One of the first collectively purchased flat items, when I was in Halls was a table foosball. We had flat tournaments, and sunday roast dinners with the flat below too.it was put in the lobby and it was awesome.
Inside my room, I guess the weirdest thing I brought with me was a ton of books that weren't even related to my subject specifically, but were interesting books about history. Some were about The changing nature of warfare, some were about the American civil war, but one was E.F Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful." It offered a critque against Western economics, and calls for a system of economics "where people matter." Quite an interesting book really.