Fresh(ers) Hell: Our uni horror stories

Being a fresher is just a million feelings, experiences, and moments of hell baked into nine speedy months. It’s usually the first time people are living away from home, outside of the watchful eye of their folks, which inevitably leads to the most unhinged behaviour humans can drunkenly manage. Even when freshers are sober it seems the decisions are not quite decisioning too hard. That’s no shot at you pal. That's just how it felt for me at eighteen living out that hellscape of a year. Turns out a lot of The Skinny's team felt the same way...

'Pet tarantula'

"When I was in halls, someone in my flat got a pet tarantula lol, which was bad enough, but he also got loads of live crickets to feed it. One night he came back drunk and knocked over the cricket tub. We all woke up in the night with crickets in our beds, and we couldn't get rid of them for weeks. Also the tarantula died." [Phoebe Willison]

'A completely naked man'

"The night before classes started in my first year of uni in NYC, I was awoken in the middle of the night by a completely naked man who had gotten drunk, taken a shower, and then lost his way going back to his dorm room, so he was going door to door looking for it, naked and drenched." [Rho Chung]

'Limpets'

"When I studied in Glasgow, I lived with a resourceful New Yorker who picked limpets from the River Clyde for his dinner. I guess he had a pretty robust immune system?" [Rachel Ashenden]

'Kissing my flatmate's brother'

"I made the mistake of kissing my flatmate's brother at a Halloween party and then he honestly hung around like a bad smell for weeks, like he was just always there. I kept having to excuse myself when he appeared and at one point I made the bold decision to just leave the flat, but still he didn't get the hint. When he realised I'd left, he actually chased me down the street yelling, 'Do you even like meeeee'. I thought it was pretty clear that no, I did not. So yeah, the whole thing was incredibly awkward, so please heed my advice and don't get involved in any way whatsoever with a flatmate's sibling. Just don't do it!!" [Tallah Brash]

'Maggots'

"People in my halls thought it was really funny to drop things out the window at 4am, four floors up on the Cowgate – they were of course drunk, it was the '00s. The police were called when they threw eggs at the flat opposite, smashing on the windows and waking up the residents.

"There was an American guy in the flat who always got his mum to send over big blocks of Velveeta, a sort of super processed cheese that we all regarded with deep fascination. Someone drunkenly sculpted it into a shockingly realistic penis at one point.

"We never took out the bins, just left the bags in the hallway and once our friend, again he was drunk, fell on one and the bag burst open, covering the entire landing in maggots. I didn't realise until I found myself in the hall, barefoot, locked out, surrounded by writhing grubs, some of which were halfway through turning into flies." [Rosamund West]

Three people, a hoover and a beanbag return from a quiet night out in halls in 2012. Image: Phoebe Willison.

'Jumped into a large pile of trash'

"When I was out at my favourite Brooklyn venue, the Knitting Factory – how am I only twenty-one and I have a favourite venue that’s had to shut their doors – my insane pal was very drunk and jumped into a large pile of trash bags. We were all also very drunk and thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

"Also when I was a fresher I lived with the most insane girls in the halls and one of them threatened to stab me with a knife on Valentine's Day. It had nothing to do with it being Valentine's Day, but I remember when it was because of that." [Billie Estrine]

'Saucepans out the window'

"Came back to our halls from the Freshers Ball. Turns out that our flatmate’s few friends who were over for pre-drinks ended up throwing all our saucepans out the window, which meant we found them dented and covered in slugs by the time we returned. They also drew a penis on our fire blanket. I had to just fold it back in place." [Ema Smekalová]

'Danger Zone'

"In my first year, I lived in a dorm with 11 other guys. It was fun, the lads were nice, but they did have some eccentricities. For example, the guy whose room was next to mine, who incidentally was an aeronautics engineer and was also in the Air Cadets, had a strange quirk that he had sex exclusively to the soundtrack to Top Gun. I still can’t hear the opening thrum of Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone without cringing and heading for the exit." [Jamie Dunn]

'Omelettes'

"During my month-long stint inside Murano at Glasgow Uni, the peak of chat never seemed to surpass a mutual fondness for omelettes. So when, on rare occasions, outsiders wandered in for an after-party, I upstaged the egg-talk deadlock and gave the green light to hotbox our ten-man kitchen – a move that was swiftly and unanimously condemned by the entire flat. Not long after a fourth-year warden – a violinist, no less – threatened to confiscate my speakers, and I dropped out. To this day, I’m not sure who the real menace was." [Cammy Gallagher]

'PLEASE DELETE ALL PHOTOS YOU HAVE TAKEN OF THE FLAT'

"Looked round a flat to rent with four pals (our first one after living in halls), one bedroom downstairs, the rest upstairs. The guy in the downstairs room was being really weird when we viewed the flat, said his lightbulb in his room was broken so no light but didn't think anything of it. This was back in *2012* so we had all taken loads of pics of the flat to remind us what it looked like with our very trendy Nikons. The day after the viewing had a weird email saying PLEASE DELETE ALL PHOTOS YOU HAVE TAKEN OF THE FLAT. Right, I mean, sure? Turns out, we loved the flat despite all that. Moved in. In the first weekend my flatmate in the downstairs room found a phonebook obliterated by bb gun shots with all the cartridges still embedded. We changed the locks." [Polly Glynn]