Housemates constantly backstabbing me - please help!

I had to deal with **** flatmates too but I'm in my first year. For me it got to the point of this one girl actually being blatantly racist to me when I was within earshot (my dad is German and she kept calling me a nazi and saying I kept prisoners of war under my bed). There were some other international students and she was racist to them too. 2 of my other former flatmates would all congregate in her room and say the most disgusting things about us. The best thing to do is just casually walk in on one of their conversations and just tell them that you know what they've been saying about you, and that they're massive *****. Because that's what they sound like. After what happened to me, I did that and then all 3 of the horrible ones moved out. Maybe see if you could move somewhere else afterwards? It's probably easier for you seeing as you're a second year.

I would love to tell you to have a massive go at them, but I imagine they're not the sort of people who would be shocked and regretful, so you might end up feeling worse about it than if you said nothing. When is your exam? Maybe you could move out on a short-term basis until the exam is over, then sort out something for the rest of the year? There must also be people at your uni you can talk to. Someone I knew at uni had terrible flatmates (apparently one of them vomited in her room and didn't apologise or clean it up) and I think the uni let her stay in halls for a bit.

Alternatively, dob them in for their drugs and watch **** hit the fan

I know it's long but please read this, I'm seriously considering moving out as I'm doing a difficult course and this has gotten to the point where I can't really stand it any more.

I'm sharing a house with a different group of people this year, and I've noticed for the last month or so they don't seem to respect me to the point that I can literally hear them saying awful stuff behind my back every time I'm home. My (all-girl) house group last year got on really well but broke up due to people going on years abroad/moving back into halls, and someone I knew through a sports club was looking for an extra housemate to fill a really nice house he found that was quite cheap so I decided to join them. I didn't really know any of the other guys very well though we have mutual friends (I'm the only girl in the house).


During the first few weeks after we moved in I had a lot of free time and got to know everyone pretty well, and I assumed we were all going to get along OK. We don't necessarily have a lot of things in common - most of them smoke, do drugs and are into different music/TV shows, and they're keen on stuff like cooking really well which I'm not that into, but I'm naturally quite a sociable and friendly person and we seemed to click just fine. A couple of them were sarcastic to me sometimes (or made loud remarks in my earshot like "that footballer cried like a proper girl!") but I put that down to their sense of humour, and in the interests of getting along I didn't really say much back.


However, after everyone started getting really busy with term kicking off, I haven't been able to spend as much time with them as I used to - I'm doing quite a tough course and am in many different societies, so I spend most time socialising outside of my house, and me and my friends tend to prefer going out clubbing to staying in and smoking, which is what my housemates like to do. It's easier for me to go out and visit my other friends than for me to invite them all round as we don't live in the main "student area" of town and it takes about 20 minutes to walk here.


I've still done all the chores around the house like loading the dishwasher/taking the bins out, though, and I've never once so much as had a minor argument with or insulted any of them. I've also spent a lot of my free time at home on evenings or weekends watching TV and stuff with them, but although this was fine in the first few weeks it's gotten increasingly awkward and I'm not sure why. Sometimes I'd literally walk into the kitchen and say hi and they barely seemed to pay any attention, or I'd ask how their day had been and they'd look at each other before giving me a sarcastic response. Or we'd go to a restaurant and someone would owe me some change for the bill, but when I mentioned it to them they'd just shrug it off and no-one else would say anything. I'd try to get involved in their plans and stuff, but a lot of the time it seemed they were just giving me lip service.

They also seemed to spend a lot of their time bitching and being petty about absolutely everything (including another of our housemate who's often in a bad mood about small things). We'd be watching TV and they'd spend ten minutes just criticising the double chin of the presenter. I don't really see the point of bitching about people like that so I just stayed quiet when that happened. Or they'd make a big deal out of the slightest little things like one of our other housemates not coming for a meal out.


It got to the point where I'd fallen behind on my degree and missed doing stuff with everyone else I knew just to try and hang around my housemates more and fit in (they don't take their courses all that seriously), and I still didn't feel like they accepted me. So I started spending more time studying when I was home, and also doing more stuff with my other friends (because I'm involved in a lot of stuff at uni I have a really active social life and busy schedule and usually spend most days completely out of the house).


Unfortunately, this just seems to have made their attitude towards me worse. I can continually overhear them saying stuff about me downstairs, which started off being OK but has recently gotten awful. Also, when I'm studying in my room (I close my door a lot as they smoke heavily indoors almost every day) and they text me randomly from the kitchen, I can often hear them laughing immediately afterwards which makes me think someone's said something petty about me again. Once, when we were really drunk after a night out, one of my housemates whom I'd heard gossiping about me the day before said to me "You're the perfect housemate for us, seriously, we were really worried that you were going to be a bitch. There's been a lot of good talk going on about you." I knew this wasn't true and, without getting as petty as they are, he's probably one of the most insecure, sarcastic person I've ever met.


