Housemates arguing over heating.

Exactly what the thermostat is for.

We had a different problem, I wanted us to be economical with the heating but there was one lad who aggressively insisted on it being on even when it didn't need to be. He would go "FFS man, we don't live in a Third World Country, I'm not sitting in the cold because you're a tightarse".

When the bill came in, he said he didn't have the money to pay it then, I'd have to ask for him later. I kept asking every week or so and he never had it, once or twice he paid about £20 or so, in the end he just blew up and said "FFS man, does your life revolve around f--ing money all the time, f--- off"

He still owes me about £230, but that was for various different bills over the whole year plus he defaulted on part of his rent and our deposits got kept.

my housemates refused to put the heating on aswell so i got my mum to buy me a portable heater which i use wen they dont put it on, i have the coldest room in the house so wat they dont know wont hurt them

Lol sneaky, I'd do the same if I was in that position. My health and well-being is more important than a couple of 100 pounds.

There must be a compromise somewhere.

The whole ban on central heating is idiotic in my opinion. Temperatures out there are below minus 0 degrees, people could literally freeze to death in their homes. Surely life and health is worth more than a measly couple of 100 quid.

Those little electric heaters will also end up costing you way more than the gas would have.

Well if you agree with your housemates that you will pay the extra portion of the electricity bill then thats fair enough. Unless your plan was to hide it so that they pay for you to be warm while they're cold.

yeah I think it would be pretty impossible to freeze to death in a house with normal insulation. That only happens to old people because there bodies are already weak.

Lol sneaky, I'd do the same if I was in that position. My health and well-being is more important than a couple of 100 pounds.

had a really bad chest infection last year nearly got put in hospital, was not going to repeat that, im paying rent and some of the bills so i dont see why i sud be shivering

This just highlights the importance of choosing each other as house mates for second year. There are things to agree and compromise on.

I agree, but bills are a classic case of stepping into the unknown with people, because you might get on with people in nights out and so on but when it comes to money that always reveals a different side of people. I have lived over the years with 4 different groups of people, and in 3 of those groups there was a bad egg in there when it came to paying bills, to varying degrees.

Other people say stuff like "can't you just sort things out like adults, honestly" but when you have one bad egg then negotiation goes out of the window. The other thing I've noticed is the bad eggs were never people from poor backgrounds who didn't have money, they were the spoiled ones who had never had to pay anything in their lives and objected to the fact that they had to contribute now. Sometimes people will decide that they aren't that bothered about staying friends with their flatmates afterwards anyway, so if they leave owing money so what, they can just delete from facebook and not have to deal with them again.

The worst one I had was the guy I described a few posts above but the other two were 1) a guy who was a great housemate otherwise, but when it came to paying his debts, he just dragged his feet and dragged his feet, in the end one of the others in the house facebooked his sister about it, and his Dad phoned up embarrassed at the situation and wired us the money over.
2) a rah girl who was basically Katie from X factor, "OMG I've lost my hair straighteners, Im SO going to kill myself", with her, whenever the bills came in she always argued the toss to get herself a discount, eg "well in these three months, I was away for 2 weekends visiting friends, and then I went on field trip for a week, so I should have a pro rata discount because I wasn't getting the benefit of the heating or the TV and lighting for 10 days, thats like more or less 2 full weeks out of 12 so I should have a 1/6 discount". Whether you agreed to her 'discount' or not, that was all she paid for. Then she said we shouldn't bother getting a TV licence because its easy to get away with it, but one of the others wanted to get a licence so we got one, but she refused to contribute as she said it "wasn't her idea we were having to waste our money on one". I remember a petty little incident when the kettle, which had been going faulty for ages, went bust, so the other girl living in the house went and bought a new one then asked us all for about £3 for it, and she wouldn't pay, because she argued, she didn't break it...because I'd been the one who had turned it on when it had finally blown out, she said I should pay the full cost. In the end the other girl just said to her forget it you're not worth arguing with so we all chipped in the extra £1 to cover her share!

After I finished living with her I went out for drinks with some girls who were her friends, and were bitching about her, it was all stuff like "and she NEVER pays her share for a taxi", I had to laugh, some people are just naturally like that.

One thing I would say though, is whilst people who try to manipulate a system of shared payments for their benefits usually end up getting their way, it is a great way of burning bridges with people and everybody else talks about them negatively behind their backs....whilst she was a fun housemate in other ways, all the rest of us pretty much washed our hands of her when we moved out, but we just kept in touch with each other.