Housemate Horror Stories: The Benefits of Contents Insurance for Tenants

Property prices and the extreme hardhips of getting yourself on the primary step of the home-owning ladder have caused an abundance of housesharers and renters. Most people these days have their selecion of old housemate horror stories. With more houseshareres than ever, there are sure to be more strange characters out there in the mix, so it has never been more key to step up that lock for your door, find those sticky white labels for your butter and milk and to make certain that your contents insurance for tenants is sorted. Here are a couple of, personal nightmare stories about houseshare-living to inspire you!

Having lived in shared, rented properties for the last four years I have gathered my fair share of terrible housemate memories. There was the German exchange student who, one evening, completely lost it after flunking out of a video game and took a kitchen knife, 40 times, to the back of the kitchen door. It was at this point I decided to buy a padlock and a little contents insurance for tenants.

Then there are the well-meaning yet awful roommates. The ones who forget that they've left rice puddings in hidden boxes in hot locations for months and leave them for someone unsuspecting to stumble upon...By the time I found that specific little present it was so mouldy that I had literally no idea what the green fluffy matter in the tin had once been...

My investment in contents insurance for tenants paid off a couple of housemates later when a different flatmate, who honestly claimed to be allergic to all kinds of rubber, came across a set of rubber gloves in the sink and destroyed all of the plates in the kitchen, ruining the lino.

Others have told me their own nightmare tales about housemates. Housemates who get home at 3am screaming and weeping unintelligibly, flatmates who are found 'borrowing' other people's toothbrushes and the ones who allow strangers into the flat, thinking they are another tenant's mates, strangers who then walk out of the house with as many computers and phones as they can get hold of. Although I was sympathetic about this taking place, I shamefully felt slightly smug about having invested in contents insurance for tenants a few months earlier.

Almost certainly the most unnerving nightmare housemate story I ever heard came from a close friend of mine who once lived in a huge flatshare of fifteen tenants. Each week for three months they were woken up in the dark of night by the fire alarm going off. The penultimate time this came about the, now seriously annoyed, fire brigade discovered that an unknown person had left a single red rose on a gas cooker. After failing to persuade her to get out of there immediately I did manage to convince her to at least invest in contents insurance for tenants.

Obviously it isn't all terrible; flatsharing has been some of the happiest, most hilarious and best times of my youth. The key is to be as relaxed as you are safe. I have met some brilliant, fascinating, fantastic friends in flatshares, yet occassionally you may end up with the odd freak. Even if you feel completely safe with the people you co-tenant with it is always a good idea to be careful, at least until you truly know somebody.

Knowing that my posessions were safe and that any damage would be covered by my contents insurance for tenants allowed me to relax in houseshares. This meant that I left myself open to meeting new people and having new experiences, which, ultimately, made my time housesharing one of the most exciting times of my life!