Over the past week, though, I've been working on an essay to hand in next week and an exam on Tuesday, not even had time to go out with my other friends, and been really stressed not just with work but also my housemates' constant backstabbing. On Monday, I heard one of them saying to some of the others as they were smoking downstairs that there was "no way" my course could be requiring me to work in my room as much as I am, and that "the level of odd" I was "is pretty high right now" (after which they all started laughing). He misses most of his own lectures and had to do resits last summer, so I don't see how he could understand how much I have to work, but I didn't want to bring it up and cause an argument as I thought that would just lead to me being more stressed. On Wednesday, I heard some of my housemates talking again and thought nothing of it till I thought I heard one of them say my name and then had my worries confirmed as another one (the guy who's often in a bad mood) said really contemptuously ("You can see it when she walks in.") I couldn't catch anything more of what they said (and I've been obviously tired from lack of sleep but always polite whenever I walk in), but I was so annoyed at that I started going straight up to my room when I got home and not socialising with them at all.


Friday evening, however, was the real last straw. I was writing my essay in my room when I heard them all talking again and someone mention my name - "Has anyone even seen her today?"; I overheard one of them saying that "This is why we shouldn't have let her have a bigger room" before the sarcastic one replied "We can kick her out of that one - we have a contract with the landlord, not her..." He then said some stuff I couldn't make out before sniggering "She's shockingly ignorant." (I don't know about a lot of the music they listen to, YouTube channels they follow, or football, but I'm pretty well-read so I've got no idea why he was saying this.) I have one of the biggest rooms in the house, but I pay more beforehand, and we all agreed on rent and rooms via FB before we moved in during which we discussed swapping rooms towards the end of term (which it's coming up towards) and I said I was fine with that. Recently, though, no-one's even asked me if I'd mind changing to a smaller one so I don't know why they were going on about contracts and "kicking me out".


As I was by Saturday morning really upset and stressed, I ended up taking the train home for the weekend and staying there for as long as possible, and when I had to go back I went straight up to my room (I don't want to confront them about this till my exam's done as it's worth 75% of my grade). A few minutes later, I heard three of them come upstairs and stop outside my room to speak to one of my other housemates (he does calligraphy so he's making a drawing for each of us with a personal quote on it) and one of them said loudly "Can you please include on my drawing 'Where did all the hot chocolate go?' after which they all laughed for a lot longer than seemed normal. I'm Asian so I'm not sure if he was trying to make a racist joke or not; when they were coming upstairs, he yelled out in a really insincere manner (the way kids do when they're putting on a voice) "(my other housemate's name)! I want to talk to you about somethingggg!) so I'm not sure if he was just doing this deliberately to upset me knowing that I was in.

I am literally in my university library right now, and I'm studying here all night as I'm sick of all the sarcasm and negativity and gossip that's happening at home, and I can't concentrate on my work when I can hear people being dicks about me just outside my door. I really just want to move out though I'm not sure how I'd explain it to our mutual friends (whom my housemates know better as they're on the same courses.)

Advice please - has anyone ever been in a similiar situation? Should I confront my housemates about it or just give vague reasons if I do decide to leave?

Thankfully, I'm quite well-off and can even afford to pay for my current house and a new place if need be, and I don't think just having a word with them is going to deal with the underlying problem any more. Even before this week, a lot of the time we got on fine, but I got the feeling they didn't respect me and were pretty two-faced a lot of the time.

Aww

Rules:

1 - Unless you really know the people NEVER go into an all male student house with you being the only girl

2- Talk to them about it if they don't response appropriately, move out (as you said you can afford it, moneyz!!! )

3- All the best. PM me if you need someone to listen to your situation

Thanks Think I may try talking to them after my exam, genuinely don't know what to say though as they clearly don't respect me and I can't see them apologising for what they said...

That's it? I can see why it's unpleasant but I think you're blowing it way out of proportion.

Its rude on their part, but if you don't spend much time with them (however good your reasons behind it are) then it's not surprising they barely acknowledge you any more. Again it's rude, but the comments they've made about you are incredibly tame - I've heard numerous best friends make far worse about eachother, it's human nature to gossip!

Obviously you aren't deliberately making yourself upset and this is easier said than done, but try and put it in perspective. There's no need to worry about it so much!

It doesn't sound like you respect them either though. In which case, considering your social life outside the house is so busy anyway, wouldn't it be better to just be pleasant when you see them and stop making the effort, instead of doing something like confronting them, which could quite possibly make the whole thing worse?

Thanks. I see what you're trying to say, but I did respect them, right up until they started saying all this crap behind my back. They've often teased me to my face and I didn't care, but I don't think calling someone shockingly ignorant or "hot chocolate" is all that tame. Even now it's not like I'm trying to get revenge on them or something, I just don't particularly like it when people say stuff behind others' backs and then don't have the balls to say it to their face. TBH, I'm still not entirely sure what the actual problem is: nobody else I know complains about their housemates having too active a social life or studying too hard.

It wasn't like I didn't want to spend more time with them either, I actually didn't do uni work a lot of weekends so I could hang out with them playing FIFA or whatever. The fact is though, I'm on a busy course and I already have an active social life - if they're going to say stuff about me because of that, then I don't feel like being pleasant is going to resolve the situation. I'm still going to feel unwelcome in my own home, and I don't see why I should reward the people who are purposefully trying to cause that.