Everyday: Roommate/Housemate Etiquette

[ccpb1214]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

[Mad Goat Woman]

If your housemate asks you to turn the music down and happens to be deaf-- turn it down, it should not be loud enough that even the deaf housemate can hear it from their bedroom sans hearing aids.

[Nannerdoman]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

That sounds like the Voice of Experience.

[KitFox]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

Major agreement here. There's nothing worse than being treated to a laundry list of complaints that has been saved up over MONTHS. Especially when some of the complaints were blown so out of proportion because the saver has been stewing.

[blarg314]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

Major agreement here. There's nothing worse than being treated to a laundry list of complaints that has been saved up over MONTHS. Especially when some of the complaints were blown so out of proportion because the saver has been stewing.

I would go so far as to say that the laundry list of complaint is something that shouldn't ever be used.

It's basically a really passive aggressive way to unload all your complaints and irritations on someone else, while ensuring that they are not there to defend themselves or respond to accusations.

[Mrs. Pilgrim]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

Major agreement here. There's nothing worse than being treated to a laundry list of complaints that has been saved up over MONTHS. Especially when some of the complaints were blown so out of proportion because the saver has been stewing.

I would go so far as to say that the laundry list of complaint is something that shouldn't ever be used.

It's basically a really passive aggressive way to unload all your complaints and irritations on someone else, while ensuring that they are not there to defend themselves or respond to accusations.

Passive-aggressive listmakers are just asking for a public fisking.

Oh, here's a rule from my brief roomie career:  If you know your roommate's parents are coming for a visit, please only appear before them fully clothed.  (My dorm room had only one room, in which we both slept, and she slept in her underwear.  My parents came for a visit--of which she was apprised long before--and during their entire visit, she continued to lie in bed in her bra and undies.  We kept roughly the same hours, so there was no reason for this behavior.)

Edited to clarify who needed fisking, and also to add my rule input.

[ccpb1214]

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

That sounds like the Voice of Experience.

Yes. Yes, it is.


I'll be the first to admit I'm no angel, but if someone tells me what I'm doing is bothering them, I won't do it anymore.



I know writing letters venting your feelings is very therapeutic, but I don't think you're supposed to send them.

[TylerBelle]

I saw a show recently where a character asked his roommate to be scarce from the shared apartment that evening because the guy had a date coming over. The situation reminded me of this thread.

Unless arrangements are already made, such as a roommate going out of town, or something, I don't think one roommate should request another to stay out of the house for a period of time, especially out-of-the-blue. If one wants to entertain their date / family members / book club / etc., then find another venue, so to speak. I believe no one should be denied returning to their own home.  

[emwithme]

I'll start my post by saying that I shared (various) houses with my (now) BFF for 12 years.  We started sharing because I had just split with my (then) fiance, she was living in a room in a shared house with people she HATED and it just made sense for us to share rent.

It wasn't sunshine and roses all the way through - particularly when I was dealing with mental health issues - but she is now my "sister" and I love her more than (almost) anyone - it is a Very Close Call between her and DH, just because she's been there for me for longer than him. 

Early on, we decided that we would live "en famille" - with all bills being split 50:50, us eating together wherever possible, and sharing the chores.  I tended to do the cooking (because I like it more than she does), she did the washing up.  I cleaned the bathrooms, she cleaned the kitchen.  As long as there were no health issues (mouldy food etc) we could keep our bedrooms as we liked.  We shared the cleaning of the joint living areas (doing it together on a weekend morning). 

We set up a joint account for household expenses - including groceries - and both had a debit card linked to the account.  This meant there weren't arguments about who bought the last set of toilet rolls or that the other person hadn't bought milk or butter for months but was still using it. 

If your roommate does something that bothers you, tell them right away: "What you did there was not cool."

Don't save up grievances over the past couple of months and write them in a letter.

At first, this was hard.  But it got to the point where, like family, we could say what was on our mind, potentially have an argument, get it out of our systems and then get on with life.  DH still doesn't quite get this.  However, if you're not the type of person who can do this, then it can be quite difficult. 

You had a bad day.  I, your roommate, am sorry and I sympathize.  However, I honestly do not want to hear about it All.  Evening.  Long.

BFF and I brought in an arrangement whereby we would each have 15 minutes straight after work where we could bi*ch about our day and get it out of our systems.  Generally, this would be while we were preparing dinner (I would do dinner prep while she did kitchen cleaning or dealt with the cats or whatever).  This meant that by the time it got to eating, we were out of the "stress-work" headset and ready to enjoy our evenings.

My biggest tip for anyone in a room-mate situate is choose your person carefully.  You may *love* partying with this person, but you can't party ALL WEEK.  You have to go to work or college or whatever.  Find someone who has similar opinions in terms of living style; if politics (or whatever issue) is important to you, it will be harder to live with someone apathetic about that than to live with someone who is equally passionate but of an opposite opinion.  However, if you're obsessive about tidying and cleanliness and you live with someone who tends towards slobbiness, there will be problems. 

