For six friends, living on Castle St has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience - with the emphasis on the once.
Tom Mules, Tim Fraser, Benn Kenney, Suha Park, Sam Cole and William Dymock have followed the accommodation route favoured by many Dunedin tertiary students.
They were friends at secondary school (in Auckland), arrived in Dunedin at the same time, lived in the same residential college last year, and moved together at the start of this year to an elderly villa smack bang in the middle of the student heartland.
And next year they are going to do what many older and wiser students do - swap their cold flat and noisy neighbours for newer, warmer, quieter and cheaper accommodation a good few blocks away.
"It is tradition," Suha Park, a physical education student, said.
"You don't want to be a third-year living on Castle St."
It was the central location which sold them on The Beehive (named by previous tenants). Living one block from the campus means five of them can walk everywhere.
The sixth, Benn Kenney, is studying engineering at Otago Polytechnic and has a little further to go.
Pedestrians stroll up and down the street at all hours of the day or night, something which can be interesting or annoying, depending on whether the flatmates are in social mode or study mode.
While the Otago Daily Times photographer is at work two men in gorilla suits walking by stop to watch and give the flatmates a hard time.
One has a can of beer in one hand and a megaphone in the other. The flatmates do not bat an eyelid. Castle St has lived up to its reputation as the student social hub of Dunedin, they say.
"You meet heaps of people. Everyone is friendly and in and out of each other's houses," Mr Kenney says.
There is a party somewhere most weekends. Mr Kenney's favourite is the "mekup", where guests are allocated themes, dress appropriately and participate in prolonged drinking games.
The Beehive was already regarded as a party house before the present tenants arrived, Mr Mules, a medical student, says.
"We have a lounge and a back yard. We feel obliged to have parties."
It is also regarded as "one of the best boys' flats in Castle St", the flatmates say.
Mystified, I ask for an explanation. Apparently, it is also a tradition in most of Castle St that in flats with road frontages boys flat with boys and girls with girls.
The boys' flats line the eastern side and the girls the west. Surely I must have noticed, the flatmates say.
The girls' flats have tidier front yards, picket fences and gardens, while the front yards on the boys' side contain vehicles, the left-overs from last week's party and a liberal sprinkling of junk mail.
All the best flats on Castle St go to the girls, Mr Mules says.
"Girls are seen by landlords as better tenants. They are the first to be signed up for flats."
The flatmates are aware of The Beehive's drawbacks. At $110 weekly per room, the flat is one of the most expensive in the area.
Most of the walls are not insulated, the roof and a skylight leak in places, and in one bedroom the occupier can open the window, stretch out his hand and touch a solid brick wall.
High on the flatmates' list of essentials for next year are heat pumps. They have been trying to do without heaters in their bedrooms this year to avoid big power bills and their rooms are cold and damp as a result.
Tim Fraser, a commerce student, holds his toilet bag aloft, its vinyl cover liberally spotted with mould. All the flatmates have been sick with prolonged colds or flu, something Mr Fraser puts down to the damp surroundings.
"We're definitely living in Castle St for the experience. This flat is pretty average really . . . Next year we'll have proper houses."
