I’ve heard stories, and so far my experience backs them up. So I have three new housemates this month - making a total of 4 of us in the house. One male student, one female student, and a 50 year old neat freak woman.
Within 2 weeks, the female student left a note on the fridge complaining that someone dipped into her cheez whiz and while it’s OK if you ask, it’s not cool if she wakes up and it’s empty. After a day of drama that this started, turns out the next day it was the guy who slept over with her and snuck out at night. Yeah she loved admitting that. But seriously, drama, over cheez whiz?
A week later, a note about how there are 4 people in the house and we can’t leave the twin sink full of a bowl and a mug that are soaking in the middle of the day because she came home sick early from work and couldn’t wash her vegetables because half of one sink was being used by a bowl. I still don’t know who did that, but I wasn’t making brownie points with the woman when I took point on pointing out how three quarters of a sink was a lot of room to wash your veggies in.
The water bill is 2 times higher this month than last. That may sound like a lot, but that’s not all of it. The bill covers the first 3 weeks of the month and the last week of the previous month. Same number of tenants. Quite the argument until I and my downstairs fellow testicled one threatened to buy and install separate water meters for upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. I’m not sure they actually exist in 1/2" and 3/8" sizes, but the threat won. The men only take a third of the bill.
And now, the old one knocks on my door repeatedly as I ignore her, walks in anyway, and gives me shit for smoking in my room and how she’s going to tell the landlord (my best friend) that I’m smoking. I don’t smoke. Never have. The smell she’s complaining about is the delicate aroma of her bonfire (complete with semi-dried leaves and grass!) that coated my room sometime this weekend when I was out of the house. Assuming she’s not just bullshitting trying to get me in trouble. Point is, it’s fucking 10:45pm. Really late to act out on a petty grudge because I point out you’re an unreasonable neat freak (in much nicer words).
How do I deal with this lunacy? I don’t want to bring my landlord/best friend into it because by default any action he takes will be in my favor and I just don’t wanna be that guy.
The reality of living with roommates is that unless you know them really, really well issues will come up. That may mean you have to change the way you do things to make sure everyone is reasonably satisfied. For example, leaving dishes in the sink creates unnecessary drama.
As for the lady complaining about the smoking, that’s just her being a bitch. I hope you pointed out the facts there.
Saving up for the place. Hence the roommates. Still this place was awesome the past two years. About 6 different guys through here and we all got along. Some slobbishness, some pot smoking, a few unreasonable parties but I don’t think there was as much drama in any given 3-month period with any of those guys as has been in 3 weeks with these two girls.
Sometimes, doing something that makes you happy is the right choice even if it is self indulgent and even if it is financially dubious. Our days only wind down.
I lived with female housemate and she was pretty cool. She was hardly there though and she got on our case once in the course of a year. There was a little drama at the end with regard to communication about her moving her stuff at the end of her lease. That’s it though. She was a pretty good housemate. I’m sure she was annoyed more often though. We weren’t exactly, neat, but most of use weren’t terrible either.
Yes. Having said that, four out of my six housesharing years involved women, but no way would I ever share with one who I didn’t know very well beforehand (so, e.g. on graduation I shared a flat with an ex girlfriend, and another good (female) friend from college)
They had the advantage of one of them being even more slovenly and workoholic than I at the time, and the other having as her stress relief/ hobby cooking awesome, with much more free time than us two. So we would get back from work late, to find her anxiously wondering if we wouldn’t mind trying her cheese souffle and rack of roast lamb…
Random housemates on the other hand, recipe for disaster. Whether male or female. Frankly I can’t see how it can ever work apart from on a communist basis - milk labellers should be shot on sight.
My last flat share was the best. We set it up as a mess, four guys sharing a big flat with a live in housekeeper, and sharing the bills on an agreed basis (origin of the word mess) The housekeeper ensured fridge was always full of beer & milk, and breakfast on the table in the morning, shirts ironed etc.
She was a couple of years older than me, and had a fairly good attitude towards the apartment cleanliness. She and I would get together at least once a fortnight and scrub the whole place clean. It helps that I rarely leave uncleaned dishes in the sink nor am I a ridiculous slob who never cleans up after himself.
She was awesome other nights too. Sometimes, I come home and am greeted by the smell of freshly baked pie, or the fragrance of new flowers in the living room. Whenever her boyfriend came over, they pretty much kept to her room, and were generally quiet even late into the night. She often invited me out to hang out with some of her hot friends and even brought back a whole bevy of Supermodels (She was a make-up artist / dance instructor) for a party one night. When I brought my girlfriend over, she was considerate enough to leave the entire living room to us, and went out to hang out with friend for the night.
She was great.
My worst roommate, on the other hand, was a guy who fancied himself an amateur horror director and pretty much ticked off every cliche off the horrible roommate list. Stale pizza on the counter, unwashed dishes piling up, noisy grunting in the middle of the night with his girlfriend, strange smells from his room, and pretty much my fault for playing the console too loud while he’s trying to enjoy the “taut tension of a dario argento film.” Which he can’t do everytime Mario says something cute, or something blows up.
Random roomies are a recipe for disaster. I’ve only ever lived with my mates (though I live with my girlfriend now, which is a different but cooler dynamic) usually after knowing them for at least a few months. At least then you have a rough idea as to how mental and/or stupid they’re going to be, and can plan accordingly. Obviously sometimes you’re going to get the odd really cool roommate out of the blue, but more often you get dozy fuckers who are too uptight to wash one bowl up that isn’t theirs and then throw a huge wobbly about it, or, conversely, are messy as sin. Three people you’ve never met that are reasonable, cleanish, sane, intelligent, easy-going, willing to muck in? You’re aiming for a royal flush, there.
Of course, that’s no real help in this situation, unless you have some friends you can sound out about having a house for cool people. Get your landlord involved to step on any of the really stupid stuff, like the bonfire thing (especially since she played the “I’m telling the landlord” card) and tough out the little stuff, I guess.
I’m curious whenever the subject of roommates turn up, so allow me a slight derail.
From threads like this and all kinds of American shows (yes, I know, you shouldn’t build your view of the world on sitcoms) it seems that having roommates is pretty common even beyond college - this is absolutely unheard of in my country (and not even that common during school/college). Shows like friends even show people with good wages living together (yes yes, same caveat).
Why is this? Is it cultural or is it just that a free an unregulated housing market puts prices beyond what many can do on their own? I’m honestly curious.
