<p>My daughter and 3 of her friends have decided to go off campus this year in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. The girls all get along very well, have similar study habits, difficult majors and aren’t into partying.</p>
<p>Having said that, I know they will encounter some difficulties. Any tips? How have others dealt with food issues, utility bills, etc.?</p>
<p>5 boys rooming together here! The biggest issue seems to be taking out the trash. If it’s a problem, keep a list to make sure everyone takes a turn. As far as cleaning the apartment, they only make an effort before breaks. No one leaves until the place is clean and then they can come back to a clean apartment. As far as food goes, one roomate seemed to think he was entitled to anything in the refrigerator. My son ended up getting his own small refrigerator that he could keep in his locked room. He survived 3 years of this. Certainly girls will be easier.</p>
<p>The main food issue, for both of my kids (in different college communities) was lack of access to a supermarket. There was none within walking distance. They and their roommates ended up living mostly on delivered take-out food and meals purchased at campus dining facilities during the day. This is expensive and fattening.</p>
<p>If somebody has a car, it would be great if that person was willing to do a weekly supermarket run for the group. Perhaps the others could do something else in return (like not requiring that person to take a turn at bathroom cleaning and taking out the trash).</p>
<p>Also, you mentioned utilities but not Internet. Have they made/will they make arrangements for Internet in their apartment? They’re going to want it.</p>
<p>They should ‘not’ buy furniture or appliances together since there’s too big of an issue as to what to do with it on move-out or if one of them decides to leave for some reason.</p>
<p>They need to determine how they’ll respond when one of them wants to leave for some reason which can include quitting college, studying abroad, moving out with the boyfriend, etc.</p>
<p>They need to agree up front on the subject of boyfriend and other stayovers.</p>
<p>They need to agree on how they’re going to handle food. I think it’s best that each buys their own food/drinks/etc. and they don’t ‘borrow’ each others (invariably one borrowing from another but the favor never being returned).</p>
<p>If the 2 rooms aren’t considered equal by them then they need to determine how to make it equitable with perhaps those in the bigger/nicer room paying a bit more share of the rent than the others.</p>
<p>They really need to sort out the cleaning of the common areas (and each pair the bedrooms) and dumping trash. This always seems to be a problem because it seems that at least one of them is always fine living like a pig.</p>
<p>Utilities including electric and internet/cable access needs to be equally divided. Unless all of them want the premium channels they shouldn’t have to split the cost of that if only a subset is advocating getting it. And on this, there was a recent thread about one of the roomies doing illegal downloads and the person whose name it’s in getting into trouble - they need to agree to no illegal downloads.</p>
<p>etc., etc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good point. She who buys it takes it with her when she leaves. My daughter owned the TV. One of her roommates owned the Wii. There was no question of what would go with whom when they moved out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The worst overnight guests are the ones who can’t share the hostess’s bedroom – for example, an opposite sex guest who is not her boyfriend. Such guests end up sleeping in the living room, thereby rendering it unavailable to the residents, who may have sleeping habits that differ from those of the guest.</p>
<p>My son lived in a four-person apartment where a roommate’s guest slept in the living room for weeks. It drove everyone else nuts, and eventually the other three roommates insisted that the guy with the long-term guest had to ask his guest to leave. At the same time, another roommate routinely had his girlfriend staying with him every weekend. This bothered nobody because she shared his room, which had its own bathroom.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This has the potential for a lot of friction. Money issues seem easier for kids to compromise, but when it comes to cleaning, everyone comes into it with such different standards. We all know about this, right? It happens with families as well as room mates.
The difference is with families, there is usually a parent who determines when something is clean enough, and the kids oblige. With room mates there is no recourse without alienating your friends.</p>
<p>Not sure I agree that girls are easier. Our son hasn’t had any problems sharing with a variety of roommates. The apartment is filthy, but they don’t seem to mind. On the other hand I was surprised by some of the problems our easy-going daughter faced rooming with 3 sorority sisters in a 2 BR/2BA apt. Biggest issues were jealousy over dates my daughter was asked on, and roommate who “borrowed” many things from daughter’s closet. D almost called police when she returned from Thanksgiving break and discovered a very expensive handbag was missing. Turned out a roomie had taken it home for a special date. Final straw was D coming home to a rather large party in the apartment she had neither been informed of nor invited to. She arranged a swap and moved after one semester. Thankfully she is in a much better situation now.</p>
<p>Although I don’t have any personal experience with this website, it looks promising. Splitwise keeps track of what each roommate had paid, and who owes what to whom. It even has a function to email your roommates when it’s time to settle accounts. </p>
<p>There’s also a feature on how to split the rent when all things are not equal - e.g. room size, bathrooms, etc.</p>
<p>[Split</a> bills the easy way :: Splitwise](<a href=“http://splitwise.com/]Split”>http://splitwise.com/)</p>
<p>“They really need to sort out the cleaning of the common areas (and each pair the bedrooms) and dumping trash. This always seems to be a problem because it seems that at least one of them is always fine living like a pig.”</p>
<p>Could not agree more! Daughter had three roommates in an apartment last summer–all hard workers on a research fellowship. But daughter was the only one who cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. In the absence of her cleaning, they got completely disgusting. The girls told her later that, since the apartment was owned by the university, they thought someone came into the apartment to do the cleaning!!! My daughter is now sharing a different place with three others. She came after the others and there were already sign-up sheets on the frig for weekly taking out the trash, cleaning the main room, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the bath. They sign up for three month periods on a rotation basis (so it takes a month to go through all four tasks) and they initial also when they have completed their tasks. Life is much better. Everybody has a job and everybody knows their job. Doing something like this when moving in will save headaches down the road.</p>
<p>^ditto this. You could get a whiteboard and do the same thing.</p>
<p>I bought aclear plastic shoe holder that hangs on the inside of the door. It was supposed to hold 24 shoes. It worked perfect for holding all the hair products etc that girls accumulate and kept the bathroom sink area clear.</p>
<p>After living in a sorority house for several years…including in a 5-way (yes, 5 girls in one room…no beds though), these were some of the things we learned:</p>
<p>-Whiteboards are your friends! Whether you want to write that you need it to be quiet on X day because you have a test, are having friends over on Thursday for a movie marathon, or that you set the DVR to record a specific show, they are a godsend.
