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I’m losing my mind with my loud, disgusting flat mate

Just for context, I’m diagnosed autistic so I’m a lot more sensitive to these things. I’m a first year student in halls and my flat consists of me, 19F, my boyfriend 19M, another guy who’s quiet and clean 18M and the problem flatmate 25M.
My flat mate next door to me is SO loud constantly. He has friends over every other night until 3-4am where they have the TV on full volume and shout and laugh all night. When he’s alone he has his TV on full volume ALL night and I can hear him laughing out loud every few minutes right up until like 7am. When he has classes he gets up around 6:30am and wakes the entire flat up by going in and out of his room and the kitchen slamming the doors every time. He talks so loudly on the phone for hours that you can still hear him two rooms down from his.
At the start of the year, he seemed nice and the first few times he was being too loud I just went and knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn it down. The next few times he didn’t even answer the door so I left him a note in the kitchen. Still to this day he is constantly loud all hours of the day and night even though he knows most of my lectures start at 9am. He also starts playing his guitar and singing at the top of his voice from 8am regularly. It’s gotten to the point now where if he’s being too loud and I can’t sleep or get woken up I just make a complaint to the accommodation who come and kick his friends out and tell him off.
Also, the kitchen. The kitchen is absolutely disgusting. It stinks to high heaven and makes the whole hallway stink. He never wipes the counters, leaves his dishes all over the place until the food in the bottom goes mouldy. He spills milk and coffee and sugar and sauces and whatever else all over the floor and counters and just leaves it there for literally weeks. There has been a butter knife caked in god knows what stuck to the counter for over a month now. In october I asked in the group chat for everyone to wipe the counters once they finished as I was having to clean the whole kitchen top to bottom by myself regularly. Of course nothing changed. I cleaned the kitchen before leaving for home over reading week and came back to a state so I went on strike. It got to 4 weeks after I came back and the kitchen was just getting worse so I sent a polite message saying how the kitchen was grim and we all needed to put in effort to keep it clean. Again nothing was done so I sent another message a few days later this time pointing out how it is a food safety issue to leave the counters unwiped for weeks after preparing raw meat etc on them and threatened to get the accommodation involved if it wasn’t sorted. This finally worked somewhat. He cleaned up but left parts of the kitchen still disgusting and left all the food out of his dishes to rot in the sink.
And to add to it all, my food has started going missing from my freezer drawer and fridge shelf.
So, I can’t sleep, can’t stay asleep, get woken up at the crack of dawn, get my food stolen, can’t concentrate on assignments or studying and can’t just have peace and quiet for a few hours and it’s driving me insane.
I already hate my uni and my course and have planned to transfer closer to home next year. I’m extremely depressed and haven’t left my room or been to class in over two weeks now - and he just makes everything 10x worse.

What do i do in this situation?
Assuming this is uni managed accommodation and not private, have you spoken to the uni's accommodation or residential team?

They'll be rules about noise after hours, so they'll be able to have a word with him.

As an aside, has anyone in the house/flat raised it with them directly? Do they know they're being an arse an have just carried on anyway?

