Enter, if you dare, to the student flats of Glasgow. Not the palaces you see around town or mere hovels, but these liminal spaces where young scholars are pretending to be adults, while silently rotting from within. Inside these walls lives a line-up of chaotic personalities that are so strange, so stubborn, and so unbearable that only one person can explain them to you: The one who has lived, suffered, and been through his own hell on earth to impart this knowledge.
Consider this a warning, not just guidance.
1. The hoarder of provisions
Their cupboard is a nuclear bunker: Towers of tins, pasta to survive an apocalypse, and the bottle of vodka that came from the Stalin era. They buy “essentials” as if they are feeding a Roman army in their room. They will take your milk to soak their prison oats. When the great famine comes, trust me, they will survive while you…perish.
2. The steam demon
They will vanish into the bathroom and reappear looking like something dragged from the Clyde.
Steam creeps under the door, the flat turns into a sauna and the boiler screams for mercy. You’ll wonder if they’re showering or performing a ritual. Either way, you’ll never have dry towels again.
3. The door slammer
Every entrance sounds like they’re kicking off at Garage. They’ll say “I just shut it normally,” but the vibrations reach Kelvinbridge. The neighbours hate you. The walls hate you. Even the door hates you.
4. The cook of chaos
The fire department and your sanity will hate them alike. All residents had to evacuate at least twice in the first week because of different meals. Pans perish, oil crackles like applause and every surface is a fire hazard. You ask them what they’re making, and they will grin and say something like “vibes.” You’d better be ready to leap with your precious belongings if you live by them.
5. The refuser of order
They don’t believe in recycling or bins or civilisation. Their corner of the kitchen will be a tower of pizza boxes, fossilised cans, and something that has grown that will put a petri dish to shame. You will suggest that they take out the bins, they will nod and smile at you, but will do nothing.
Eventually, it will have to be you who has to clean up so that the CDC doesn’t drop by your kitchen collecting samples for the next plague.
6. The bearer of music
Inseparable from their Bluetooth speaker, they carry noise like oxygen. You’ll hear them in the shower, blasting their morning anthem and again in the kitchen, curating everyone’s misery. Some days it’s kitchen techno, other days heartbreak ballads at dawn. They will call it “good energy.” You call it an emotional hostage situation. Eventually, you will buy earplugs or start eyeing the cricket bat. No one will judge you.
7. The keeper of laws
Every flat breeds a bureaucrat. If yours doesn’t have one yet, give it time. They’ll crown themselves monarch of the rota, issuing commandments like “clean the hob,” “do your dishes,” and “take out rubbish before Wednesday!!” None are obeyed, of course, but they persist anyway.
Their passive-aggressive notes multiply exponentially; you’ll find them on fridges, doors, and even by the sink.
Mine left me a note once, telling me to “keep the bathroom door open for twenty minutes after showering.” I ignored it out of principle and because I’m an independent person. But the mould won.
8. The 3am chef
Every flat’s got one: The 3am chef. You’ll hear the fridge open like a horror movie soundtrack and there they are, making vodka cornflakes or toast that somehow sets off the fire alarm. Their diet is 90 per cent carbs and 10 per cent regret. You’ll learn to fear the microwave beep more than death itself; at least death would be quieter.
9. The mysterious one
You never see them, but stuff keeps moving. The light’s on, there’s a half-eaten apple, and someone’s clearly breathing in there. You start to wonder if they’re doing an engineering degree or living an entirely separate timeline. Either way, the yoghurt’s gone again.
10. The eternal reveller
Freshers’ Week isn’t a memory for them. It is a lifestyle choice. They run on VKs, Students’ Union pints, and pure delusion, crawling home at sunrise with the perfume of kebab and defiance.
They swear every Monday will be different but by Thursday, they will be dressed for battle again: Face paint, glitter, adrenaline, and lots of bad intentions. You half admire their stamina and half mourn for their liver. They are living proof that youth can be everlasting if you are just in denial.
Maybe you’ve met them all. Or maybe one of them lives with you right now: humming in the next room, leaving notes on the fridge, or haunting your kitchen at the crack of dawn.
Tag the ones you recognise on The Tab Glasgow’s socials, if you dare.
And if you can’t find one in your flat… well that’s the scary part. Because the odds are, it’s you.
