Six housemates look for a new house: ‘Sharing a house is like having a party every day’

Zeno (19, first year Applied Physics), Quan (20, first year Computer Sciences and Engineering) and Andrei (19, Computer Sciences and Engineering) are sitting on the sofa in their shared living room. On the wall behind them colourful twisted birthday garlands have pride of place. “We celebrated my birthday two days ago,” says Zeno. The trio have lived in a Duwo house on the Michiel de Ruyterweg for nearly a year now. They share it with student Vlad (19, Computer Sciences and Engineering) who is talking with Delta digitally from Romania and with students Iris and Kruthika (both 19 and first year Computer Sciences and Engineering). They soon have to leave their current house and hope that that will not be the end of their time sharing accommodation. They are trying to find a new shared house on social media.

Why are you looking for a new house?
Zeno says that “All six of us have a campus contract for one year so in September we all have to leave our student rooms. We want to continue sharing a place so badly that we’re looking for a new house together.”
“It clicks and sharing a house is like having a party every day,” says Andrei. “This doesn’t happen that often and we hear from plenty of other students that they hardly speak to their housemates or have nothing in common.”

Why is there such a click?
Quan answers. “It’s hard to say. I think it may be because we all love a party, but we are all very ambitious too. So we don’t only do city trips, corona proof parties or pub crawls together, but other things too. Recently we did TU Delft’s back to campus hackathon together. And we encourage each other to get high grades.”
Zeno continues. “It really helps that we are all international students. Vlad and Andrei knew each other from secondary school in Romania, but for the rest, we all came to Delft without a social network. Luckily we all know a huge number of people in Delft through each other’s circles of friends.”

What is an average day in your house like?
“Every has their own routine,” says Quan. Zeno laughs. “In my case it’s best to leave me alone in the mornings. As soon as I’m awake I want bacon and eggs, a glass of water and nothing else. I can just about mumble good morning.”
Andrei continues. “During the day everyone goes to campus and spends time with their own groups. We get together in the evening. If Quan apps that he’s going to cook and asks if anyone wants to join him, he gets five yesses within a second. He cooks delicious food.”

_{Quan, Kruthika, Andrei, Zeno and Iris on a trip. (Photo: Quan)} 

Are there any housemates who need to be ‘handled with care’?
“No, not really,” says Quan. “Zeno is the energetic one, Andrei the busy bee and Vlad always has a plan. You also know it’s Andrei in the bathroom because he listens to music in the shower.”
Andrei admits that “It’s quite loud. I sometimes get obsessed with a song for a while and play it non-stop. And when I tell the others how much I like the song, they always say ‘yes, we know! We’ve heard it 100 times when you were in the shower’.  I would describe Quan as spontaneous. He is always doing something new. If it’s not an obstacle course group, it’s a canoeing camp. I once saw him in his sports gear in the corridor in the middle of the night. He was going jogging.”
“I needed to get rid of some energy,” says Quan.

What is the oddest thing that ever happened in this house?
Andrei relates a story. “A while ago we heard that the people in another house in this block had seen a rat on their balcony. That’s not something you really want to hear. A couple of days later I was at home with Iris and Kruthika and we suddenly heard scratching on our door and rustling in the living room. We went to the living room to have a look and it was a total mess. There was stuff everywhere and all the papers were scattered everywhere. We panicked. We screamed and sprayed everything with pest control spary. Half an hour later, a video appeared on our app group of Quan and Zeno messing up the whole living room. It was a set-up!”

How is the search for a new house going?
Andrei says that “It could be better. We have been looking for nearly two months. We have done some viewings but they were for flats for three people. If we can’t manage to find one place for all six of us, we hope that we will find two places for three of us.”

Do you have a house name?
“That is a typical Dutch tradition that we didn’t know when we came here. But if we do manage to find something for all of us, we will definitely come up with a name,” says Vlad.

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