[Waterlight]

* Follow the rules of the place you are living.  It's unfair and inconsiderate to bring pets, drugs, ect. into an apartment or dorm when there are rules forbidding it.  In some colleges all roommates are punished if one is caught with something illegal in the apartment (even if other roommates did not know about it and/or are not present when guilty roommate is caught).  It's a stupid rule to punish the innocent in my opinion, but it's a reality and it is completely selfish for one person to put their roommates in that position.

POD, POD, POD, and POD!  I lived with an SS my sophomore year of college who seemed to think these rules didn't apply to her.  The campus of the college we attended was "dry" (i.e. no alcohol allowed), but on one memorable occasion, she threw a drinking party in our room.  The only reason I wasn't punished too is that I didn't know about the party; I was at work at the time.

Other rules that IMHO should apply to college roommates, but SS didn't think applied to her:

If you are going to play scrabble, and you share a dorm room with someone, PLEASE either wait to play scrabble until your roommate is out of the room, or go to a motel.

Do not expect your roommate to cover for you in class if you skip class.

And rules I think are universal, that this SS also violated:

Do not expect your roommate to lend you money, or to do any other favors for you, just because you live with him or her.  You have the right to ask, but your roommate has the right to say no.

If you do borrow something that belongs to your roommate, please return it in the same condition in which you borrowed it, as soon as possible.

[AngelicGamer]

From my experience from sharing a place - if the dirty dishes in the sink bother you, speak up before you stack them in front of your roommate's door, take a picture of it, and think you can laugh about it with everyone else while they'll take your side.

The dishes?  A glass, plate, fork, and knife from a very quick breakfast that morning before a 12 hour workday.  I was outside for most of it until it got too dark for me to see (so from around 9 am to around 6 or 7) while she was inside unless she wanted to go out.  It was a very hot southern Indiana summer and I wanted to change and take 15 minutes to decompress before heating up the dinner I brought home.  I fell asleep for a hour and she was gone with others when I woke up.  Why she couldn't have just asked me to clean up before decompressing - we exchanged plans on what we were going to do for the night - I have no idea as I would have been more than happy to do as she asked.

The next day, I was told I was going to have to find another place to stay, find another city to go to that was in the program, or go home.  Why I stayed out the rest of the time instead of just going home was beyond me.  I was not liked by the head person and she was one of the people who laughed about how the roommate did such a good thing.  Her seconds in command were disgusted with her (one of them was the one who texted me) and helped me find a new place with a really nice college professor who was okay with volunteering a room.  She was upfront about everything - including asking if I would help out with her cats (more than happy to!) and the last month of the program went a lot better than the first.

So, yes, communicate!  It should be rule 0 of living with people.

[JeseC]

 - Learn to take "no" for an answer.  Sometimes people will do things that bother you and aren't going to want to stop or change.  If it bothers you, find a way to move out.  Don't go about trying to make your roommate miserable because you think you have a right to, say, dead silence after midnight.

 - Medical issues are medical issues, not things to negotiate about.  If you insist on bringing scented products into our college dorm room I will have the RA make you throw them away.  Ditto with perfumed body stuff - if I tell you to not bathe your hair in highly scented hairspray in our room, just do it.  I'm not "being difficult," I'm trying to breathe, and again I will tell the housing people to make you move.

[camlan]

 - Medical issues are medical issues, not things to negotiate about.  If you insist on bringing scented products into our college dorm room I will have the RA make you throw them away.  Ditto with perfumed body stuff - if I tell you to not bathe your hair in highly scented hairspray in our room, just do it.  I'm not "being difficult," I'm trying to breathe, and again I will tell the housing people to make you move.

In a college dorm situation, there should be a way for a roommate to say that they can't accommodate your disability and ask to be moved. However, most of the colleges I know have a very strict policy of making roommates work out disagreements, and for something like this, they might not let the non-allergic person move.

If someone really likes scented products, they should have the opportunity to say that they can't really live with someone who is allergic to them. Same with someone who loves peanut butter, when paired with someone who is allergic to it.

A dorm room is home for 8-9 months of the year. A random roommate should not be forced to accommodate an allergy or disability without having the chance to know about the accommodations beforehand and have a chance to think about whether or not they can deal with the changes required. It's a safety issue for the allergic person--someone who is forced to use/not use something against their will is far more likely to forget and use the forbidden substance, or not realize a common product has that substance in it.

A friend of mine has a guide dog. Her university gave her a roommate who was very, very afraid of dogs and who could not deal with a large German Shepherd Dog in her dorm room. The university followed its standard policy of making the two of them live together for a month before letting the roommate move into another room. During that month, the two women never actually were in the room at the same time, because of the dog. They stayed with friends and alternated who got to use their room and when.

