Meet Evan

This is the story of Evan. It is also the story of me, and how I chose to deal with Evan.

At the time of writing this first entry I am still dealing with Evan, so I have no idea at this stage how this will all pan out. I have the feeling that this will become a saga full of japes and knives, so have started this blog to chronicle my endeavours to evict an annoying flatmate from my house and my life.

I'm hoping that I'll be victorious in my efforts, but only time will tell who will come out of this all rosy and who will be sorry they ever met the other. Our roles may swap a few times over the course of this story. This first section may run an little long, but all stories require a firm base.

Evan is 25 and works in a bar. He believes he is special and that he's going somewhere. I believe he's going somewhere as well. I doubt our believed destinations are very similar.

Evan came into my life after he answered an online ad for a flatmate to share a new house I was moving into. There were slight warning signs at the time that I should have listened to, but he seems really genuine when you meet him, so I put them down to just general paranoia. Everyone that meets Evan says that he seems really nice at first. I think this is because he really believes his own bullshit. He generally has no concept of how much of a dufas he really is.

Evan had just broken up with his girlfriend and was living above a local pub when I met him. I was starting to get desperate for a flatmate having had other likely candidates pull out at the last minute. After 3 of these and the prospect of paying $480 a week rent all on your own you start to lower your expectations a bit and take what you can. I already had someone living in one of the rooms, but they were struggling at the time to pay their own rent and couldn’t help out on the vacant room. Evan seemed ok after I met with him, he liked the place and we seemed to get along, so I said yes.

Evan had told me that he wouldn’t be able to get the bond straight away, this should have been warning sign number 1, but he seemed to have a good job, so I thought this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. I was wrong. 7 months later I am still waiting for the bond and am now waiting for him to pay his last share of bills and rent. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So Evan moved in, and moved in, and moved in. This guys has a lot of stuff. Ok, to be fair, I have a lot of stuff, but Evan seems to have made a habit of “collecting” every useless little promotional item over his years of bar work and decided that it was all worth keeping. Every glass he owned had some beer or spirits logo on it, he had boxes of hats, thongs (flip-flops to those from other realms), bar mats, t-shirts and assorted paraphernalia. Most of it was so ugly that I just subtly moved it out of sight.

The full wall vinyl poster advertising some dance night at the club he worked at was my first real indication that our lifestyles were somewhat at odds. This thing was hideous, but he “liked this chick in the picture” and so decided that the lounge room was the place to put it. Coupled with the beer mat being used as a table cover really gave that room a warm and inviting feeling. The table in that room belonged to him, and I didn’t want to go enforcing my aesthetics on him at this stage, so I let it ride. Luckily the poster came down eventually, but the worlds ugliest tapestry went up instead.

Ok, sounds picky. But his lack of interior design skills is not something to start a blog over. Basically he’s just a typical pot smoking 25 year old that likes to party (because he’s  a shift worker that puts him at odds with the rest of the household somewhat), eat your food and not clean up his dishes. Finding him passed out on the couch with my projector still running is just one more tick against him. And I could have put up with all this, but when after 7 months he still hadn’t made any effort to pay the bond, was late on his bills (which he’s disputing!) and then started to become late on the rent as well. When he came home one night and decided to show off his new tattoos that took 5 hours to do and was only half done I decided enough was enough and I would give him his marching orders.

So last Wednesday, after a particular sleepless night due to him coming home at 5am and deciding to wake the entire house by getting his girlfriend to fake her bestest ever orgasm (the noises coming out of his room are comical, not just fake and unnecessary, they’re actually a little scary!) I decided to write him an eviction notice and give him 14 days to vacate. He didn’t take it so well.

I hadn’t sprung this on him by the way. I had repeatedly told him that I need the bond money and that I couldn’t keep paying his late rent. So when it fell behind for the millionth time (what? Me exaggerate?) I gave him the letter. Gave is a loose term for it. I never see him, so I left it under his door.

1am Wednesday night he comes home and get’s the note. With a “What the fuck is this?”  I get  a knock on the bedroom door. He asks if I want to talk about the letter. I say not really, I just want you to leave. The next ten minutes are spent with him yelling at my door telling me that he’s paid up and owes me nothing. This isn’t a matter up for dispute, I have full records. And regardless of the rent and bills he still hasn’t paid the bond.

During our little discussion Evan decided to throw out the gauntlet. He told me I can’t kick him out like this and that if I want him to leave then I’m going to have to “Make him” leave.

Ok Evan, I accept. I’ll make you.