A less than comprehensive guide – so add your own contributions. More detail. New sections and categories. Case studies...slip them all into the comments box - and I’ll add them!
Household Food
It’s all yours.
You might be aware that the other members of your household may feel that some of the food in the cupboards and fridge of your house belong to them.
Ignore this.
If caught in the act, you can profess ignorance of their ownership, pretend you didn’t know they were in and cheekily ask to borrow it, or ignore them and carry on as if nothing is wrong.
In terms of hygiene and food, scrupulousness is important. If you are lucky enough to have clean housemates who don’t drink out of milk bottles, then it is perfectly safe for you to drink their milk in this way.
Noise
Try and suppress any feelings of consideration for your neighbours, and in the natural order of things, a lack of consideration for your housemates will follow.
Learn to appreciate bad music played really, really loud. Why not learn the drums?
Smell
Whilst not washing yourself or your clothes is the fastest route to a good smell, this may, eventually, offend even your own sensibilities. So; why not wash your clothes and leave them wet and scrunched up in the washing basket for a few days?
For extra annoyance, you could try leaving them in the washing machine, taking up space and pissing others off. Outstanding stuff, but beware of enraged housemates taking matters into their own hands.
When the clothes are eventually dry, they’ll have a wonderfully pungent odour that will really disgust your housemates, but you will know that the clothes have only just been cleaned.
Hair
A really bad housemate is a hairy housemate. Or, for the more discerning Bad Housemate, you can keep your hair extremely short, and leave any surplus in interesting household locations. The bathroom is traditional, although you may need to purchase your own hair cutting equipment. The kitchen may prove to be a winner here.
Sex
If you have a deep and serious commitment to being a Bad Housemate, then sex and other embarrassing situations are a must. However, you may think it difficult to reconcile the difference between being excessively hairy (or not), smelly, noisy and inconsiderate, and the necessary set of skills required to seduce a member of your chosen sex.
This has never stopped anyone in the past, so don’t let it bother you now.
For maximum impact, wait until your housemates are asleep and pursue noisy sexual relations in a communal area. Continue until there is no doubt that all housemates are awake. Feel free to tell them about it the next day as if it was secret.
If you have failed to acquire a willing partner you may like to try this one ‘solo’.
Moaning
Two major tactics:
-Berate everyone for everything, regardless of whether or not it is their fault. This is the riskier of the two tactics, as moaning behind other peoples’ backs may lead to violence and/or overt dislike. Moaning to peoples’ faces may lead to your housemates to stick up for themselves or point out that you are talking shit.
-Berate yourself constantly. Moan about your lack of motivation. Your lack of organisation and energy. Moan that you can never be arsed to do anything; cook, clean, wash up, or maintain a reasonable level of personal hygiene. Pursue your housemates into their rooms and moan at them about yourself. The best thing about this tactic is that your housemates will no doubt agree with you, but will rarely say so and might even voice their sympathy. Excellent.
Jokily point out your housemates’ failings. Act extremely offended when they begin to list yours in a similarly jokey manner, and avoid them for a month. Continue to eat their food and do not clean.
Heating
In summer, always claim to be cold. Put the heating on to the maximum setting at every opportunity. Do not wear extra clothing whilst complaining about the cold.
In Winter, wander around in seven layers of (scrunch-dryed and smelly) clothing moaning about the oppressive heat in your building. Turn the heating off at every opportunity.
Mess
Don’t try. If you need to try, you’re just not bad enough.
Any more for any more?
Read on for readers' further additions and useful case studies!
Hullaballoo Snoo, puffing away in Dorking, writes:
If you have 4 rugby player friends all in excess of 6'2, you could invite them round and sledge down the stairs on a dinner tray at half past 2 in the morning. That works.
Or, at the start of the year, you could put a bag of potatoes in the cupboard no-one uses, you know, the one where your housemates put the duplicate sandwich toasters. Then, after 12 months when it's time to move out, the potatoes will have sprouted and grown so thick that it's impossible to untangle and remove the sandwich toasters, forcing your housemates to leave them where they are.
Ed: With the added bonus the new Potato Sprout/Toaster hybrid is a new cyborg housemate for you to annoy.
Jane of Fair Mancunia Town suggested leaving the wrappers to the food your housmates thought they owned on the surfaces in the kitchen (Ed: Why limit yourself to the kitchen?) as a lesson they must surely learn. All food is yours.
Pixelaria, in Londinium, writes of the particular importance and effectiveness of hair, even going so far as to experiment, and coming to the conclusion that the most annoying amount is that which could keep a family of hamsters warm until the next millennium. You do the math.
