Here goes...
So, started looking for housing for next university year with 4 other people. I'll call them A, B, C and D. One (say, C) couldn't be there for us choosing it as she was away on a teaching placement and would have missed the rush to get housing, so she doesn't feature much in this story.
We viewed 2 houses.
The first was actually bigger than I was expecting, with a decent-sized garden (enough grass to run a bit on), 2 toilets and 3 floors. The bedrooms were all doubles, at least twice the size of the double beds in there. Some of our friends told us the houses they'd viewed in that row were the best they'd seen student housing-wise in the area. The cons were that it was beside a hill much used by students (noise factor) and the stairs to the 3rd floor were quite steep. There were also 2 bulbs gone. (I will explain the significance of this later.)
The second was a lot smaller, with a wider (but not bigger) kitchen, 3 double and two single rooms (ie. too small to fit a double bed in). The location was slightly better (less noise) but it was still within sight of the same hill road (only ~2 mins away from the first house). Cons included the obvious damp, visible mould everywhere (including the wooden ceiling in the bathroom), a concrete 2-people-standing-wide yard with high stone walls and the fact that 3/4 of us there (me, A and B) didn't like it. We asked the current tenants what they thought of the house when the landlady was out of earshot, and their reply was "It's a sh*thole. Quite honestly, with the amount of problems we've had from this house, you can get a lot better houses for a lot less.". We relayed this to D. She responded that they obviously hadn't been taking care of it properly. The problems began.
So, we went away and talked. I say talked. We made a list of pros and cons and it soon became very clear that D was dead set against the first house. Quite seriously the only reasons I could uncover for this were that you couldn't walk down the 3rd floor stairs in heels (bathroom on the second floor, so surely this was not a problem?), it was dark (because 2 bulbs were gone), and "I didn't like it" (which turned gradually to "I can't imagine myself living there", to "I absolutely hate it, there's no way I can live there").
After several hours of attempted negotiation, persuading, D saying "wait there a minute" while she ran off to call her friends to say we were ganging up on her or whatever, other suggestions [we look for other houses ("it's too late, we've got to decide now"), that we rejig the groups ("I can't believe you're trying to get rid of me and C", even though we like C and she'd probably come with us), etc. etc.] and plain old reasoning, no change in D. Eventually, A cracked and said the second house was livable, but that she really didn't like the poky rooms, the damp problem and the lack of a garden. (Me, A and B are keen gardeners so this was important to us.) After still more arguments and borderline tantrums from D, B said she was fed up with all this and just to go for that one. After that, it seemed churlish for me to continue much longer and we arranged a second viewing for later that day. Yep, still the same, D went up to the landlady and got a contract. She then shouted at me for still refusing to seem enthusiastic about it (as far as I could tell. To be honest, I was trying to make a point by saying things like "I'm going along with the majority vote", so I see why I incurred her wrath...)
By the way, both houses were the same rent (quite expensive for student accommodation as it was and didn't include heating, electricity, water, internet etc.). Fair enough for the first house because it was so big, but the second house... If I'm going to live in a self-styled 'sh*thole', I want it to at least be relatively cheap...
So yeah, we skip to later this day. WHY HAVE ALL THE OTHERS PUT THEIR DEPOSITS DOWN ON THIS PLACE!? It's not even like the deposit is cheap, it's £280 each, and all of us hate it, why are we giving in to her?
Whenever we try to do or say anything, ANYTHING she doesn't like, she will throw a tantrum, blame others and turn people against them, or cry hysterically. I have seen her actually come out of her room at 3-4am in order to cry hysterically (and very loudly) in the corridor, which of course made people flock to her to try and help and see what was wrong, me included. (Her ex had told her she was making something all about her.) I actually thought she was alright before this, just a bit hyperemotional. Now I'm not even sure I want to live with her. It's not just me who thinks this, one of the others voiced this opinion to me first. We have all compromised TOTALLY for this person, and I'm not even sure she's satisfied because she wants us to be all happy about it.
Oh, by the way, when we were looking round the first house, we were all really impressed and going "wow!" and running up the garden and stuff, and D told us off saying that we shouldn't seem too interested in it. However, after the first viewing of the second house we all witnessed her say directly to the landlady "yes, we're really interested in this one", which strikes me as a bit hypocritical.
As I see it, I have 3 options.
A: Find some randomer to take my place in the house and try and move back into halls next year. They all hate me, I lose my massive deposit.
B: Suck it up and just enjoy living with the other people who I do genuinely like, lose a huge amount of money paying to live there.
C: Leave the country and pretend none of this ever happened. (It's called an Erasmus year.
) Lose a massive deposit, they really do all hate me.
The reason they'd hate me is because C is quite young to be going to university, still not a legal adult yet and we promised some other people we'd look after her. If I drop out, the deal could fall through and they would blame me for not considering C.
So, yeah. Any ideas?
