FJ readers share their most unhinged housemate stories

“It was not fine.”

Housemates can be both a blessing and a curse. When it’s good, it’s really good. They’re like an inbuilt friend — you see them all the time, you cook and eat meals together, you bond over bad dating stories and reality TV. On the flip side, there’s no real escape if things turn sour.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

Lately, something seems to be in the air when it comes to housemate dramas. In the past week alone, I’ve heard stories about annoying boyfriends, difficult pets and the challenge of staying friends when you’re living in each other’s pockets. With that in mind, we’re curious: how unhinged can it get?

Thankfully, FJ readers responded to the call. And there’s something almost comforting about the fact that no matter how bad your housemate might be, at least they’re not trying to send you into anaphylactic shock by leaving traces of peanut butter everywhere.

Maya*, 28, she/her

We met on Flatmates and we lived together for a year. When I moved in, she’d already signed the condition report, bought appliances and common space furniture, and settled in. She refused to accept payment for these because she said she’d take them with her when she left. Whenever there was maintenance that needed doing, she would insist on speaking to the property manager herself so as “not to trouble me”. How nice!

But weirdly, the maintenance never got done. The ceiling leaked, the sink leaked, the shower leaked, basically everything leaked the whole time I lived there. When I moved out, I got an email saying the landlord was withholding my bond for maintenance. My partner had been suspicious this entire time, so they paid to pull the public records about the owner of the house.

Surprise! She’d been the landlord the whole time. It was two months of back and forth with help from legal aid, but since she’d signed the condition report on my behalf and refused maintenance, she could’ve been hit with thousands of dollars in penalties. When I told her this, suddenly my bond was back in my bank account.

Larry*, 27, he/him

In early 2024, my delightful housemate met a charming Norwegian and, in a whirlwind of romance, decided to move to Norway. We toasted her courage, helped her pack, and turned our attention to the practical matter of replacing her. Enter our new tenant: vegan, self-assured, and fully informed that she would be living with a coeliac and someone severely anaphylactic to peanuts. She assured us it would be fine. It was not fine.

Within the first week, we found a knife thick with peanut butter abandoned in the sink. We reminded her that peanuts were not allowed in the house. This was not an aesthetic preference or dietary trend. It was a life-or-death rule. She pushed back immediately. Giving up peanut butter, she explained, was not possible. For two long days, we attempted diplomacy. We explained anaphylaxis. We explained EpiPens and how trace amounts can close a throat. Eventually, she announced she didn’t want peanut butter to ruin the friendship and offered a compromise: she would consider giving it up if we agreed to cook less meat in the house to accommodate her veganism.

That was the first crack. Tensions simmered until my allergic housemate decided to move out for his own sanity. When moving day approached, he left a few belongings in his room to collect later. In that brief window, she relocated herself into his larger bedroom, conveniently the one we had planned to advertise at a higher rent. Despite moving into the superior space, she announced she would not be paying more.

We eventually found a new housemate. Within the week, he asked, “What on earth is wrong with this girl?” That question lingered until we made the only sensible decision and moved out together.

Alyssa*, 32, she/her

My housemate would break my ceramics from time to time. As disappointing as it was, it’s a reality of having nice things and living with others. One day, I was putting rubbish in the bin and found one of my ceramics wrapped in a cloth bag, broken in half. When she came home that day, I asked her what happened, and she denied she had anything to do with it. Given it was just the two of us, there wasn’t anyone else to blame.

I was left to assume the alleged thief didn’t want a new TV or laptop or speaker, but did want a checked ceramic incense burner, and as they were admiring it, dropped it, felt shame, wrapped it in an Aesop tote bag, chucked it out, locked the door behind them and fled. My housemate continued the narrative that we had been broken into, as there was no other answer. She said that it was stressful and she was highly concerned, so I was gaslit into going to Bunnings and installing extra security on our front door to ensure she felt safe again. It’s still a mystery as to how the person broke into our home and then was able to lock the deadbolt behind them.

