It is estimated that a quarter of all privately rented properties in the UK are shared homes in which either randoms or friends rent a property together.

But living cheek by jowl with anyone can be a challenge, particularly if their personal habits are less than ideal. Here we count down the more common types of housemate behaviours that stretch friendships to the max.

1) Sink estate

Some children grow up believing that plates, pans and cutlery magically wash themselves every night, moving effortlessly from greasy, lasagne-clogged sinks to spotless perfection. This ingrained belief survives through to their first days in a shared house where, without their long-suffering parents on hand, their housemates become increasingly annoyed by the gathering stink in the sink. It’s one of the most common reasons why house sharers argue and, unless there’s CCTV in the kitchen, hard to police.

2) Bill dodger

Most house sharers accept that bills need to be split evenly, otherwise paying them becomes a life admin nightmare. But there are some unreasonable types who refuse to play ball, particularly if they’re not living at the property all the time. Some refuse to pay for broadband, for example, because they use their mobile phone data to watch TV online and send emails, not a laptop.

3) Cleaned out

Unless you’re the kind of person who revels in inch-thick dust whorls and greasy worktops then the common areas of any home, whether it’s shared or not, will need to be cleaned from time to time. But there are some housemates at the grubbier end of the spectrum who don’t see the point of working hard to keep a home to a decent standard of cleanliness, especially when their fellow housemates will probably just give up pestering them and do it themselves.

4) Night owl

It’s not unusual to wake up in the middle of the night after being disturbed by the nocturnal wanderings of a housemate, to-ing and fro-ing in the inexplicably wee hours from their rooms to the lounge or kitchen. Even worse, after a few too many on a weekday night out, they also love singing along to their favourite hits until past midnight.

5) Live in lovers

The trickiest subject to broach with fellow housemates is when new partners appear. A housemate may sign up to a property as a singleton, but then acquire a new love who stays overnight on an increasing frequent basis, stealing cooking and shower time and sitting smugly in front of the TV on the best sofa.

6) Rent defaulter

Most shared houses sign joint tenancy agreements which means if one person stops paying the rent, everyone else has to make up the difference. A lot of shared house tenants don’t understand this and think it's ok to pay their rent late or not at all; so every month the same ‘why did your standing order fail’ game plays out to great annoyance.

The challenge for everyone is that it can be difficult to eject a fellow housemate from a property. Either all the other tenants and the landlord will have to ‘surrender’ the original agreement early and then find another tenant and sign a new tenancy contract, or you’ll have to spend time finding out why they’re not paying the rent and trying to help them. Both of which are a pain.

Find out why on-time rent payments can help count towards building your rental history.

7) Room hobbit

There are housemates who rarely venture into the communal lounge and only visit the kitchen to raid the fridge for meals, escaping as fast as their underused legs can carry them. Days and sometimes weeks pass without contact while they are holed up either gaming or watching box sets of Inbetweeners. This is all fine, but just a shame as invitations to go out to the pub on a Friday night or for a cheeky midweek curry are turned down, somewhat killing the camaraderie of the house.

8) Bathroom hog

And so we have left the best, or should we say worst, to last. Behold the bathroom hog, happy to spend hours in the shower draining the hot water tank, oblivious to their other housemate’s early morning timetables and impervious to door banging. Their behaviour eventually triggers an ever-escalating early morning shower race as everyone else strives to get in before The Hog surfaces.

CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score

If you want to improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments, CreditLadder is the only way to improve your credit score and position across all four of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money.

CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.

Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.