Reply 2

Original post
by snazzycazzywazzy
Just for context, I’m diagnosed autistic so I’m a lot more sensitive to these things. I’m a first year student in halls and my flat consists of me, 19F, my boyfriend 19M, another guy who’s quiet and clean 18M and the problem flatmate 25M.
My flat mate next door to me is SO loud constantly. He has friends over every other night until 3-4am where they have the TV on full volume and shout and laugh all night. When he’s alone he has his TV on full volume ALL night and I can hear him laughing out loud every few minutes right up until like 7am. When he has classes he gets up around 6:30am and wakes the entire flat up by going in and out of his room and the kitchen slamming the doors every time. He talks so loudly on the phone for hours that you can still hear him two rooms down from his.
At the start of the year, he seemed nice and the first few times he was being too loud I just went and knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn it down. The next few times he didn’t even answer the door so I left him a note in the kitchen. Still to this day he is constantly loud all hours of the day and night even though he knows most of my lectures start at 9am. He also starts playing his guitar and singing at the top of his voice from 8am regularly. It’s gotten to the point now where if he’s being too loud and I can’t sleep or get woken up I just make a complaint to the accommodation who come and kick his friends out and tell him off.
Also, the kitchen. The kitchen is absolutely disgusting. It stinks to high heaven and makes the whole hallway stink. He never wipes the counters, leaves his dishes all over the place until the food in the bottom goes mouldy. He spills milk and coffee and sugar and sauces and whatever else all over the floor and counters and just leaves it there for literally weeks. There has been a butter knife caked in god knows what stuck to the counter for over a month now. In october I asked in the group chat for everyone to wipe the counters once they finished as I was having to clean the whole kitchen top to bottom by myself regularly. Of course nothing changed. I cleaned the kitchen before leaving for home over reading week and came back to a state so I went on strike. It got to 4 weeks after I came back and the kitchen was just getting worse so I sent a polite message saying how the kitchen was grim and we all needed to put in effort to keep it clean. Again nothing was done so I sent another message a few days later this time pointing out how it is a food safety issue to leave the counters unwiped for weeks after preparing raw meat etc on them and threatened to get the accommodation involved if it wasn’t sorted. This finally worked somewhat. He cleaned up but left parts of the kitchen still disgusting and left all the food out of his dishes to rot in the sink.
And to add to it all, my food has started going missing from my freezer drawer and fridge shelf.
So, I can’t sleep, can’t stay asleep, get woken up at the crack of dawn, get my food stolen, can’t concentrate on assignments or studying and can’t just have peace and quiet for a few hours and it’s driving me insane.
I already hate my uni and my course and have planned to transfer closer to home next year. I’m extremely depressed and haven’t left my room or been to class in over two weeks now - and he just makes everything 10x worse.
What do i do in this situation?

Hey @snazzycazzywazzy I hope you are doing well! Thank you for being so honest about this and it does sound like it is a lot. What you are dealing with is not a normal level of noise, mess or disruption even by student halls standards. And given that you did say you are autistic and more sensitive to sound and routine, what he is doing is even more overwhelming! None of this is your fault, and your frustration is completely justified.

What you have described is not just a simple flatmate clash, this is someone being inconsiderate and refusing to take responsibility even when warned.

You have already done the right things:

Spoke to him politely

left notes

sent messages

reported noise issues appropriately


His lack of change is not on you, it is on him.

It makes complete sense this is affecting your mental health

Living in constant noise, mess, and unpredictability is exhausting for anyone, and even more so when you’re autistic and already struggling with your course and being away from home.

Your brain is stuck in stress mode 24/7, that is why everything feels harder.

Now it is time to escalate it formally
At this point, you cannot keep fighting this alone. These are the next steps I find to work best:

1.

Contact your accommodation again and frame it as a persistent welfare issue:

Do not just report single incidents. Tell them:

There is ongoing, repeated night-time noise

You are being regularly woken up

The kitchen is repeatedly being left in unsafe conditions

You believe your food is being taken

This is now affecting your ability to attend classes and your mental health


Most accommodations take things more seriously if it's framed as ongoing harm rather than individual events.

1.

Request either:

a room move

a flat change or

that he is formally warned or monitored


1.

Ask your university's wellbeing or disability services for support

Since you are autistic and this is genuinely affecting your health and academic engagement, you may qualify for:

priority room movement

a quieter environment

mediation with accommodation

academic support for the missed weeks


1.

Lock your food away if possible

Lots of students use mini fridges or lockable storage boxes inside fridges. It’s annoying, but it protects your things while the situation is being dealt with.

If you are already planning to transfer next year, that might end up being the best long-term decision for you. But you still deserve a liveable environment right now.

In conclusion,
You have done everything you reasonably can on your own. Now it is the accommodation's job to step in and make sure you are living somewhere safe, clean and tolerable.

I really hope everything works out for you. I wish you all the best 🙂

Ru
BCU student rep.

