flatmate with an attitude probelm

Lol what's that meant to mean? Are you insinuating all people from Essex are nutters?

Sorry, this is very long!

I'm in my first year at uni and since we got here I've been living with this girl who seems to be out to get me. In the first week she was taking the piss out of my accent, calling me posh and saying I must have gone to a really snobby, stuck up school. (For the record, her only justification for this was that I come from the south east. We're at what is generally considered to be a "posh" university where most people are from the south east, and loads of people have been to private schools. The irony is, I haven't. )

We spent a lot of time together at the beginning trying to be friends, but it was quite tiring because she complained all the time about how the city wasn't as good as where she comes from, and the people weren't as nice as her friends back home, and her boyfriend wasn't here.

One day she decided to have a party in our flat, and I pointed out that no one would come because it was someone's birthday upstairs and there was a party going on up there. She ignored me, and when no one came to our flat I went upstairs to join everyone else and she just got really drunk in the kitchen and didn't speak to me for a few days.

A few times she tried to irritate me by using my full name (eg. Elizabeth) when no one has ever called me that, and I go by a diminutive (eg. Beth), and then she laughed about the fact that I couldn't do anything to her name. It was petty and childish, and annoyed me. She's also made comments about my course, which has very few contact hours, basically going on about how much harder hers is, and how I have it so easy.

Towards the end of the first term I was ill, had a coursework deadline and had a concert to rehearse for all at the same time. I left my washing up for a bit too long, and we came to blows over it. She put all my stuff in the washing up bowl and left it outside my door. I just moved it back into the kitchen and said I wasn't sure exactly what she thought I was going to do with it in the corridor, and that I'd do it when I had a spare moment.

A week or so later we had an argument and she bitched about me behind my back. When I saw her I told her that if she had something to say to me, I'd appreciate it if she would say it to my face, since we live together. She said she had nothing to say to me, but that she hates me and thinks I'm a stuck up bitch, etc etc etc. After this I told the hall tutor what was going on, because I felt that if she hated me so much it was her problem, and that she should keep it to herself. He said he'd keep an eye on the situation.

During the second term there was a similar situation with the washing up, but I was starting to feel victimised, since I was being blamed for the whole mess when other flatmates were partially responsible as well and no one was having a go at them. It's fair to say that most of the mess was mine, but it was basically just stuff I'd left in the kitchen that had been rinsed which I hadn't had a chance to wash properly. There was nothing particularly unpleasant or unhygienic about it, and it was only a temporary thing while I was so busy.

We reached a situation where we were being civil to each other and making a bit of an effort to be friendly, but that was it. We never spent any time together or anything like that. But a couple of months ago, I had a few people I barely knew come up to me and ask me what was going on with me and her, and saying that she'd been adding people to Facebook and MSN and telling them all about how much she hates me. To be honest, they seemed to think it was pretty weird behaviour, as apparently they barely know her either. I ignored it, but thought that kind of thing was pretty out of order, and took some consolation in the fact that these people had started calling her "the weird Facebook girl".

At the end of term we had a flat inspection. No big deal. We're supposed to tidy up and everything, but basically the staff just come in for five minutes and make a note of what each person has to do before they leave for the holidays. I forgot to tidy up (and so did another flat member) but it was no big deal, really. Despite this, she left a note for the cleaner bitching about me. When we got back this term the warden wanted to see several flats, and ours was one of them. He showed us the note (which I hadn't seen) and basically said he was concerned that we appeared to be unable to communicate with each other. I said I didn't see why anyone who had a problem couldn't just knock on the person's door, and that writing a note was pathetic. This girl then started saying that she'd tried to do that loads of times and I'd just told her to get lost. (This being the girl who never speaks to me.) I got angry and just stopped short of saying that was total bullsh*t in front of the warden, but I asked to have a word with him after the meeting and told him the whole situation. He said he was worried, and that it all sounded like very childish behaviour.

My question is, what do I do about this girl? She doesn't particularly bother me, as we manage to avoid each other most of the time, but I feel kind of sad about the fact that I've lived with someone for the best part of a year and we can't even talk to each other. Most of the time it seems ok and then she does something childish, or someone else tells me she's been bitching about me behind my back. I don't think she's very happy at uni, as she got dumped by her boyfriend and seems to have found it very difficult to make friends here, but when she's so horrible I find it hard to sympathise. The weird thing is, I think she's an ok person, but she just seems to have developed this irrational dislike for me. I say irrational because she's the only person who is like this with me. She told me once that everyone I think is my friend is just pretending and really hates me, but that's nonsense. People don't do that at uni. If you hate someone at uni, you don't pretend to be their friend, you avoid them like the plague and don't invite you anywhere. I have a very active social life, and she hardly seems to go out at all.

Still, it seems a shame for us to get to the end of the year and not sort things out at all. What could I do to help improve the situation? And should I bother?

Thanks