How to Make a Roommate Situation a Pleasant One

Published on Thursday, April 12th, 2012 by J. Gomes Category: College Tips

You have heard the horror stories or from friends about their bad experiences with new roommates. This does not have to be. To increase your chances of finding the perfect rooming buddy you will want to assure that you are living with someone who has the same lifestyle and holds the same values as you. Think about what is important to you as far as behavior is concerned and let this be your guide when creating your ad. Try your best to find a roommate through someone you know, if not you will want to contact your student union and post your advertisement on the website. Take into consideration that finding a roommate does take time so, be patient and make sure that you plan ahead and start looking months before your semester starts.

Once you have found a roommate you are compatible with, make sure you go over the ground rules before the move-in. Do not under any circumstances put this off, as in most cases once everybody is settled in it will become more difficult to bring it up. Establish cleaning duties, grocery bills, set laundry times etc. Here are some tips you may want to consider to keep your living situation as smooth and pleasurable as possible.

Establish certain days of the week for cleaning duties.

To be fair, assign each of you one day out of the week to do vacuuming, dusting and general cleaning of the apartment. Make sure you also have set times in place so neither of you will interrupt each other while studying or sleeping.

Establish a Grocery List Plan

There is more than one way of handling this. You can do a shop together and split the bill in half – this can pose as a problem for some people especially if you do not eat as much as the other person. To make things easier we suggest that you do your own shopping for personal preferences and for the common staples like coffee, bread, eggs, sugar, salt, spices etc you can split that in half.

Agree upon How Your pad Will Be Treated

Depending on your own lifestyle and the lifestyle of your roommate, you will want to come up with a game plan as far as how you feel your apartment should be treated. In other words, are you up for parties every Saturday night with a mess to clean up and late risers straggling out of your apartment? Or do you want to keep it low key and have only 1-2 people at a time at your place to keep noise down and being respectable to your roommate’s privacy. Make sure you discuss fair options and come to a conclusion you are both comfortable with.

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