the floor after every shower. But maybe thats just me. And the kitchen is pretty big - filling up all the counters with dishes takes some real doing.

Late night parties I was expecting. Late night parties are not a problem. This was not a party - this was just horsing around - on a weeknight. Maybe it wouldnt have pissed me off so much if my neighbours hadnt been blasting their crap techno music all evening long already. And I do like techno - in a club. Not vibrating my bedroom wall.

[nitpick]And theyre not all ten years younger. Actually I have no idea how young any of them are. The few Ive met look younger than me, and if theyre typical college age, that could be by as much as ten years.[/nitpick]

Like I said, I know I oughtnt to live in student housing. I also said that right now I dont have a choice financially. Im ranting here because I just moved in and dont want them to think Im trying to take over the house. I was a pig in my late teens too - until I got roommates and saw what it took to live with other people.

6

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that there may be some substance to Gary’s question about European students. I am thinking back to my first shared student house. We were gross. I mean fucking absolutely revoltingly disgustingly awful, and incredibly badly behaved. Examples:[ul][]Roommate peels several pounds of potatoes and leaves a big pile of peelings on the breakfast bar. Refuses (for some reason) to clear them up. Everyone else refuses to touch them. After a few days, other detritus starts getting thrown on them. Orange peel, a fried egg. Then they start getting used as an ashtray. They remain, in a pile, in the middle of the kitchen, for a month, the mound of rotting food and cigarette ends growing bigger and bigger.[]I dropped a toilet roll down the toilet and “couldn’t be bothered” to remove it, thinking it would just flush down. It didn’t. The toilet was used in this state for a week, getting fuller and fuller. Eventually I had to put my hand in and remove the blockage. I retched for hours afterwards.[]Nobody ever cleaned any dishes, ever. If you wanted to use a plate or something, you’d scrape off the mold and rinse it under the faucet.[]We partied every night until the small hours. Our poor next-door neighbours, an elderly couple who’d lived there all their lives, could hear everything.[]My roommate and her boyfriend climbed up onto the roof and went at it like a pneumatic drill. Said elderly neighbour was out in his garden watering his bean rows, and spotted them. He came round nearly in tears. I said “they were just sunbathing”. “Nobody sunbathes by lying on top of someone else,” he said.[]When we moved out after 4 months, the landlord had to redecorate the entire building. We had been his first ever tenants.[/ul]The list goes on. Deeply ashamed.

7

I had the same problem when I moved into student accommodations in the UK. Students are pigs. But it’s a longstanding problem; there are even writings about this very situation going back hundreds of years. Witness, for example, this little-known verse by John Milton:

8

Upon further study, I’ve uncovered another example of this genre, this time from a young Robert Frost;

I think there’s a PhD dissertation in there somewhere: “Pots and Poets: A Critical Analysis of Poetry on Household Themes”.

9

Gyrate - that was BRILLIANT!

Brava, brava.

10

Didn’t Poe do something along those lines?:wink:

11

Gyrate - superb verse, as ever.

12

Bravo, shurely?

DB, I’ll have to check on the Poe thing.

13

I didn’t bother reading much of the OP & none of the responses- i just want to say this…

The title of this thread is now part of my Rosary recitation.
G

14

There’s messy, and then there’s unsanitary.

Anecdote: Sophomore year. Roommate #1 had a bowl of raisin bran, but only ate about half of it, then left the bowl on the counter. Later discussions revealed that he did not feel he should clean it because the bowl belonged to Roommate #2. #2 rightly thought that #1 was being a lazy ass, and refused on principle to clean it. I and Roommate #3 refused to touch it. This was in February - the bowl was still there, with moldy cereal in it, when I left for the summer in May.

So, anyway, that’s the answer to Gary Kumquat’s question about the general attitude of American students.

15

Gyrate, you’re a treasure.

16

Eh.

I just do the damned things. (I wouldn’t for six other people, but I’ve never had more than two housemates.)

I get up in the morning and clear away whatever detritus has accumulated during my slumbers, while the kettle boils and my coffee drips.

Before every meal, I clear the sink.

Sounds like a lot of extra work, but it really takes less energy than trying to work around it, or even just standing there resenting it. It’s a hell of a lot less taxing than trying to get them done by nagging, that’s for sure.

One of my housemates seems to hate this. “Don’t do our dishes! I’ll get to them!” She rarely does. I think 48 hours is an intolerable length of time to put up with such squalor. I can’t comprehend how someone can prefer to eat off dishes that sit in the sink, fermenting, most of the time that you’re not actually eating off them. It’s just nasty.

Of course, this situation is mitigated somewhat by the occassional thorough cleaning she gives the place, usually in preparation for visitors. I don’t do that. (She’s at it now, bless her. And she just brought me a cup of coffee, too. So I’ll let her live.)

Still, I’m moving in November – into a student house. With seven people. I get to be Lord and Master, though, so I expect the dishes to be done in a timely fashion.

And Gyrate, I’ve already C&P’d your Milton parody, and plan to print it and frame it, once I lay my hands on some suitable parchment-style paper. I hope you don’t mind.

17

I take offense! I was raised in a windmill! cries

18

Oh god. I could tell you some stories about non-dish washing. In fact, I think I will…

My housemates (there were eight of us in an apartment that could at best hold four) had some anti-dish fetish. It got to the point that there were maggots breeding in the sink.

I tried to institute a rule that if you make a bunch of dishes dirty, you should clean up them up within an hour or so. After that, people pretend like the dish isn’t theirs, and it will sit there for two weeks, inspiring everyone else to throw their dirty dishes on top of it and forget about it. Eventually the sink gets full and nobody can do their own dishes even if they want to, and then fruit flys and maggots show up.

“Oh no!” my roomates whined. “What if we have to eat breakfast and run off to class? What if it is late at night and we have to go to sleep?!” the pleaded.

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DO DISHES, DON’T MAKE THEM DIRTY. When I don’t want to do dishes, I make a sandwhich on a paper towel. Or I go out to eat. Or I drink a can of ultra Slim-Fast. What I don’t do is make a bunch of dishes dirty and then not take responsibility for them. But I guess that was too much to ask. Of course the proper time to cook a meal that uses every pot in the house is five minutes before O-Chem.

One time we cleaned the whole house for an inspection at 7:00. By 8:00 there were eleven dirty glasses on the counter. There are only eight people that live there. And there were no visitors in that time period. That means not only did a bunch of people make glasses dirty and not clean them- When they wanted new drinks they wontonly grabbed a new glass instead of refilling their old one. Amazing.

19

I must ask, based on the OP: when living in a windmill, do the dishes wash themselves? If so, I’m moving.

20

Heh-- I just remembered the dirty hippy I lived with a coupla years ago. (The one that pushed me over the edge into “I’ll just do the damn things, because there’s no easier way.”)

He went out and bought new dishes at a thrift store, because all of the dishes were in the sink. (We had service for twelve, with three residents.) I lost my shit-- his new dishes immediately went into boxes for easy transport to his new home, and the damned dishes got done. He’d actually left the house specifically to get dishes because they were all dirty and he wanted to prepare a meal. At that time, me and my other housemate were in the habit of fishing the dishes we needed out of the pile, washing them, using them, washing them again, and putting them away. When my other housemate went away to his GF’s for a bit, I couldn’t use the dishes at a brisk enough pace to provide clean ones for him.

Goddamn, I’m glad that guy’s gone. His room stank, and was right off the living-room. Ugh.

There’s nothing like an empty sink to communicate to the world at large: “Human beings live here.”