How to be a decent (sufficiently non-horrible) housemate
Last year, when I was 23, I moved away from home for the first time to do my Master’s at U of G. I quickly realised that living with strangers can be confusing. Everyone is used to a different kind of normal at home and it’s difficult to navigate multiple conflicting expectations about how things should be in a shared house. Here are five tips on how to avoid being a bad housemate.
1. Coordinate your living schedules
If you are an average first-year university student then you and your family have spent approximately 18 years perfecting arrangements for showering, having guests over, and doing laundry. When you move in with housemates you have to start from scratch with people you probably don’t know, which (if done haphazardly) can be infuriating — unless you’re one of those lucky people with access to a private bathroom, parking spot, and laundry room. To avoid unnecessary conflict, discuss when each of you gets to use the facilities. That could mean making a schedule or coordinating times over text. Whatever you decide, you need to do something, or everyone is going to get in each other’s ways and it’s going to become a huge thing.
2. Don’t be loud when people are home
Noise-induced stress is a real issue. Don’t add to the problem. If your housemates are home, maybe don’t have a heated phone conversation on speakerphone (or go outside if you must) and don’t watch TV on full blast in the common area. Would you like it if you were trying to relax and your roommate started binge watching The Office at max volume, so that Michael Scott’s voice permeated the house through the vents? No. You wouldn’t. So don’t do it to your housemates.
3. Don’t bother people when they’re in their rooms
Remember at home how aggravated you were when, relaxing in bed, someone barged into your room to share an irrelevant thought or ask an inane question. Learn from those experiences and don’t do it to your housemates. Unless you need to ask a question that second or you desperately need to borrow something, don’t knock on their door and interrupt whatever they’re doing. Wait until they’re in the common area to talk to them or text them and they’ll get back to you when they feel like it.
4. Don’t sit on your grievances
Conflict terrifies even the strongest of people, but if you ignore a problem and decide to wait it out until one of you moves or they change their behaviour, you’re going to have a bad time. More often than not, they’ll stay the same and you’ll start resenting them for it. Address issues with your roommates before they become a more serious problem. You have to spend the next year living with them, so don’t make it more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Sometimes, people don’t realize they’re being annoying. If you talk to them about it, they might even appreciate it. No one wants to be the target of irrational anger (unless you have a pre-existing hatred of each other or that person is a sociopath).
5. Clean up after yourself
Seriously. Do it. I know this one seems obvious, but it isn’t. For some people, since it’s their first time on their own and they’re consumed with freedom, they overlook washing their dishes and wiping the stove when they’re done cooking. I’ve heard too many horrors stories of housemates that refused to help around the house. No one wants ants or other arthropods ambling around their floors and food. Prevent this problem by cleaning up after yourself. Your housemates and future-you will thank you for tidying up.