The most irritating housemate habits revealed

As irritating housemates go, the Celebrity Big Brother crowd are certainly contenders for the title of the most irritating people you could possible share a house with. Fortunately for them, they only have to put up with it for a few weeks. The rest of us have years of sharing to look forward to.

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Sky high rents mean millions of people can only afford to pay the bills by moving in with other renters. This has the advantage of freeing up a bit of cash to spend on outlandish luxuries like eating, or heating the property, but comes with some enormous headaches.

Research from Paym asked flatmates to name their biggest bugbears. Top of the list was their fellow flatmates who invite their friends or partner over for large chunks of the week, but don't pay any extra to the running costs of the house. This irritates one in five people.

Next on the list was having to chip in for a household expense you don't really want - like TV subscriptions - which 15% say they find annoying. In third place (at 12%) were those who don't pay their way for one-off expenses, and in fourth (at 11%) were those flatmate who are at home all day, but don't pay a larger chunk of the utility bills than everything else.

Sharing bills with flatmates can be a nightmare. It's therefore worth having house rules over what everyone pays, and setting up a joint calendar so everyone knows what they have to pay, and by when. It's also worth having rules about what you will do if someone pays late or doesn't pay at all.

Tip of the iceberg

However, when it comes to just how annoying flatmates can be, those who shirk their share of the bills are beginners. There are plenty far more impressively shocking flatmate irritations.

One reddit user revealed his flatmate didn't just move his girlfriend in - but her son too. They apparently would come and go very early in the morning and late at night to avoid detection.

Another user arrived home after a holiday to discover the carpet in the lounge was soaking. On further inspection, the water was coming from his room, because the hot water heater had exploded and flooded it. All this had happened three days earlier, and his flatmates had decided to leave him to deal with it when he got home.

Another renter took a call on the landline. It was from someone who had seen his flatmate's listing on Craigslist, and wanted to buy some of the things listed. It was while he was taking the message that he realised all the items listed for sale were his - his flatmate was stealing them and selling them on.

Finally, was the woman who discovered that her housemate had taken the batteries out of the smoke alarm because it kept going off when she was cooking. Unfortunately she made the discovery when her flatmate accidentally set fire to the house - then fled - so she only discovered there was a fire at all when the fire brigade broke the door down.