Hall life is great. Your friends are literally a stone’s throw away, you get to live with a fun roommate, and you get the freedom you’ve always craved. But things aren’t always peachy.
With all sorts of people who come together, you can’t expect everyone to get along. Placing hot-blooded, attractive 20-somethings in such close proximity without supervision can be a recipe for disaster.
From obnoxious pranks to scandalous trysts, here are 14 ratchet experiences shared by Singaporean girls who have stayed in hall.
*Names were changed to protect identities
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When I was new to hall life, I had no clue about basic household chores—I didn’t even know how to use a microwave.
One time in my freshman year, I tried to use a tub of hot water to heat up my food. That was before my roommate found me and patiently showed me how to use the microwave oven in the pantry.
But my most ratchet story was about the clothes-drying incident. In hall, there’s only one dryer per block. As I had no more clean clothes, I tried to chope the dryer but someone beat me to it.
Desperate to get dressed, I remembered the microwave, so I took out my underwear and socks and used the microwave to dry them. The next day, I received an email from the Hall Office.
Chloe, 24
I lived in a room where my roommate and her two other friends shared a toilet with me. They were fine roommates, except for their annoying habit of stealing my toilet paper. I suggested we share the costs but to no avail. Fed up, I hid my toilet paper.
One day, I walked past the bathroom and caught a glimpse of my roommate taking a dump. She must have thought that she was alone. To my shock and horror, I saw her use the shared shower head to wash her nasty ass.
That explained the mysterious brown flecks on the bathroom floor.
Mabel, 25
One time, the guy I was seeing asked me to Netflix and Chill in his room. We drank a little and got tipsy. Fuelled by liquid courage, I started kissing him and got turned on.
While I was on top of him, his roommate burst in. The guy was so mortified that he whipped the blanket off the bed, covered himself with it, and walked out of the room. He left me to fend for myself, butt naked, in front of his roommate!
Amanda, 25
Once, we shifted our friend’s entire room into the field while he was in the shower—mattress, bolster and pillows included.
When he got back to his empty room, he was in shock. That’s when we grabbed him, dragged him downstairs and taped him to the mattress. He was clad only in his towel. I think he had a good sleep that night.
Lim, 25
Once, I was on my way to class and I walked pass a commotion happening on the 5th floor of my residence. Apparently, some exchange students went partying the night before and one of the girls got so drunk she’d passed out on the staircase of the 5th floor—half naked from the waist down in her own shit.
Ann, 24
In NTU, there were two Chinese scholars having loud sex. The guy shouted “jiao wo huang shang! (Call me Emperor!)”, and the girl screamed back “huang shanggg! (Emperor!)”.
I guess someone wanted to keep the legend alive.
Tan, 26
It was my first semester and my group of friends decided to have an end of exams celebration. It was a Bring-Your-Own-Beer event, and at least 30 people showed up.
Being overly ambitious Year Ones, we brought too much alcohol. Naturally, everyone got pissed drunk.
In a drunken stupor, one of my friends threw his cap onto the roof and I volunteered to retrieve it. That’s the story of how I ended up stuck on a roof, shirt-stained, and drunk crying because I was stuck.
Ashley, 23
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On my floor, it’s common for boyfriends to visit their girlfriends. But there was this one couple that had regular, obnoxiously loud sex.
Late one night, my roommate and I heard them again. But strangely, the sounds were not coming from their room. After walking around for a bit, we realised they were showering in the handicap toilet.
Silently, we Googled security walkie-talkie sounds and played them on full volume right outside the cubicle. We heard them panicking inside the cubicle—cue loud splashing sounds and murmurs of “shit, shit”.
Jia Yi, 23
I hated my roommate because she was dirty and annoying. Being the non-confrontational type, I consulted my friends on how I could get rid of my roommate, and one of them suggested that I could be so intolerable that she’d request a roommate switch.
So for the next two weeks, I was the biggest asshole in the world. I slept on the floor with her bolster, stuffed empty food packets along the lining of her bed, and left nail clippings on her quilt. I also invited people into her room to sleep on her bed when she went home for the weekend.
On hindsight, I knew it was a messed up thing to do, but I got what I wanted. I never saw her again.
Afiqah, 24
There was a creepy stalker who was going around the halls to steal underwear. As he hadn’t made his rounds to my hall yet, I thought it was safe to dry my clothes on the clothes line.
But slowly, my underwear started disappearing. The last straw was when the thief took my entire load of laundry. It wasn’t even nice underwear!
I was so pissed off that I hung dirty underwear and left a note saying, “Please, you can take all my clothes, but at least give me back some underwear”. Sadly, it didn’t work and I never got my underwear back again.
Fatin, 25
In school, belonging to a hall was a matter of pride. Halls were exclusive and their shirts were hard to come by. So at night, I would explore the halls and take a hall shirt as a “souvenir”.
Eventually, I completed my collection and turned them into a blanket that keeps me warm at night.
Esther, 23
I was having an affair with one of my hallmates and we would secretly meet in the soundproof music room after hours.
It must have been a really good session because we were so loud that someone called the security guard on us. It was so embarrassing that we stopped seeing each other after that.
Pris, 24
I stayed in a suite in hall, which meant six people shared an apartment. During a late night study session, we heard furniture being dragged across the floor, and someone screaming “Help!”.
Spooked, we called up our Residential Assistant (RA) and went to investigate. The screams were coming from a closed door in the suite above.
Our RA bravely knocked on the door, but there was no response. He then broke into the room and found a half-asleep, confused boy. We were all puzzled but returned to our rooms.
A few days later, the screaming happened again. This time, the hall professor went to investigate. Turns out, the male student had a bad case of night terrors and was screaming in his sleep.
Alicia, 24
While all these stories highlight the ratchet side of hall experiences, a tame hall life is just as fruitful. It really is all about the experiences you seek out during this exciting period of your lives.
This article was first published on 13 June 2017 and last updated on 10 December 2023.
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