Choosing a Roommate

Living with another person or with a few people is a fundamental step which I believe enriches the lives of both parties involved. It can either be a really good experience or a very annoying situationship. Assuming that you and the other person or persons won’t purposefully make the experience bad, there are a couple factors to consider before making any decisions on your living arrangement. Here is a comprehensive list of things I find to be the utmost importance. *These items aren’t listed in any particular order.

1. Pets: Are you a dog person? A cat person? An exotic animal lover or reptilian queen. Whichever hypothetical animal you would say you’re okay with your roommate having, consider establishing ground rules. Though you might expect your housemate to be courteous, make sure you explicitly tell them all the things you’d be uncomfortable with. Whether the specifics of that be toys of the pets left in the commonspace, the amount of time the pet is out in the commonspace, or pets on top of furniture and countertops, make certain your cover all points.

2. Dishes: Everyone has their own protocol. Some people use the dishwasher, others hand wash. Some people wash dirty and put clean dishes away every day/night, while other people can leave dirty/clean dishes as a task for later. Whatever the case may be, may sure you and whomever else are on the same page before you decide to move in. If compromise happens, get it in writing!

3. Food & Drink: Make sure you talk about what the strategy is for discerning personal items from shareable items. Everyone dislikes when food goes bad, and often if you’re eating one carton of eggs or buying a gallon of milk, it might go to waste before you can finish it. For these and similar items, maybe you can write “all” on a postage note. Or maybe you have a whiteboard that has all the shareable items on it. Either way, don’t touch each other’s leftovers. And when in doubt if it’s yours or theirs, ask.

4. Other Chores: Unlike dishes, cleaning the pantry, the refrigerator & freezer, the microwave, and other spots that don’t get messy every day will need an agreed upon schedule to make sure things stay tidy. Discuss in detail when to do each of these, how often (like once every 2 weeks), and discuss a rotation of you and other roomates completing these tasks or working together on them.

5. Noise: Nothings worse than needing to sleep and hearing people talk loudly, play music, and generally make any other noises that prevent you from sleeping.

Make sure you talk about social event planning, volume tolerance, and bed times before the week/month begins. It’s much harder to keep partygoers at bay once they’re already creating a ruckus.

1. Drug/Alcohol: If you’re opposed to cannabis and alcohol, amongst other party favors, it’s best to put that at the top of your list when chatting with potential roomies. It’s also important to discuss the whereabouts of said recreational social activities because smells linger, and some fabrics stain if liquor is spilled.

2. Doubles of items: This might be a silly one, and some of you might say “You can never have too many items in dishware” and while that one may make sense, I wouldn’t agree with having multiples of each appliance. Discuss who has what to avoid cluttering your kitchen. If someone brings their coffee maker, you can bring your blender. And if someone has a later and higher functioning model, consider asking them to put theirs out for common use.

3. Reserving the commonspace: This one seems like it’s hardly going to happen since everyone should be the bestest of friends and always want to hangout together. While that is a nice thought, sometimes you’ll want to host a specific event for just your friends and at some point your roommates might want to do the same. Whether it’s a book club, a movie viewing party, or a specific hangout for your closest friends, discuss with your roommates if this is something they’d ever be interesting in doing with one another. And also be certain to mandate a specific time frame to request the reserved event prior to the date and time.

4. Personalities: Just because you’ve met them once doesn’t mean you know them, ok duh! Okay, but just because you’ve met them twice, doesn’t mean you reallyyy know them. Find out who they are! Run a background check to be safe!!!

10. Ideals & Morals: While it’s true, you can disagree on things that don’t directly infringe on each other’s living, like one of you loving pizza while the others dislike pizza, there are some things that are fundamental values. Find out what these things are, and make sure you discuss it! If it will make you uncomfortable in your own home, you have to speak up about it. Do a self-reflection and think about a couple non-negotiables to discuss with potential roommates. Have ultimatums ready, and be sure to present ways to compromise to their non-negotiables. These are my top 10 within the list of topics to use when interviewing potential roommates. I hope this helps you! Stay safe, have fun, and most importantly, discuss, discuss, discuss!