Pains of packing up house as student year ends

Exams are over and celebrations are rife. Union Jack style bunting lines the streets. Where once there were frowns, smiles now paint the faces of the young and liberated youth of this brave and noble land writes student blogger James Ashford.

In the few days since exams have ended, I've seen more unrelentless displays of wanton hedonism than the sum of the entire term. People I once thought were good, honest members of society have marauded around the clubs and bars of Sheffield with their hair down and their reputations ready for soiling.

Now however, the fun is put on hold. The time has come for students to pack up their bags and head home for a summer of lethargy and disappointment.

Packing up for the holidays is no easy feat. Most students will be moving out of the home they've carefully destroyed over the course of a year at university, and will be looking forward to the prospect of a new challenge.

Student contracts tend to include a clause which states that departing tenants must leave the house in a condition four to five hundred times nicer than that in which they found it. The tidiest you will ever see your house is the morning you leave it for good.

Everything you forget to clean results in another chunk out of your deposit. Leaving a crisp packet on the floor can incur hundreds of pounds worth of fines, even if it was deliberately placed there as a rudimentary slug-trap.

It is often the time when cleaning and tidying before moving out that you stumble across many hidden treasures that you have accumulated across the year and long forgotten about. I was lucky enough to discover a nun's habit complete with veil and wimple and, to my surprise, a healthy supply of wine and parmesan cheese that I had buried under my floorboards.

However, for every exciting discovery, there is something horrifying to be unearthed around the house, lurking in a remote corner of the room. In our house, it is considered lucky if nothing moving is found.

The worst room to clean is undoubtedly the kitchen. However, there are certainly other contenders for this award. The bathroom, for example, is sublime in its magnificence and in its horror. The pattern that the mould has formed across the walls is a fine example of nature's intrinsic beauty, and of its propensity for destruction.

Nevertheless it is the kitchen that takes first prize. A team of us tackled it with zeal, and it was a valiant effort. A lesser person would not have the dedication, teamwork or immune system capable of completing the task.

When the cleaning and packing is done, it's time to move out. Luckily, having already invested in a great deal of weight lifting chalk, this wasn't too much of a problem. Last year I ended up carrying a great deal of boxes across campus, back in the pre-chalk days. Shuffling from house to house, getting exceptionally rained on, and complaining about 'me back', I've never felt more at home in Sheffield.

It can be an emotional experience moving out of a student flat. Leaving your house for the last time is like saying goodbye to an old friend who is seriously ill with an incredibly contagious disease. You're glad you're not going to be hanging round with them so much, but you can't help knowing you're going to miss the guy when he collapses from lengthy exposure to black mould.

Getting home is the final stage. Most students successfully blag a lift home from a parent, some brave the train and some, like my housemate, cruise home in the early hours of the morning like a Geordie bat.

The emotional and physical strain of moving house is a burden to even the most flexible student. For me, however, there is something greater going on. After surviving the snow, the mould and the wildlife, getting through this house with my friends has been like getting through a war of attrition.

One day they'll make a film about our experiences in the house, complete with a harrowing soundtrack and bleach filter. Until then, we soldier on into another battle.

Next year's house awaits.