In the town of Kirksville, Missouri, the students of Truman State University know that off campus living is the cheapest route to go. The freedom of living in a real house instead of a dorm is a luxury that can’t be beat. Choosing to do so, though, comes along with a variety of strange...predicaments.
We live with an abnormal amount of people, we’re talkin’ seven or eight, and we’re a big dysfunctional family.
Rent is ridiculously low and it’s quite possibly the best thing ever. Oh, you pay $600 a month for rent, no utilities included, in your big college town? That’s a bummer. We pay about $150-300.
With cheap rent comes….. a house where everything in it is at least 100 years older than you. There are probably three holes in the ceiling, a broken appliance, and some kind of rodent infestation at any given time of the year.
The town favorite is bats. You’re asleep and next thing you know you hear wings flapping…
If you haven’t gotten one this year, you just wait. You’ll be running and screaming out of your house by January, but when your landlord comes you’re all like:
It’s not rare to be calling your landlord at 3 a.m. because friends broke the oven door, a counter top, or a beer bottle just got thrown through your window.
We’re oddly close with said landlords (when they don’t want to kill us) since we call them three times a week. You’ll find us sharing some BBQ, a meal, or a beer with them probably once a semester- that is, if you get a good one.
Our doors are always open, with people in and out at literally any given time of the day. Coming home to find your front door open with a kitchen full of people isn’t a rare occurrence, and you welcome it with open arms.
The walls are paper thin. You can hear everything your roommates are saying from the opposite end of the house, therefore never being able to stay in over the weekends or take a nap.
You never know who stole your leftovers, clothes, or toothpaste because there are at least seven different potential culprits.
It’s freezing. As in, it’s typically warmer outside than it is in your home. It makes entirely zero sense. You’re lucky if you have central air, let alone central heat.
You’ll never be able to get anything productive done in the house, because someone is always doing something more fun than homework.
Yet with all of the dysfunction, annoyances, and mishaps, come the best college years of your life, with irreplaceable people in a house that you wouldn't change for the world.
