Wednesday 21 March 2012

True or False: Students are Dirty

To continue with last week’s topic on stereotypes of student living, we would like to explore, more in-depth, the question of whether students are dirty.  A common perception is that student homes are dusty and cluttered. It is often believed that students neglect common duties such as vacuuming, doing the dishes, and all other household chores that were once required of them when living under their parents’ roof and watchful eyes.  Do you think this is really true?  Or, perhaps students take the opportunity of living away from their homes to grow and flourish into independent adults with immaculate housekeeping skills. What do you think?  Can you relate to this?
What are your cleaning habits like? Do you have a cleaning schedule?  Know of any student home horror stories? Please share your experiences with us by sending your stories and pictures of your very clean or, alternatively, very dirty student house to whostolemymilk@gmail.com.  We will post the responses in a few days, and submissions can remain anonymous.  We are looking forward to hearing from you!

3 comments:

  1. My flatmates could be really dirty. They keep forgetting to clean their dirty dishes. If I want to use pot or plate, I have to clean it by myself... so annoying!

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  2. I think there's some truth to it, because you're dealing with people who have such a wide range of independent living skills. Like there are the people who've never done laundry, and then there are people who've been cooking, cleaning, and taking care of siblings from an early age. In my experience, neatness isn't something that just evolves with age, it has to be learned. My parents never really taught me to clean, and I grew up in a messy/cluttered environment, so I didn't know anything different. I had to actively seek out resources for learning how to clean effectively. I think there's also the element of self-fulfilling prophecy (because student houses are "supposed" to be messy, and besides, you're probably only living there for a year max). But, I remember seeing some very neat student houses, and of course I've seen some scarily messy houses of people whose student days were long over. I think our house was somewhere in the middle. I have definitely seen much worse!

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  3. I once moved in with fellow students who were so dirty, that one week later, I got foot fungus from the shower! Yuk!

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