A Roslyn flat got more than they bargained for on a quiet Friday night when a drunk student broke into their home, took off his shoes, and vomited into a flatmate's hamper – all while apologising profusely.
Daniel, a recent PhD grad (yes, Doctor Daniel) had been asleep in bed when he heard the front door squeak open. “At first I thought it was our flatmate, Matt the nurse, coming home from shift,” Dr Dan told Critic. “Then I remembered Matt had been home all evening and our other flatmate was away [...] That’s when I realised a random person was in the flat.” SHOCK!
Upon hearing rustling from another bedroom, Dr Dan tiptoed in his pjs to investigate. What he discovered was a scrawny, curly-haired first-or-second-year type, clearly too steamed to realise he had entered the wrong flat. The random guy had wandered into the wrong flat, bypassed several better vomiting locations (toilet, bin, a window), and settled on emptying his stomach directly into flatmate Callie’s laundry hamper. “He apologised, then offered to clean it up. Like, dude, you’ve done enough.”
What makes this crime uniquely Kiwi is that the intruder had taken off his shoes before entering. “He respected the carpet,” Dr Dan shrugged, before saying that the burglar was lucky he wasn't “some aggro dude who was gonna try and fight him or something” (the future of healthcare is bright). NZ Statistics reveals that Dunedin is, somewhat surprisingly, Aotearoa’s least burgled city. But Dr Dan’s story shows that you should always lock up your flat, unless you want to be doing midnight loads of laundry. There’s probably other reasons too.
After being gently escorted out, the young man put his shoes back on and wandered off into the night – never to be seen again. One can only hope didn’t continue the hamper crawl on the journey home. Dr Dan ended the night washing Callie’s laundry in a true act of flatmate camaraderie. “She thought it was hilarious. Thank God she wasn’t home – it would've been way less funny if she'd woken up to it.”
The polite puker remains at large. If you or someone you know blacked out and woke up in Roslyn with a rancid taste in your mouth, Critic Te Ārohi would love to hear from you. You owe Dr Dan a scoop of laundry powder.