It would have made a ton more sense to let the roommate know about the dog before she moved in, and then taken steps to find a roommate who liked dogs. My friend was assigned a triple room, but with only one other person, so there was more space than in the average dorm room, so there were compensations.

For the scented product user, it's a big change to not use scented products for 8 months or so--and expensive, if she'd come to college with scented lotion, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent, fabric softener, etc. While she certainly should not have been using them around you, there should have been a system in place for the two of you to easily part company and find new rooms/roommates.

I don't think forcing someone to accommodate another person's allergy in their own living space is fair to either party. The allergic person has to worry all the time if the roommate will forget and use/eat the allergen, and the other person has to make huge changes in their lifestyle that they didn't ask for and weren't warned about. It's one thing to not be about to eat peanut butter in a classroom; it's another to completely change nearly every personal care product you use for months on end, without prior warning.

I blame the college or university for this sort of thing. They need to have a better policy to deal with roommate issues like this.

[Tea Drinker]

I go to a science fiction convention whose advice for members includes both that some members have asthma or allergies that can be triggered by scented products, so please refrain if possible, and that some other members use scent for pain management, so everyone should be aware that not everyone will refrain, even aside from inconveniences and possible expense of finding new products.

Some of the adjustments are easier than others: unscented soap in the public bathrooms, for example. I can make a point of washing and conditioning my hair pre-con rather than bringing my scented hair conditioner, and I use an unscented deodorant anyhow. But even with good will, there isn't a perfect answer. (For example, not everyone will be comfortable going days without conditioning their hair.)

But that's for 800-1000 people sharing space for a long weekend; people who are sharing rooms get to select their own roommates, they aren't assigned by a well-meaning stranger who might inadvertently put someone who uses a guide dog in the same room as someone with allergy-triggered asthma.

[JeseC]

 - Medical issues are medical issues, not things to negotiate about.  If you insist on bringing scented products into our college dorm room I will have the RA make you throw them away.  Ditto with perfumed body stuff - if I tell you to not bathe your hair in highly scented hairspray in our room, just do it.  I'm not "being difficult," I'm trying to breathe, and again I will tell the housing people to make you move.

In a college dorm situation, there should be a way for a roommate to say that they can't accommodate your disability and ask to be moved. However, most of the colleges I know have a very strict policy of making roommates work out disagreements, and for something like this, they might not let the non-allergic person move.

If someone really likes scented products, they should have the opportunity to say that they can't really live with someone who is allergic to them. Same with someone who loves peanut butter, when paired with someone who is allergic to it.

A dorm room is home for 8-9 months of the year. A random roommate should not be forced to accommodate an allergy or disability without having the chance to know about the accommodations beforehand and have a chance to think about whether or not they can deal with the changes required. It's a safety issue for the allergic person--someone who is forced to use/not use something against their will is far more likely to forget and use the forbidden substance, or not realize a common product has that substance in it.

A friend of mine has a guide dog. Her university gave her a roommate who was very, very afraid of dogs and who could not deal with a large German Shepherd Dog in her dorm room. The university followed its standard policy of making the two of them live together for a month before letting the roommate move into another room. During that month, the two women never actually were in the room at the same time, because of the dog. They stayed with friends and alternated who got to use their room and when.

It would have made a ton more sense to let the roommate know about the dog before she moved in, and then taken steps to find a roommate who liked dogs. My friend was assigned a triple room, but with only one other person, so there was more space than in the average dorm room, so there were compensations.

For the scented product user, it's a big change to not use scented products for 8 months or so--and expensive, if she'd come to college with scented lotion, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent, fabric softener, etc. While she certainly should not have been using them around you, there should have been a system in place for the two of you to easily part company and find new rooms/roommates.

I don't think forcing someone to accommodate another person's allergy in their own living space is fair to either party. The allergic person has to worry all the time if the roommate will forget and use/eat the allergen, and the other person has to make huge changes in their lifestyle that they didn't ask for and weren't warned about. It's one thing to not be about to eat peanut butter in a classroom; it's another to completely change nearly every personal care product you use for months on end, without prior warning.

I blame the college or university for this sort of thing. They need to have a better policy to deal with roommate issues like this.

I should clarify - this happened to me in college.  The request was not to refrain from wearing scented products, merely to not apply them in the room.  My roommate had super-long curly hair that she bathed in hairspray, and it would leave a scented cloud in the middle of the room and on me bedding and whatnot.  I'd have been fine with her wearing it, I was just telling her to please put it on in the bathroom rather than in the dorm room.

I've had a lot of issues with roommates not realizing what they're getting into, though.  A surprising number of people don't get what "scented products" entail - so I've had cases before where the roommate was warned and proceeded to be an issue anyway, because they couldn't believe that their air freshener was a  scented product.