Jessie*, 26, they/them

I lived in a sharehouse where my housemates’ friends moved in. It was a terrible idea. She was an absolute mess; she would leave her drying period underwear (padded side out) hanging all over the garden beds for weeks on end. She would put used kitty litter in the toilet even though we had old pipes that clogged easily. She would always be in a crisis and would burst into rooms in tears and we would constantly have to console her.

I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I moved out and moved in with an even more awful housemate. She hated any signs of life. She would yell at us for closing the front door too loudly, would slam doors if she heard us chatting in the living room, and would blast her podcasts so she could drown out our noise.

The real kicker is when I was being interviewed for this house, she mentioned that this wasn’t a party house and I agreed. I’m not big on kick-ons but I love to host friends and family for dinners. A couple of months later, I asked if I could host a birthday party with 15 to 30 people for snacks and drinks, before going out dancing. She instantly vetoed it and called me “insolent” for even suggesting it. The real thing that pissed me off is that she was working until 1am that night and I was planning to be done by 11pm.

Fran*, 28, she/her

I first moved into a new sharehouse on the coast after I found an Instagram story of a mutual friend seeking a housemate. The two girls I lived with were Sarah and Clem. Clem lived in the main house with me, and Sarah stayed in a self-contained bungalow. Once I moved in, I was welcomed with open arms by the girls. Sarah was particularly friendly and keen to get to know me; she was always offering shared dinners and long conversations on the couch in the evenings.

I’m always keen to contribute to a sharehouse, in whatever way I can, although Sarah confidently handled all the bills, paid the rent, owned all the furniture and plants. As the weeks went by, I noticed how intensely she kept ownership of the house operations, sending group messages that rent was due and to send the money to her. She’d ask for our portion of the electricity bill, followed by an extreme amount of love hearts.

Two months in, I started to question how pricey everything seemed. We had short showers, kept power to a minimum – it didn’t add up. To cut a long story short, Sarah had been overcharging both Clem and me. When communicating with the real estate agent, she never CC’d us in, so we never saw what the overall cost of the property was. As it turns out, we were paying for 90 per cent of the rent, covering her self-contained bungalow. She added about $50 onto every bill, pocketing the difference. When we asked for receipts, she somehow found a way out of it.

When Clem and I caught onto it, feeling completely gaslit by her sickly sweet personality, she, out of the blue, told us she was moving out with her boyfriend. Within a week, she took every single item of furniture, wiping out the entire house (the house she didn’t even technically live in). She went as far as taking our shower curtain, light bulbs and compost bin. She conveniently left the group chat, exited the Beem account and evaporated. We eventually found out she bought a pretty nice house in a nearby town with her boyfriend.

Lenny*, 25, he/him

In 2021, I moved into a new place in New Zealand with five friends. We were all studying, sharing meals, drifting between lectures and late-night kitchen debriefs. It felt easy. Then, early on, two of the housemates, one guy and one girl, slipped from friendship into something more. At first, it was sweet. Then it was constant.

Before long, our five-bedroom house felt smaller, with only four bedrooms occupied. They cocooned themselves away, emerging only occasionally before retreating to a haze of movies, whispers and private jokes. They announced they would move into their own apartment.

Right on cue, our fridge blew up. In the scramble to replace it, one of us found a free fridge through a friend of a friend. Problem solved – except the boyfriend had already gone ahead and bought a secondhand one online for a few hundred dollars, without telling anyone. It arrived with a delivery fee and an expectation that we would split the cost. Annoyed but desperate, we agreed.

A week before move-out day, they moved every single one of their belongings into the living room and declared it would stay there until they left, despite there being empty bedrooms. They refused to move it back. Tension thickened until one night, while they were out, one of the other girls’ boyfriends snapped and quietly carried it all back into their rooms.

When they returned, the house detonated. Shouting. Doors slamming. We retreated to our bedrooms and waited it out. The next morning, the house was trashed. Furniture shifted. Drawers open. And in the middle of it all, the fridge stood there, useless. Because the boyfriend, who had isolated himself all year, who had insisted on buying it without telling anyone, had taken a knife and cut the power cord clean off.

*Names have been changed for privacy.

For more on sharehouse living, try this.