For second year, the majority of us made the decision to leave the comfort of college life.

We did not do this alone.

We assembled our respective wolfpacks, our fellowships, our gangs of friends that we got on oh so well with that it was almost sickening. The possibilities were endless; all night parties, unlimited storage for booze, no porters to cut the antics short….. what’s not to love?

Fast forward to November of Second Year and the majority of you will have learnt the terrible truth: people are shit.

Here are some of the characters that make you wish you stayed in college.

The Princess

A generic gripe but it applies to every single student household. Gone are the days of college dinners, where you could leave your half-eaten mashed potatoes and baked beans welded to your plate and go and live your life without a care in the world.

In a student house, this luxury is cruelly taken away. It’s your basic human duty as a decent member of society to chip in with a spot of washing up each week in order to prevent your house from becoming  a health hazard. However there is always one princess that regards this task below them.

Before you can utter the words “Fairy Liquid”, these individuals will shoot out of the room faster than a Fresher at their first JCR meeting, leaving the decent among us to tackle the mountain of congealed Dolmio splattered bowls and arsenal of dirty cutlery.

Bought a pink scrubber. Doesn’t bloody use it.

 The ‘Monica’

Named after the lovely Courtney Cox character this is a nickname for the OCD neat freak in your house. Most houses consider tidiness to mean a clear surface to eat your dinner off and the ability to walk down the stairs without breaking your neck on excessive items of footwear. For the Monica, however, this is not nearly enough.

Try leaving a table without re-tucking in your chair and you’ll receive a glare more terrifying than the prospect of being sat on by Kim K’s peachy but all-encompassing buttocks. Dare to wait half an hour before washing your snacking plate and you’ll hear an intake of breath sharper than nipples on a Durham winter day. Accidentally put a spoon in the knife draw and you’ll see lips tighter than …. we’ll stop with the similes now.

Very soon, you will become so pissed off, the temptation to daub “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened” in Nutella on your living room wall becomes a highly attractive idea, just to see them erupt and have a proper mess to clean up.

Just a polite reminder

The Shit DJ

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. However the one thing that is unforgivable and intolerable in a student house is allowing a person with crap music taste to have the freedom to play music at pre-drinks.

These people are hugely destructive and can derail a night out with just one play of “Bad” by David Guetta.

At pre drinks, people want to hear toe-tappers and tunes to get in the mood to boogie. They do not want to hear your “Maga 2013 Playlist”, which is just white noise with synthesisers and a woman usually talking about “bass” or “putting your hands up”. We’re in Durham, not Ibiza. Get over it.

However this household irritant is not solely a dance music fiend. He or she can appear in many forms, such as the Screamo Rock Guy, the Taylor Swift enthusiast, or the edgy fuck that plays the most obscure rubbish because it’s not music for the masses yeah. Keep them away from Spotify at all costs.

Just no

The Fussy Eater

Being from an Irish family, my mammy used to always tell me whenever I didn’t eat my dinner, that there were starving children all over the world that would love the food I was pushing away.

Back then, I thought it was just the standard mum nagging phrase. However becoming a communal chef, I can now understand her frustration when a person turns their nose up at a dish that has been laboured over for hours on end.

Fair enough if you have life-threatening allergies in which a nut could kill you or a mouthful of gluten will cause your bowels to implode. However, not fancying a Bangers and Mash because you only eat roast potatoes, or rejecting a pasta dish for dinner on the eve of a night out, on the flimsy basis that you apparently chunder every time you have this specific carbohydrate before a session is just taking the mick.

Spit in their food, give them something really to complain about.

Why’s there green stuff in it?

The Frapist

“Fraping” is funny. If a Facebook account is left open and unattended, it is your duty as a university student and a human being to post a stupid status, from the light-hearted to the downright offensive. However, living with serial offenders turns you into a paranoid wreck with trust issues and could lead to a string of counselling sessions.

Whether it be liking year 8 profile pictures of your college daughter, or inboxing your ex with an emotional plea to return from her year abroad, it can be take too far.

At most times, it is not the “frape” itself that is annoying, it’s the constant fear of it. Every time you leave a room without your laptop, the sharks smell blood, immediately concocting the next obscene declaration of your sexual orientation to your friends and family on Facebook.

There’s a time and a place for a frape, and that’s not every bloody day.

Great chat

The Food Thief

Jean Antheleme Brillat Savarin once said ‘Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are’. Now take this motto and put into the context of a student house and your housemates. If you are telling me you ate the food I specifically bought for myself, I will tell you what you are, without a doubt, a massive prick.

When somebody takes a colossal bite out of that special cheese you love that your mum sent you as a present, uses your bacon because they fancy a manwich or swipes that sneaky chocolate bar you hid in the bottom of the freezer then they’re entering the level of traffic wardens and Tottenham fans as generally horrible human beings.

Not amused

Not getting milk

Not a person, just the worst thing in the universe. If there is one thing that will cause you to utterly despise your housemates with every depth of your soul it’s getting up for a 9am on a Monday morning and discovering that there is no milk in the fridge.

The red mist descends, you curse your so called friends with every name under the sun, and you contemplate the prison sentence for arson.  Some dickheads even have the audacity to leave the empty carton in the fridge, which can send anyone into a rage typical of a socially reclusive American 10 year old who has just been killed on Call of Duty. It really is the small things that make you snap.

got milk?

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I wonder how much it costs to move back into college next year.