The Cursed Flat

Since moving into halls our flat has had many problems. Its been three weeks since we moved in and this is what has occurred.

1) Kylie's shower pipe broke and leaked into half of her carpet in her room. It was fixed days later. After two attempts with shit maintenance.

2) Our fridge broke. All our milk went off and it took a week until they replaced it with a new, functioning one. They didn't believe that the fridge was broken, shit maintenance.

3) Sunday I went out into town with Beth and Kylie only to discover that the flat has flooded. Emily and Ellen were messaging us that the hallway was spilling water out of one of the rooms. It seemed to either come from 43's or mine. 43 is at home with her parents for the weekend and with me being out and 30 mins away there was no way in finding out without a key. Ellen phoned everyone in the emergency phone book only for none of the people to answer. Bloody ignorant bastards. With no way of getting into contact with anyone, we made the decision to walk to the next campus, Fusehill street with is another 20 min walk once your in town. We walked there only for the security guard to give us a talk telling us that we should of phoned the people and look round our campus before coming down. Oh yeah cos we're thick shits that didn't already think of that. Anyway the security man was on the phone to some guy called Pete. It was at this moment I knew we were in trouble as it seemed Pete couldn't understand a word. The security guard had to keep repeating the same thing, it went something like this. " No..... Flat 140 is flooded so the girls say.......flat 140......1.......40...........140........ yes.....1.....4.....0......and they think its room 143.......0r......146.........they said its coming from upstairs....."

For the record we didn't say it was coming from the upstairs flat as were on the ground flat and its coming from the ground. While the security guard was on the phone we heard him complain that it was a Sunday and he didn't have time to put up with over reactive teenagers. Yeah cos we walk all the way here for a fucking laugh don't we?

We didn't get back to the Flat until after 2 and it was then made clear that the flood came from my room. The ball chain system snapped and the valve was opened without a lock and water just burst out. As we walked through into the flat the floor was covered with towels and the floor squelched as we walked. I finally got to my room where one to two inches of water laid and my bathroom was covered in water. We got told that we were being moved to an upstairs flat till they can get this one dried up. The upstairs flats have a shared shower that is shared between 14 people, its fair to say I've been using the sink in my room.

I looked under my bed in my flooded room and saw that my Vans, boots and trainers were all on the floor as well, soaked. Luckily when the maintenance guy came round and realised that we weren't messing around but being quite serious unlocked my door, Ellen said it was like that scene from the Shinning with the elevator but with water coming out of my room. You could see your reflection in my carpet. Ellen raced in and picked up my sketchbook, washing basket, easel and my chargers that were on the floor.

We packed up and left the flat for the night, 43 still hadn't returned and we hadn't heard anything from her. We were given one key to the upstairs flat. One key between 6 people who all go to class at different time. Yeah cos that'll work.

After we were in a dry flat we found that this flat has a table in the kitchen, something we don't have in the flooded one. We all sat round it and just laughed the whole ordeal off, talking about how Ellen was all over the place needing an adult to tell her what to do. Emily who none of us had had a conversation with saying that she was mopping the floor. Doing impressions of maintenance fella and how thick they were. Ellen made the joke that although we live in the lake district, having a lake in the flat is a little to far. We ended up having a chippy takeaway to ease the trauma we'd been through, a lovely chippy at that. We even talked to Emily and Ellen asked, "We're all damaged Emily," referring to me, Beth, Kylie and herself, "What's your family like?" and Emily smiled and said, "A little boring to be honest." The moral is that although Emily isn't like the rest of us, she now comes out and joins us in conversation which is progress.

At 10 pm it was decided that the flat wasn't cursed but me as the past week, I smashed a full bottle of wine outside the flat (I wasn't drunk...) and then I opened the fridge and 43's tomato sauce flew out and smashed. My mum phoned me to tell me that my car broke down and needed a new battery. Kylie's now saying that her shower broke because I used her toilet once and so now Beth is planning on lifting my 'hex.'

After concluding that its not the flat but me, we went to check that it hadn't flooded anymore, we lifted the towels from the floor and put them in Ellen's bath, she's the only one who has an actual bath in her room, running to prevent dripping, it was like towel roulette, each of us hoping not to get either a heavy towel or a dripping one.

It was past 12 when I heard voices outside my room and then a knock on my door, taking me back to that morning when Kylie knocked on my door to tell me to get ready for town. "For fuck sake what! I didn't do it." I whined. Opening the door to find, Ellen and Kylie in there pjs, smiles on there faces. "Never guess who me and Beth just found downstairs?" I shook my head, "43." I looked at her bemused and laughed while Ellen carried on filling me in, "Me and Beth went to get some sage for your de-cursing and because we creeped each other out earlier. We heard talking and found her in her room and we were like what are you doing here, you can't stay here, and she said why not? I was like cos its flooded, and she was like, is it? I was like no that's why the floor squelches when you walk on it, that's why all our rooms are wide open and that's why it stinks of damp."

Even now, that our flat is flooded and were living upstairs you'd think that 43 would start talking to us but she hasn't. I said hello and she just gave me a look and went into her room and started arguing on her phone again.

Personally I reckon she found out about the sauce and cursed me, the arguing on the phone is her actually chanting, putting a curse on me.

It's Tuesday now and we still haven't got access to our flat, the toilet is fixed but the floor is still wet, they've began hoovering it and whatnot but its looking like we're gonna be up here for a while. On the bright side, my signed first editions didn't get damaged, its a good job that I put them on the shelf that morning or I'd of flooded the flat more with my tears.

On another bright side, I put the ordeal on twitter and Bella Osborne commented and we had a fleeting conversation so that made me smile and Sanditon was so good! Left it on such a cliffhanger though.

After all, it was just another day in the life as the cursed Yorkshire Bookworm,

Till next time,

Phoebe x