Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

My new flatmates are nut cases.

Two girls: one Slovakian and the other is French. They sit in the kitchen all day and discuss how disgustingly unclean the house is.

One boy: English guy, a bit posh and escaped UCL with a fleet of toff friends, who say ridiculous things like " I don't know why our good friend John doesn't just go for a 10 mile run." Erm... He has M.E., you insensitive buffoon. However, James's an alright bloke and we often sit in the lounge drinking tea and chatting, not about cleaning. We do however both agree this is the cleanest house we have both ever lived in.

In the course of their chatting they have developed a cleaning plan. They have divided the rooms each week between us, and spend each Sunday scrubbing their allocated room for over four hours.

This makes it sound like James and I are messy oafs, who don't clean after ourselves - we do. But still every week they expect us to adhere to the four hour allocation of cleaning time. this includes removing everything from all the cupboards in the house and cleaning the inside of the cupboard.

James and I simply do not have time for such a time wasting exercise, as we both work and study. This has meant that neither one of us can return home but to find purse lipped flatmates in the kitchen and a note pinned to the door, regarding something we have failled to do in obeyance with their stric guidelines... It's a bit like living in a mini Totalitarian state.