Reply 3

Original post
by Admit-One
Assuming this is uni managed accommodation and not private, have you spoken to the uni's accommodation or residential team?
They'll be rules about noise after hours, so they'll be able to have a word with him.
As an aside, has anyone in the house/flat raised it with them directly? Do they know they're being an arse an have just carried on anyway?
Both me and my boyfriend have knocked on his door in the middle of the night and asked him to be quiet. We have also texted him a million times now explaining that we start class very early and have class every day, hence why we actually need to sleep at reasonable hours unlike him as he’s a third year who only has class on a friday. Usually when we tell him to shut up, he does. But only for that night.He’s back at it again the next day as if he has like completely forgotten our conversation less than 24hours before.Initially I just thought that he didn't realise how loud he was being, but after telling him upwards of 10times now I’m pretty certain he’s just the world’s biggest arsewipe.
Original post
by snazzycazzywazzy
Both me and my boyfriend have knocked on his door in the middle of the night and asked him to be quiet. We have also texted him a million times now explaining that we start class very early and have class every day, hence why we actually need to sleep at reasonable hours unlike him as he’s a third year who only has class on a friday. Usually when we tell him to shut up, he does. But only for that night.He’s back at it again the next day as if he has like completely forgotten our conversation less than 24hours before.Initially I just thought that he didn't realise how loud he was being, but after telling him upwards of 10times now I’m pretty certain he’s just the world’s biggest arsewipe.

Have you spoken to the uni's accommodation or residential team?

Reply 5

Original post
by snazzycazzywazzy
Just for context, I’m diagnosed autistic so I’m a lot more sensitive to these things. I’m a first year student in halls and my flat consists of me, 19F, my boyfriend 19M, another guy who’s quiet and clean 18M and the problem flatmate 25M.
My flat mate next door to me is SO loud constantly. He has friends over every other night until 3-4am where they have the TV on full volume and shout and laugh all night. When he’s alone he has his TV on full volume ALL night and I can hear him laughing out loud every few minutes right up until like 7am. When he has classes he gets up around 6:30am and wakes the entire flat up by going in and out of his room and the kitchen slamming the doors every time. He talks so loudly on the phone for hours that you can still hear him two rooms down from his.
At the start of the year, he seemed nice and the first few times he was being too loud I just went and knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn it down. The next few times he didn’t even answer the door so I left him a note in the kitchen. Still to this day he is constantly loud all hours of the day and night even though he knows most of my lectures start at 9am. He also starts playing his guitar and singing at the top of his voice from 8am regularly. It’s gotten to the point now where if he’s being too loud and I can’t sleep or get woken up I just make a complaint to the accommodation who come and kick his friends out and tell him off.
Also, the kitchen. The kitchen is absolutely disgusting. It stinks to high heaven and makes the whole hallway stink. He never wipes the counters, leaves his dishes all over the place until the food in the bottom goes mouldy. He spills milk and coffee and sugar and sauces and whatever else all over the floor and counters and just leaves it there for literally weeks. There has been a butter knife caked in god knows what stuck to the counter for over a month now. In october I asked in the group chat for everyone to wipe the counters once they finished as I was having to clean the whole kitchen top to bottom by myself regularly. Of course nothing changed. I cleaned the kitchen before leaving for home over reading week and came back to a state so I went on strike. It got to 4 weeks after I came back and the kitchen was just getting worse so I sent a polite message saying how the kitchen was grim and we all needed to put in effort to keep it clean. Again nothing was done so I sent another message a few days later this time pointing out how it is a food safety issue to leave the counters unwiped for weeks after preparing raw meat etc on them and threatened to get the accommodation involved if it wasn’t sorted. This finally worked somewhat. He cleaned up but left parts of the kitchen still disgusting and left all the food out of his dishes to rot in the sink.
And to add to it all, my food has started going missing from my freezer drawer and fridge shelf.
So, I can’t sleep, can’t stay asleep, get woken up at the crack of dawn, get my food stolen, can’t concentrate on assignments or studying and can’t just have peace and quiet for a few hours and it’s driving me insane.
I already hate my uni and my course and have planned to transfer closer to home next year. I’m extremely depressed and haven’t left my room or been to class in over two weeks now - and he just makes everything 10x worse.
What do i do in this situation?

