16 January 2007

The RiotACT guide to singleton survival - Episode 6: The Fan

| johnboy
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In our ongoing efforts to educate young rioters with the skills necessary to ward off scurvy while maximising their drinking budget in the new year please let me present an essential piece of equipment for any young single:

It looks like a fan, and it will move air around the place in a pleasing, cooling fashion. But to a young single in a share house its main purpose is as a white noise generator.

Has the cute housemate whom you kind of fancy brought home something unspeakable (perhaps met in Mooseheads?) and is now spending the night making unbelievable noises?

Perhaps the stoner housemate has a mate around and they’re talking loudly at 4am waiting for some stupid japanese cartoon to come on the TV at 9?

The soothing whoosh of the fan will cancel out background noises and, more often than not, make the difference between a night of good sleep and getting out of bed a bleary eyed ball of rage.

Note for new players, some fans are marvels of engineering which will silently push a laminar flow of air. You don’t want one of those. You want a really noisy one that claws the air out of the room.

(Bonus tip: should you be the lucky one, who meets something unspeakable and starts making unbelievable noises through the night, having the fan on full bore in your room WILL reduce the noises emerging to keep your flatmates awake. Unless of course you’re trying to show off)

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I have a very simple solution to your problem : get a place of your own 🙂

Throwing shoes at their bedroom wall sometimes works. Other times it just encourages more showing-off.

Also, I saw 40cm white plastic fans on sale at Bunnings last week for $13.

When there are monkeylove sounds [that aren’t yours] in your sharehouse , immediately move ALL of your food into your room.

The times have I lost my brand new loaf of raisin bread to young lust and 3am munchies.

a fan and a plant water sprayer. Good stuff.

Specially when you come home from the pub and it’s going on in your own bed.

the sound of other ppl’s monkey love is always alarming

It takes the edge off, you might still hear the monkey love, but it won’t be as alarming.

Agreed though, some levels of noise can’t be overcome by anything other than moving out.

JB: a fan might cover up some minor gasping – but not even a cranked stereo (a big one FWIW) covered up some of the monkey-love noises emanating from sharehouse bedrooms of my experience.

Just learn to live with the sound of your flatmate’s doona antics. That or buy some foam earplugs (works a treat in my experience).

From experience, the fan is very useful at diverting horrible stenches towards their respectful owners and away from you, either for strategic, or sanity purposes.

I have absolutely no idea of the scientific accuracy behind the effectiveness of this but it will also carry the smoke and smell from green tobacco away from you if you are not that way inclined.

Remember kids, drugs = munchies = food = less beer.

It’s a horrible cycle.

it cuold be expensive, i don’t know. but it’s correct to say i dont like running it all night.

My poor friend has the unfortunate luck of always having housemates that have the tendency to make unbelievable noises through the night.

I’m so glad I live alone.

andy, is your air con expensive to run or just dont like it running all night? 🙂

we use the fan in the bedroom even though i have an air conditioner..

PLUS !!! For homebrews needing a way to keep you brew cool on the cheap during these summer months, wet a towel and wrap it around the brew and then put the fan on it. Instant Coolgardie safe

thankgod I’m not so young anymore and have moved on to air conditioning.. hahaa

The fan heater depending on your heating arrangements.

Otherwise depending on how light a sleeper you are, and how noisy everyone else is, it can be worthwhile leaving it on.

Great, JB. But what about for those ever-so-slightly chilly months?

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