Canvass any group of people about annoying household habits and they’ll have plenty to say, some of which seem to be universally irritating traits (like leaving the loo seat up) while others are a little more unique. It’s a source of comfort to rant about things we find annoying, as anyone will know who has vented about their spouse’s/parents’/flatmates’ baffling habits, and so we’ve gathered together our most hated household bugbears, conveniently grouped room by room.

The kitchen is rife for people doing things that we find annoying and is probably the scene of the greatest number of universally annoying habits. Such crimes consist of washing up after dinner but neglecting to wipe down the surfaces, thus doing half a job; doing said dishes while other people you’ve been eating with – be that a partner, flatmate, family or guests – are still eating; using tea towels as oven gloves and then burning holes in them (probably while also complaining that your hands are burning and doing a silly flappy dance so that everyone knows); using the tea towel to wipe grease/ketchup/mayonnaise off your hands when a tea towel should only be used for wiping clean hands and dishes dry (oh and then conveniently leaving it in a pile in a different room rather than putting it back where it should be). The list goes on, but at least most of those involve dishes that have been done, when surely a trait that can make everyone’s heart rate quicken for the wrong reasons is being confronted with a sink or surface littered with dirty plates and the like, when they should have been washed up or put in the dishwasher.

It’s not all about cleaning in the kitchen though – the bin is a big one for people turning a blind eye to things too. One particularly irritating trait in people is in those who continuously throw things into an already full bin, squashing them down as much as humanly possible each time rather than being a responsible adult and emptying the bin. Less annoying but deserving of mention: taking the full bin bag out and then never returning to put a new bin bag in.

As for the food element of a kitchen, one that pops up here and there is a general groan towards those who open a packet of pasta (insert any other food item or toiletry here) when there’s already an unfinished one on the go. On the subject of packaging, there is a certain subgroup of people who are incapable of opening packaging in a way that makes it easy to close again, for example, ripping open a loaf of bread in the middle of the loaf, rather than opening it at the end. And we have a final special mention for those in the world who are incapable of slicing bread in a straight line, so the bread is always at an angle and the next person to slice it ends up with an uneven wedge, burnt to a crisp on one side and utterly untoasted on the other.

Bathroom

Many bad bathroom habits are either things we’d rather not think about or those which have some crossover with the kitchen, such as opening a new shampoo without finishing or disposing of the previous shampoo, and finishing a loo roll but not replacing it. Bodily hair can cause bathroom anger, especially when flatmates moult while washing their hair (a normal thing to happen) but for some baffling reason, choose to ‘stick’ their shed hairs to the tiles rather than dispose of them in a responsible manner. For the more pernickety people out there, such small infractions such as not showering down the bath or shower after washing can cause the ‘ick’ to form when faced with dried out soap suds and unwanted hair and fluff around the place.