Technical English language

5. You are going to read a newspaper article about sharing flats. For questions 1-8, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Room to let
You might think that sharing a flat with other young people is a good idea. But there is one major problem: how to choose the right people? I’ve had at least 25 flatmates, so I should know. It seemed the sensible thing to do when I moved to London. Missing my old friends and worried about feeling lonely, I moved in with 13 other people so that I would always have someone to talk to. I did – my bed was on the landing.
(Eventually I was promoted to a room with a door – the airing cupboard. It was just big enough for a single mattress and I had to leave the door open so I could breathe.) Then there was the bathroom rota. Accommodating 14 people before breakfast needed a military-style operation. We started taking turns at 5.30 and the last person to join the household got the first turn. The only advantage was that he or she also got all the hot water.
Sadly, the owners threw us out and I had to find a new home fast, which is why I ended up with Gina the circus performer. When I first met her, she was hanging upside-down above the stairs. She seemed nice though, and the elegant old building was ideal. While we were sipping herbal tea and she was questioning me about my diet and political beliefs, I noticed she had lots of great books I wanted to read. However, things went sour the day I moved in when Gina refused to let me get rid of an army of ants that had moved into my room. She said that killing was against her religion. So was cleaning the bath. As if that wasn’t enough, she left a note on the fridge, where we usually left messages about phone calls and milk, stating her intention to murder me with poison. I moved out in the middle of the night.
(After that I ended up with some student doctors and was happy enough until we all caught a mysterious illness.) It was at this point I broke my self-made rule. After sharing a student house with two friends in Oxford – a period that ended in a fist-fight over fruit juice – I had decided I would never again put a friendship to the phone-bill test. But of course I couldn’t afford a one-bedroom flat in central London so I agreed to get a place with a very neat and tidy friend from school.
The house we found had three bedrooms, a washing-machine and a nice little garden. We moved in at once. I got the smallest bedroom because I wasn’t going out with anyone, but my new flat mates promised we would swap round within six months. That was 18 months ago. I’m still in the small room and my belongings are still in boxes on the landing, though one of the original girls has been replaced by a banker.
What we had advertised for was a female non-smoking professional, but anyone who looked even slightly interesting had always found a better place by the time we decided that they wouldn’t steal our boyfriends. The banker got in by promising that being male hadn’t made him incapable of washing dishes and cleaning. He tried, of course.
(There are, though, advantages to the flat sharing life. If you can forgive them for drinking the last of your milk, you can get captive shoulders to cry on.) If you can forget about the ring around the bath, your CD collection instantly gets three times bigger – though you won’t want to listen to most of it. You get three minds to remember to put out the rubbish. Three ways to split the rent. And, unlike a partner, your flatmates won’t care if you wear those old clothes all weekend.
In fact, on a good day I wouldn’t be without mine. Unless I could afford a place of my own.