Hi there,

I am so sorry that this is happening, it sounds very annoying and I am not surprised you are feeling frustrated.

As others have said, the best thing to do is to speak to the accommodation. You could try speaking to the reception team if there is one as they should be able to help you with this and should be able to talk to them to tell them to stop being loud at night etc. The accommodation staff are there to help you and will want to know if you are unhappy if it is something that they can sort.

You could also try speaking to the accommodation team in general at your uni. They are there to help out with any issues like this so if you speak to them they could always try and help you too, as again they want you to be happy and comfortable where you are living.

In the meantime, just keep trying to explain that some things they are doing are not fair and you are not being unreasonable in asking them to be quiet and leaving your things alone. You would hope that they start to see they are being unreasonable and consider how you are feeling.

I hope things get better for you soon,

Lucy -SHU student ambassador.
Original post
by snazzycazzywazzy
Just for context, I’m diagnosed autistic so I’m a lot more sensitive to these things. I’m a first year student in halls and my flat consists of me, 19F, my boyfriend 19M, another guy who’s quiet and clean 18M and the problem flatmate 25M.
My flat mate next door to me is SO loud constantly. He has friends over every other night until 3-4am where they have the TV on full volume and shout and laugh all night. When he’s alone he has his TV on full volume ALL night and I can hear him laughing out loud every few minutes right up until like 7am. When he has classes he gets up around 6:30am and wakes the entire flat up by going in and out of his room and the kitchen slamming the doors every time. He talks so loudly on the phone for hours that you can still hear him two rooms down from his.
At the start of the year, he seemed nice and the first few times he was being too loud I just went and knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn it down. The next few times he didn’t even answer the door so I left him a note in the kitchen. Still to this day he is constantly loud all hours of the day and night even though he knows most of my lectures start at 9am. He also starts playing his guitar and singing at the top of his voice from 8am regularly. It’s gotten to the point now where if he’s being too loud and I can’t sleep or get woken up I just make a complaint to the accommodation who come and kick his friends out and tell him off.
Also, the kitchen. The kitchen is absolutely disgusting. It stinks to high heaven and makes the whole hallway stink. He never wipes the counters, leaves his dishes all over the place until the food in the bottom goes mouldy. He spills milk and coffee and sugar and sauces and whatever else all over the floor and counters and just leaves it there for literally weeks. There has been a butter knife caked in god knows what stuck to the counter for over a month now. In october I asked in the group chat for everyone to wipe the counters once they finished as I was having to clean the whole kitchen top to bottom by myself regularly. Of course nothing changed. I cleaned the kitchen before leaving for home over reading week and came back to a state so I went on strike. It got to 4 weeks after I came back and the kitchen was just getting worse so I sent a polite message saying how the kitchen was grim and we all needed to put in effort to keep it clean. Again nothing was done so I sent another message a few days later this time pointing out how it is a food safety issue to leave the counters unwiped for weeks after preparing raw meat etc on them and threatened to get the accommodation involved if it wasn’t sorted. This finally worked somewhat. He cleaned up but left parts of the kitchen still disgusting and left all the food out of his dishes to rot in the sink.
And to add to it all, my food has started going missing from my freezer drawer and fridge shelf.
So, I can’t sleep, can’t stay asleep, get woken up at the crack of dawn, get my food stolen, can’t concentrate on assignments or studying and can’t just have peace and quiet for a few hours and it’s driving me insane.
I already hate my uni and my course and have planned to transfer closer to home next year. I’m extremely depressed and haven’t left my room or been to class in over two weeks now - and he just makes everything 10x worse.
What do i do in this situation?

Hi there!

Sorry to hear you've been having such a rough time with your roomate ☹️ - sounds like you've done the right thing with reporting to the accommodation - I would maybe speak to the accommodation people again and see if theres any option at all for a move, i understand this isnt ideal but explain how much of an impact its having on your wellbeing, and see if that could be an option to get you out into a nicer flat enviroment for the time being.

wishing you all the best, hope it gets sorted asap!

Emily
Year 3, Chemistry
Official University Of Strathclyde Rep

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