When you sign a contract to live with roommates in college, you sign away a part of yourself. You sign stating you will respect them, help them and support them. You sign on to be a part of something bigger than yourself. You sign on to learn how to coexist with people you might never have met otherwise. You sign on to blend your differences and make living together work. You sign on to be the best roommate you can be because, let’s be real, who wants to live with someone who makes life a living hell? Not me! So, in keeping with my trend of helpful lists (well, lists I find helpful) I have compiled many things you should do if you are going to room with 1+ other people. This will help you avoid most problems with roommates.
1. Make up some apartment rules. If you don’t do this first, you will constantly be getting mad at each other because no one is going to automatically know what another person doesn’t like.
2. When you shower, clean up your shower hair. No one wants to go into the shower after someone has showered and see a wad of hair down there at the drain—it makes me want to throw up just writing this.
3. Be understanding—if you expect something from them you need to tell them. If they didn’t know what you expected, then you need to listen to them and find a good medium.
4. Do your dishes AND put them away. I can’t tell you how many times I have had roommates who leave their dishes in the sink for weeks or even in a drying rack for days and just pile more on top of them. (I can’t even tell you how disgusting drying racks are—just play it safe and don’t use a drying rack.)
5. Don’t try to date someone your roommate has previously had an attachment too—even if it was only a few dates or whatever. If your roommate had really liked the guy/girl, then definitely do not assume it will be okay to just date them. You need to ask your roommate for permission if you are seriously considering dating who they had dated and even then it’s really not okay.
6. Don’t try and control what your roommate can say, do, watch, read, listen to, etc. You wouldn’t want someone to tell you that you can’t watch your favorite movie/TV show or that you can’t listen to your favorite music so why would you do that to someone else?
7. Don’t mock other people’s preferences—if they want to wear their jacket and have the window open, then let them. But at the same time you should both compromise on the window thing—make sure that your roommate or roommates are okay with the window being open before you decide to have it open all the time.
8. If you have a roommate that is up late working on homework or has a job that keeps them out late—do NOT make a ton of noise in the morning. It is so rude to keep zipping and unzipping your backpack, or moving stuff around loudly while in the same room as your roommate who may have only gotten to bed 5-6 hours previously. Show them some courtesy and do all of that outside of the room.
9. Just because you think you know what your roommates want, doesn’t mean you actually do. You should never volunteer your roommate for something that you haven’t asked them if they are okay with. No blind dates without them knowing they are being set up, no meal preps without consulting them first, no signing them up for stuff that they might want to do, but haven’t given permission for. Always Ask First.
10. Keep the bathroom area clean. No one likes waking up or coming home to a messy bathroom space—as much as you think no one cares—I promise you it will make a whole world of difference if you simply clean your space up ASAP.
11. Keep your room clean. If you keep your stuff on your side of the room and it’s organized, for the most part, you shouldn’t be causing any extra stress on your roommates. I promise you, they will thank you for how neat you are keeping your space (if anything, this practice makes clean checks go so much faster and easier.)
12. Take out the trash. If you notice it is getting too high or that it smells absolutely horrific—take it out!! There is no reason to keep ignoring it until your other roommates come in and find it that way and end up having to take it out. Do everyone a favor and take it out first.
