Living with a smelly git

Living in Australia house was Ross, Jacky, me and various other people the first being Brian, who left after nearly a year. Then came Martin. He was a funny guy, he made us all laugh, which is why we invited him to help pay the rent. The only problem was he had a personal hygiene problem. He never washed, showered or changed his clothes. he worked in the aerospace industry making stainless steel galleys for aircraft. It was hard physical graft and as he was on the plump side he sweated like a pig. I guess when he lived at home with his mother, she washed his clothes for him and put out clean ones everyday. But we didn't have the luxury of our mothers doing stuff for us, we had to do our own washing and drying etc.
I remember standing in the kitchen of our house in front of the washing machine stripping off completely and putting all my clothes in the washing machine so they'd be clean for the morning, then getting up early and putting them all in the tumble dryer and going to work wearing damp clothes that finished drying off through the morning. Uncomfortable at first but getting better.
Martin didn't do washing. We put up with it for a few weeks until Ross started commenting. At first Martin would laugh it off. But it was beyond a joke. He stank. He was rancid. It was getting embarrassing in the pub. It was intolerable at home. You couldn't walk past his bedroom door without noticing that acrid rank acidic smell. It was appalling.
We held a summit meeting. Ross, Me and Jacky. He would have to be given a warning. In not uncertain terms.
We called him upstairs to the sitting room. He climbed the stairs whistling, oblivious to the disaster awaiting him. We told him straight. We didn't pull any punches. He was disgusting, either he cleaned up his act or he was out. We would teach him how to use the washing machine, we'd show him how the shower worked. We'd even wait for him to get washed and changed before we went to the pub. But incredibly he couldn't see the problem. He was indignant that we would even suggest that he was dirty. We pointed out his jeans that he was wearing at the time were shiny with grime, he'd worn them for three weeks straight, working and playing. So then he got defensive and begged to be given a second chance. So because he was so entertaining in other ways we agreed that if he cleaned up he could stay.

Well he had a shower that night and miraculously found clean clothes. We thought he'd turned the corner. But within a week he was his usual disgusting self. We told him to leave. NO discussion, no debate, no third chance, he had to go. It was very quick. We'd already got a replacement fourth person to replace him. Andy.
The day he left he was pathetic. We sent him back to his mummy who would look after him. Tell him to wash behind his ears and attend to certain bodily hygiene regimes.We threw him out, we weren't proud of it, but it had to be done.
He left and we thought that was the end of it, but Andy was moving in very soon his room had to be cleaned ready.
Ros and I went in and opened the windows wide straight away. The room was disgusting, food wrappers everywhere, and then under the bed.... oh my God! Disgarded kleenex. Ross went straight to the kitchen and came back wearing yellow marigold gloves and carrying a black bin liner. He picked up each and every one of the crusty crumpled balls of kleenex. Every so often muttering the words "Filthy bastard!" An accumulation of several months of wanking over the porno magazines we also found under the bed.

We had to tell Andy to wait until the weekend to move in. We couldn't let him occupy the room 'til it had aired properly. He was cool with that.
That evening there was a knock at the door. It was Martins mother. She wanted to know what the hell we were doing kicking out her boy from our house. She didn't want him back either it was obvious. After half a day picking up after his mess. Ross wasn't in any mood to debate the matter so he told her straight. He told her exactly what her boy was like. I backed him up a little.I'm not very good at confrontation, so I let him do the talking.
She left defeated. We never saw Martin again.

Andy moved in. He was a biker. He worked at a garage specialising in sports bikes. He was very clean. he had a girl friend, Julie. She was very cute and very nice. Stupid but nice. I guess you could describe her as a chavette. But in them days they didn't exist. Andy was always immaculate when he wasn't working. He turned himself out very well. He was totally uneducated but at the same time quite clever.

But then we found out he was a psycho. At the beginning he would come with us to the pub. We'd laugh and joke as normal and he was definitely part of our team, he never let us down. He never embarrassed us. But every so often he would disappear on his souped up trails bike. We didn't know where he went or what he did when he went absent without leave.
Until the day we got up and he wasn't in the house. It was a Saturday morning and he phoned us from the hospital to pick him up. He'd been beaten up by squaddies, big time. His arm was broken.

Ross and I went to bring him home. Then we found out the horrible truth. We lived in Church Crookham not very far from Aldershot. Andy had this thing about squaddies.He hated them. Don't ask me why, he just did. So the evening when he disappeared he would ride around Aldershot on his bike and pick fights with the Army guys, he usually won.

This particular night he was riding round Aldershot looking for a fight when he saw a group of squaddies walking down the road. So he drove at them as fast as he could and with Julies spare helmet in his hand he jousted with them. He took out the first one, no problem. He spun round and went for a second run and took out another, the third run he should have come home, but he went at the group again. This time they were ready. They took him off his bike and beat him senseless. They left him in a ditch. He woke up hours later with a broken arm and in agony and was rushed to hospital.

You'd have thought he would have learnt a lesson. But no. While he recovered he told us it was the greatest rush ever and he couldn't wait to get back on his bike and do it again. There's always another squaddie to fight with. Julie was so proud of him. But then she was stupid. The last I heard of Andy was that Julie was in the club and they left, leaving just me Ross and Jacky again.

And then there was Denise. But that's another story. I'll tell you about Denise next time. Armed robbery and death. It's a tragic story. Really it's not funny. You can veto it if you want. After all we live in a democracy. But unless you vote "no" the next post will be about Denise and her psychotic brother.

iPod now playing - run time error (505)