{"id":65163,"date":"2025-10-10T05:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/65163\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T05:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:26:07","slug":"the-10-lessons-i-learned-from-living-with-76-people-over-two-decades-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/65163\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 lessons I learned from living with 76 people over two decades \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always loved living in house-shares. Maybe it\u2019s having grown up as the fourth of five kids in a small town in Cork<\/a>, but I could never understand the appeal of a lonely and cripplingly expensive Dublin<\/a> bedsit with just the four walls for company. <\/p>\n

House-shares can be awful, but they\u2019re also full of life. Midnight toast after the pub is nicer when there are a few of you reaching for the butter. A film is more fun to watch in the sitting room with a gang. If you\u2019re having a party, a big house-share ensures a crowd before you\u2019ve even welcomed in one guest. House-shares are a good way to test your limits and grow as a person \u2013 even if the growing is just you realising you\u2019re too old to hide from the TV licence inspector. <\/p>\n

But yes, did I mention house-shares can be awful? Before I scrambled on to the property ladder, I lived with a head-spinning 76 people in 20 years of renting in Dublin, Cork, Galway<\/a> and San Francisco. Here are my rules for good house-share dwelling. <\/p>\n

\"NadineNadine O’Regan always loved living in house-shares. Photograph: Marc O’Sullivan <\/p>\n

1. Always have a dishwasher. This isn\u2019t because you\u2019re lazy. Or not just because of that. It\u2019s because of the fights. People can handle shoving a few dirty plates into a machine on someone else\u2019s behalf. They cannot cope with a Withnail-style fetid mass of dishes left in the sink to teeter like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. <\/p>\n

2. Do not live with just one person. You might as well be in a romantic relationship with them: it\u2019s too intense. Suddenly you know everything about them, even if you really don\u2019t want to. You\u2019ll start twitching at the scrabble of a key in the lock.<\/p>\n

3. If there are bad omens, pay attention. And preferably leave. I will never exorcise from my memory the housemate who hung a massive crucifix in the kitchen and, in an awe-inspiring finale, locked another housemate into her bedroom and refused to let her out. When we timidly inquired of her boyfriend if she might need a bit of help, he claimed it was all because she was on her period. Nobody ever went home in that era, because we were too scared to.<\/p>\n

4. Recast misfortune as opportunity. When the boiler breaks and your housemate who holds the lease is too afraid to ask the landlord to fix it in case they use it as an excuse to overhaul the house and kick everyone out, don\u2019t get frustrated. See it as motivation to go to the gym. Where happily, you can also shower.<\/p>\n

5. A key to your bedroom door is a gift, like finding a stash of gold coins in a video-game. Moving in? Ask about the heating system and the bus routes. But also look for that key in the lock. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0I miss Ireland for many reasons, but one is the lack of pressure to \u2018get fit\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

6. Moving in with friends is a dangerous game. As is moving in with someone you fancy. You might think it will be great. But before long nobody is speaking and you\u2019re listening to their sex noises. <\/p>\n

7. If your tastes don\u2019t align, don\u2019t think: \u201cAh, it\u2019ll be fine\u201d. So you are greeted at the door of your new pad by a bong-wielding surfer from the wilds of Donegal<\/a> who says he smokes weed all day every day, but lookit, people are people and he seems really nice? This is the equivalent of Chekhov\u2019s gun on the wall. It will go off. <\/p>\n

8. Humour helps. Housemates who can laugh at falling-down ceilings, floorboards that break beneath you, an infestation of mice \u2013 they are the holy grail. Those housemates are the ones who will wind up trying to shoulder a mattress up the stairs Friends-style while everyone shouts \u201cpivot!\u201d They\u2019ll think an annual Eurovision<\/a> party is essential for wellbeing. They\u2019ll nurture you through your bad break-ups and volunteer to go to the shop for biscuits. They will become lifelong friends.<\/p>\n

9. Fortune favours the brave. These days, particularly in Dublin, people barnacle themselves to home right throughout their 20s: often they can\u2019t afford the rent, or they\u2019d prefer creature comforts living with their parents while they save for a deposit. Being from the countryside means you possibly don\u2019t have that option and so you can be seen as unlucky. But a little risk and discomfort is not the worst thing. Pressure creates diamonds. The hobbit didn\u2019t get anywhere by staying at home.<\/p>\n

10. Know your exit date. The day will come when you outgrow all of it. Housemates peel off, couples pair up, friends move abroad, and you\u2019re left with the reality that arguing about whose turn it is to clean the bathroom on a WhatsApp group has got very old. Moving in with your partner or finally buying a home is a great feeling and should be celebrated. But still: don\u2019t miss out on the rollercoaster era of house-sharing before that if you have the chance. House-sharing is not a loser\u2019s game. It\u2019s where some of my favourite memories were made. <\/p>\n

Brianna Parkins returns next week.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brianna Parkins: People who get up early in the morning for no reason are a menace to societyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve always loved living in house-shares. Maybe it\u2019s having grown up as the fourth of five kids in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47520,85,46,1619,47521,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-65163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-brianna-parkins","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-magazine","12":"tag-renting","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}