Eight things you’ll only get if you’ve lived in an all girls Exeter Uni house

You may have been traumatised by the mouldy saucepans and overflowing bins that come with living in a first year flat of boys, but don’t worry! You and the girls have expelled them and chosen a cute five bed house to live in for second year (translation: Panicked into choosing an extortionately priced student house only a month after meeting each other). Surely living with the girliepops isn’t that different, right? Well, I’ve got news for you.

1. The Debrief

Capitalised and punctuated, the debrief is an event that can occur anywhere, anytime. My favourite variation of this is “the classic post-night out debrief”, where all the girls bundle into the comfiest bed in the house, ready to rot for the morning. Hangxiety will be in full flow from some no doubt outrageous deeds having occurred in downstairs TP or Old Timers – but don’t worry, the girls have got your back.

Gossip will have been passed along the one of the bathrooms that needs to be analysed from every angle, and someone will have definitely spotted a very controversial pair getting in middle. Another version of the debrief is the “post-date debrief”, where one of the girls will have come back from a first/second/third date and even the slightest twitch of the boy’s finger will be evaluated. You have the more mundane “how’s your day been debrief”, not to be dismissed in importance for the potential reported sightings of local celebrities (random people that your house have deemed famous). Whatever the content of the debrief, wherever the location, it is an established staple of the girl house.

2. The conveyer-belt wardrobe (right, who has my Ralphie?)

The film Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants becomes pretty literal in a girls house – it’s not your wardrobe, it’s our wardrobe <3. “What tops do you have?” is a question that you’ll hear most weeks, and you’ll go through about five different options before discarding your Motel Rocks halter neck for the house-communal Josie top.

3. The military operation of a TP Wednesday

3. The military operation of a TP Wednesday

If you haven’t sent a panicked “will anyone be in to collect my parcel?!” text to your house group chat, then you’re definitely living on a road that has some definition of a front porch (Monks/Mount Pleasant) and not a road where your parcel has left literally on the pavement outside your house (Springfield/Vic/Culverland). Once Vinted has infected your girls house, it’s all over. An ever-flowing stream of parcels will be violently shoved through the letterbox, have to be signed for, or inevitably picked up at the oh-so-reliable Post Office with opening hours that could be deemed criminal (I’m looking at you, Morrisons Daily). My advice? Get it delivered to your local Premier/Saunders – though you might end up feeling tempted by the various extortionately priced sweet treats.

5. Hearing your best mate shagging.

Is it really a student house if the thickness of the walls aren’t equivalent to that of wet newspaper? I’ve been concerned for the structural integrity of the house at some points because you can hear everything. Wave a sad goodbye to the thick fire doors of first year accommodation, because you’ll be missing them come September of second-year.

6. Girl Rooms

Gone are the threadbare pillows and vacant bookshelves of boy rooms. Every girls’ house has one or more of the following items that can be sourced in a bedroom: Plants, eclectic Pinterest prints, a photo wall made up of three or more separate FreePrints orders, various candles (bonus points if they’re long ones melted into bottles of alcohol), fairy lights, more than two pillows (at least), a rug, 5,000 bottles of body and face product, a bag for every occasion (Longchamp to tote), an Oodie, a life-size cardboard figure of a man, a pair of Ugg slippers (or knock-off ones from Primark), and yet not a single cotton pad which you’ll inevitably have to ask your housemate for.

7. Peer-reviewed text messages

By this I mean that if you’re a boy messaging a girl in an all girls house, you will be messaging all of the girls in this household. Punctuation will be analysed, tone examined, and then the process of constructing the reply will commence. Often the message won’t be longer than a few words, but it will be collaboratively assessed, painstakingly constructed to appear casual, and the inevitably disappointing reply will eagerly anticipated by all. 

8. Wholesome activities