I’ve lived in four share-houses over the past two and a half years, and over this time I’ve seen my share of hilarious capers, passive aggressive notes, culinary disasters, and probably more than my share of mould.
Share-house living is a tricky thing to get right and far too frequently it just doesn’t work out. If you’re lucky though, you might have an experience similar to the one I had when I first left home.
The first few months in any share-house are the best. You’re enthusiastic and keen to please. You’re the only person who always sweeps the floor (mainly out of guilt), you let other people control the TV remote and nobody is sick of you – yet. You bake for your housemates, you share your bag of goon and you smoke Cuban cigars together in the overgrown jungle of a backyard.
The first four months after moving out of my parents’ place were probably some of the best months of my life. Free of my family and all that disgusting fresh country air, I fell quickly and messily into a huge share-house in Parkville.
It all happened so fast I could barely believe it – a Gumtree message, a phone call, and we moved the next weekend. There were six of us in the house: myself and my-then-boyfriend, the English Student, the Journalist, the Drummer and the Writer. We were scattered across ages 20-27, in and out of jobs and internships, and beds and bars. We fit together almost perfectly.
I know the reason this particular house will stay in my mind as the epitome of a wonderful share house experience, because it was all over as quickly as it began.
We: the house, my housemates and I, were still in our honeymoon period when the place was sold out from under us. We were forced to pack our things and move before friendships turned sour and someone had to make the move alone.
It was, as Dickens famously wrote, ‘the best of times and the worst of times’.
In my mind, everything that happened in that time is preserved in some strange bubble – I see the kitchen literally filled with suds after someone put liquid detergent in the dishwasher, I see the day we got locked out of the house for four hours in our pyjamas, I see the drunken games of Rock Band and the wallpapering of someone’s room with naked pictures, the dressing up and the late night chats about everything.
It all sounds so cliché, but maybe that’s what I liked about it. Everything was just as I’d imagined it would be.
After the house was sold, we began to search for another place together but one by one, people fell off the wagon. The Writer left for Spain, the Drummer started to get on everyone’s nerves and found a place with a friend on the other side of town. The Journalist got a job at a national newspaper and moved back to her hometown. The English Student (who is now one of my closest friends), the Ex and I moved into a new place.
It was fun for a long time, but it was never quite the same. Whatever had held us together in that cavernous grey house was gone.
We’ve remained in touch, sort of. As in touch as we can be after the disintegration of relationships and new careers and pregnancies and extended overseas sojourns. I doubt we’ll ever all be in the one place again, but even if that never comes to pass I know the memories of my first share house experience will always be very special to me. I’ll never find another quite like it.
Madeleine Rebbechi is a third-year Professional Communications student at RMIT. You can follow her on Twitter: @mrebbechi
Do you have a share-house story you’d like to share? E-mail upstart at contact@upstart.net.au
