My roommate likes a clean house, to say the least. We clearly have a different understanding of what a clean house should look like. I’m fairly respectful, though not very tidy, so I’ll do my best to keep the common areas clean of my mess and whatever. Not even 2 days ago I mopped and swept all of the floors and cleaned up the kitchen. Our house is just a ranch so we’ve got only a few small rooms of common area and a bathroom.
This morning she cleaned the whole house. She literally spent 3 hours cleaning our very tiny house. I know this because she wrote out every little thing she did and how much time it took her. Really, it was not that bad. My other roommate had left dishes in the sink for a few days, which was starting to get to the point of bothering me and the bathroom was getting a little dirty, but overall it was fairly clean. After she leaves, I go into the kitchen and see this note of all of the cleaning she did and below it “8:30-10:30 - $15/h=$30. I cleaned another hour after 10:30 but that’s my part of cleaning as a roommate”. Among the list of chores she did were mopping and sweeping which I JUST did.
I really don’t know what she expects to accomplish by leaving me a fucking bill rather than just asking me to clean up some stuff. I’m definitely pretty annoyed by the whole thing and I’m not giving her a dime. Obviously, you’re just getting my side of the story here, but does this sound like rational behavior? She’s very nonconfrontational, so I’m kind of interested in seeing how this all plays out. I’m just going to go on like nothing happened and see how it goes, though my other roommate is the one who pays all the bills so shit might go down if she pulls out some rent money.
You have different lifestyle tolerances for dirt, clutter, and cleanliness. Seems pretty straightfoward by your description.
Either this plays out like an episode of Big Brother over the weeks, where somebody is storming off from the house never to return, or everyone sits down and tries to accomidate everyone else.
This is exactly why I refuse to have roommates anymore. If your house is messy and you live by yourself there’s no one else to blame. Living on your own you can have just the right amount of filth to keep you comfy. Prolly spendy in Durango though.
Sorry to hear about that though. Is she the only girl there? Dudes can usually live at a much lower level than girls.
When you have roommates, you are all responsible for cleaning up after yourselves, which it sounds like you do. If she has issues with the cleanliness of the apartment, it’s her responsibility to bring it up to you guys and discuss it…not clean like mad and then charge you for it!!!
I’d probably do the same thing…make her talk to you about it before anything happens at all.
Sounds pretty passive aggressive. How long did it take you to clean the floors? Deduct that amount. Then deduct time from when she cleaned stuff that isn’t yours. Then deduct time she spent cleaning stuff that is yours and she isn’t expected to clean. How much does that leave?
Perhaps I’m all crasy and wild and stuff, but isn’t the adult and rational thing to do on your part to talk with her, and your other roommate, instead of just going on like nothing happened. If she is nonconfrontational and wrote a note like that she was probably pretty peeved, just ignoring it will not improve the situation. I would guess that this has been building up for a while, and that she cleaned filled with self righteous fury.
I live with 2 girls. The other one is closer to my level of sloppiness and is worse about cleaning her dishes out of the sink and stuff like that.
She brought it up once before about a month ago. She cleaned the whole house and then wrote a long note about how she’s going to move out if things don’t improve. Then she changed her mind about leaving the note and ripped it up, though I read it before she did - but didn’t tell her I saw it. We had a house meeting and she started crying about how frustrated she is that she has to clean all the time and that she had the same problem with her previous roommates.
The way I see it, I’ll clean enough so that it meets my standards of what a normal house should look like. I’m pretty rational, and again, considerate. If that’s not good enough, then feel free to clean more, but that’s not my problem.
I think she will be the one looking for a new place to live, if anything. I’m perfectly fine living here and don’t have any problems with the other girl.
Ironically, I had JUST saved her at least $30 by driving her back and forth from the airport rather than having her leave her car there… spending gas money and time out of my work day to do so.
So the level of cleanliness that you and your other roommate feel is acceptable is unacceptable to her. Sounds like she should make good on her threat and move out. Either that or work out a rent reduction for her where she keeps the place clean to everyone’s satisfaction.
It’s not fair for her to clean up after you, but it also isn’t fair to expect that everyone maintain her personal standards.
This billing thing after-the-fact would piss me off though. Not sure what she expects to accomplish with it - it’s pretty clear you guys just don’t share the same values on this subject. $30 of her time to do something you feel has no value. Meh. Leave her an adjustment notice saying that $15 of the $30 was deducted from the $30 spent on the airport ride, and bill her back for the remaining $15 (assuming she expects the 3rd roommate to pay the other $15 for cleaning).
Advise her that only 2 days ago, you mopped and swept and did whatever else, and ask her was it really necessary to redo all that so soon. Call her out on her freakish cleanliness.
I had issues with a couple roommates once where I did all the chores in the common area: vacuum, freezer deicing (yuk!), sweeping the porch, dusting, tidying, etc. except for dishes. Mostly because I hate doing dishes. But otherwise I did everything else. We had a “house meeting” where it was pointed out to me that I never do dishes. I pointed out that I do everything else, so one of you two (who were a couple BTW, so it made their sidesmanship easier) can bloody well do it. They disagreed. I continued to do everything else but not the dishes which was fine by me since I don’t produce alot of dishes (ate alot at school, etc). Soon after, dishes started getting done by someone who wasn’t me, and the issue didn’t come up again.
Also, cut a hole in her shower wall and the next time she’s in there taking a shower, stick your penis through it. I mean, obviously it’s your penis, but there will still remain that air of plausible deniability, coupled with the surreal nature of the event. I mean, it’s not like she actually saw you, you know? It’ll be enough to expedite things, trust me.