-Chore schedules are also your friend. We didn’t have a lot of chores b/c of the cleaning service that came in, but we were responsible for what was in our room. This meant that once a week, someone vacuumed, someone dusted, someone divvied up all the junk from on the futon, someone cleaned the mirror, etc.
-Finally, you will most likely end up on the same emotional schedules, if you know what I mean. As long as everyone is aware that everyone is especially grumpy/in pain/whiny that week, it usually goes smoothly.</p>
<p>My kids both did one thing I thought was a really good idea. They had a jar in the kitchen where each roommate placed the same amount of money. This was used for common things like dish soap and other commonly used toiletries like TPnand paper towels, as well as commonly used food staples like sugar, olive oil, etc. Money the jar was used to replenish these items. When money got low in the jar, each roomie put in more of the same amount of money. At the end of the lease, they divided what was left in the jar equally amongst the roommates.</p>
<p>My daughter lives with 3 roommates off campus, though they all have their own bedroom:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>From the start, label food with a sharpie. Don’t make a big deal out of it and don’t wait until there are “problems,” just start that way and then nobody has to be the “reason” they had to label food.</p></li>
<li><p>Figure out how to split up the refrigerator right away. She had one roommate last year, who graduated, who took up the entire freezer. It nearly ruined the friendships. (sounds silly, but all the girls have rigorous schedules and needed a part of freezer).</p></li>
<li><p>Figure out opposite sex rules beforehand. Obviously with room sharing, this can be a huge issue for young women.</p></li>
<li><p>Daughter’s boyfriend lives in a house with four other guys, and one guy likes to make big “common” purchases and then tell everyone they need to chip in. The other guys have started to hate him and wish he would leave. They were very good friends.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure to have dinner together or breakfast, or whatever is convenient, at least once a week, so they don’t lose the reason they like each other to begin with.</p></li>
<li><p>Make a chore chart and stick to it, especially dishes. My daughter said nothing surprised her more living on her own than how quickly the dishes get dirty. 
</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I said, “I know. Right?”</p>
<p>It can be a ton of fun, but food and the kitchen seems to get to be the most strained with girls, for some reason.</p>
<p>My wife’s two sisters shared an apartment for a while. Doing dishes became a battle of wills. When the sink was overflowing (they didn’t have a dishwasher) they set up an ironing board and stacked it with glasses, plates, etc. When pans of leftover spaghetti sauce in the fridge started going moldy, they transferred them to the freezer.</p>
<p>These are all extremely effective techniques for dealing with cleaning conflict, because in the end my wife came for a visit and was so disgusted she spent a day washing dishes and cleaning out the fridge.</p>
<p>S2 and his roommates split responsibility for the bills. One was in charge of utilities, one did rent and one did cable/internet. This system gave each some “skin in the game” so nobody slacked off on paying their share on time.</p>
<p>Having had my both daughters living with roommates in various apartments over the years, my main suggestion would be to have a sit-down meeting at the beginning and make decisions about: bill paying, cleaning, grocery shopping-together or separately and how to handle common household, parking, cars-how many cars in the house and who will be the primary driver for grocery shopping, maybe driving to campus, how to deal with visitors, especially if someone has a boyfriend or girlfriend or friend who wants to stay for an extended time… Also, usually one person will be the person to deal with the landlord, one with the utility company, one with the cable/internet provider. Other than cleaning issues… and there are always surprises as to what person never cleans, takes out the trash,puts dishes in the sink or dishwasher, sweeps the front steps, rakes the leaves, shovels snow, you name it… some of the biggest issues deal with buying food… there are those who will eat anything and everything and never contribute and those who want everyone to chip in but will only buy cage-free eggs and organic everything, excepting everyone to pay equally whether they can afford to do so or not. It is part of growing up, learning to deal with friends in a living situation.</p>
<p>My D lived in a house with 4 other girls for soph-senior years in college. The biggest issue was doing dishes! It was a constant mess, with everyone cooking their own food and leaving the dishes. One girl almost never did dishes, and another girl was very neat and was constantly doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. They never had a schedule; that would have helped. </p>
<p>My D lives alone now in med school and likes it. Tiny kitchen. All hers.</p>
<p>In grad school I lived in an apt with five other people. (We each had our own bedroom, and split the utilities equally.) We had an agreed-upon list of chores and a posted calendar rotation for them. This minimized tension about cleaning, which can indeed be a big problem. Labelling food and having an assigned shelf area helps also.</p>