Arrrrrrr Jim-lad, of Wittering-on-the-stair, recommends:
Refuse to move from the couch for two years, eating take away chicken and sara lee cakes, being careful to fold the little chicken boxes really small and stuffing them down the back of the couch and leaving them to be found the day after you move out...
If your landlord is of a religious persuasion, and your housemates are easily embarrassed, leave behind a waist-high stack of pr0n.
Steal £127.50 from a wallet and deny all knowledge...
Ed:Stealing NOT recomended. Stealing is WRONG, whereas being a Bad housemate is just FUCKING IRRITATING.
Run up and £300 phone bill and leave without paying, letting your father pick up the tab when you ex-flatmates eventually track you down 65 months later...
Take umbrage at the quality of someone else's washing up and leave the clean pans together with a load of new dirty stuff actually *in* their bed for them to discover later.
Half unpack and leave a load of boxes in the bathroom and hallway FOR EVER. When challenged say "Why? What harm are they doing?"
Casually inquire "Is it ok if [insert name of your other half / best mate / cousin] stays - just for a week or two?" When your flatmates asks 6 weeks later if X is perhaps thinking of moving on demand detailed records of any antisocial behaviour and accuse flatmates of contributing to the homeless crisis. Do NOT pay any extra rent or bill shares for this period. Duh.
If a final demand / threatening letter / court summons turns up berate other flatmates for not sorting it out first. Arrange for someone else to cover it 'just for now'. Don't pay them either. When challenged quibble about the amount, then plead poverty. If flatmates look as if there heads are about to explode with fury offer to pay it back in monthly installments. Remind others they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with if they'd paid it straight away.
Ed:I'm blown away by this. Outstanding stuff...
If you have 4 rugby player friends all in excess of 6'2, you could invite them round and sledge down the stairs on a dinner tray at half past 2 in the morning. That works.
With regards to household food, when you have used other people's items leave the empty wrappers on the kitchen worksurfaces, just so they know you've used it. Someone I lived with at Uni used to do that.
I could write for weeks on this topic.
But I won't... I'll just say that I'm constantly amazed that my last flatmate wasn't bald, because every single sodding day she left enough hair in the plughole to keep a family of hamsters warm until the next millennium.
Every.
Sodding.
Day.
*deep breath*
Not that I ever had a really big issue with picking her gooey bezoars out of the plughole every morning. Oh no. not me.
Or you could refuse to move from the couch for two years, eating take away chicken and sara lee cakes, being careful to fold the little chicken boxes really small and stuffing them down the back of the couch and leaving them for me to find the day after you move out...
You could have a stack of porn waist high which you leave behind after mvoing on the same day that your born-again christian landlord comes round to see your old room - bringing his 8 year old daughter...
You could steal £127.50 from my wallet and deny all knowledge...
You could run up and £300 phone bill and leave without paying, letting your father pick up the tab when you ex-flatmates eventually track you down 65 months later...
All from the same guy. I a word - evil.
Oh, the horror...
I'll pop these in in the morning.
God yes - the list *is* endless. You could :-
1) Take umbrage at the quality of someone else's washing up and leave the clean pans together with a load of new dirty stuff actually *in* their bed for them to discover later.
2) Half unpack and leave a load of boxes in the bathroom and hallway FOR EVER. When challenged say "Why? What harm are they doing?"
3) Casually inquire "Is it ok if [insert name of your other half / best mate / cousin] stays - just for a week or two?" When your flatmates asks 6 weeks later if X is perhaps thinking of moving on demand detailed records of any antisocial behaviour and accuse flatmates of contributing to the homeless crisis. Do NOT pay any extra rent or bill shares for this period. Duh.
4) If a final demand / threatening letter / court summons turns up berate other flatmates for not sorting it out first. Arrange for someone else to cover it 'just for now'. Don't pay them either. When challenged quibble about the amount, then plead poverty. If flatmates look as if there heads are about to explode with fury offer to pay it back in monthly installments. Remind others they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with if they'd paid it straight away.
I really could go on for ever, and by and large I never have any hassle with sharers. Except at the moment. One person - just one - has turned our happy home into a bitter seething pit of resentment and recriminination. One is all it takes.
Or, at the start of the year, you could put a bag of potatoes in the cupboard no-one uses, you know, the one where your housemates put the duplicate sandwich toasters.
Then, after 12 months when it's time to move out, the potatoes will have sprouted and grown so thick that it's impossible to untangle and remove the sandwich toasters, forcing your housemates to leave them where they are.