Our daughter will be a sophomore next year and due to lack of student housing will be required to live off-campus. During the campus-wide rush to secure an apartment for the fall, our daughter (through word-of-mouth) was able to find a nice 3-bedroom unit which she will be sharing with five other girls (two per bedroom). They have all signed a lease agreement that will hold the unit for them when school begins in September.
However since they signed the lease agreement, a problem has developed: our daughter and the girl with whom she will be sharing a room are no longer getting along. Without going into too many details, they met and became friends last fall but since that time their relationship has deteriorated almost to the point of hostility. Now our D is really sorry she agreed to share with the other girl and is trying to figure out what she can do. She’s worried that once they start living together they’ll be at one other’s throats.
I’m sure other parents’ kids have been in a similar predicament at one point or another, and would really appreciate hearing about what you think is the best way to resolve this situation. Good off-campus housing is hard to find and our daughter doesn’t intend to back out of this rental, especially since she was the one who found out about its availability.
What do I think is the best way to resolve the situation?
Leave it to the girls. Encourage them to have a brutally frank conversation along the lines of, “Look we don’t seem to be getting along all that well right now. But unless something changes unexpectedly, we’ll be roommates next year. Let’s discuss how we can make this work.”
Dealing with roommates and roommate conflict is part of growing up. The reality is they only need to be in the same room to sleep. Their waking hours can be spent hanging out with the other roommates and classmates.
Three options that come to mind include switching rooms within the apartment, one or the other of the two finding a different place to live (and possibly helping identify a better roommate for the one staying), and converting part of the living room into a sleeping space. I’d hand those suggestions off to my kid, and then walk away and let the housemates sort everything out.
My daughter had so many bad roommates and suitemates in college that she will not live with anybody. She loves her very small and expensive studio apartment. I think she is the only one of her friends who has graduated college who lives alone.
My niece always loved her roommates. Most of the time it was her BFF from high school. However, upon graduation and moving to a new city (where ironically her roommate lived to go to law school) she wanted to live alone. She lives in a tiny (and that’s being generous) studio apt. in DC which is ridiculously expensive, so she walks to work, doesn’t have a car so takes the metro or uber, and watches her budget. And LOVES living alone.
What are her financial options, OP? Could she afford the room just for herself? Could the roommate if your D finds another place? I know you said she doesn’t want to give up the house. I think it is best if one of the other roommates would switch, but agree with a post above that they should just admit to each other that it won’t work and figure it out.
I wish a private bedroom could be an option but financially that’s just a no-go, at least for the time being. I don’t think switching rooms is an option at this point either. The other girls have already chosen their room mates and (so far, at least) seem to be OK with their choices. Of course, that could always change.
I do tend to agree that this is something the girls should probably hash out for themselves, that it’s part of growing up, etc. What complicates things somewhat is that they’re all analytical, critical-thinking STEM students who are always under academic stress and possibly lacking certain social interaction skills. Maybe this is a good chance for them to be exercised, for better or for worse.
Does your D have access to the schools mediation people? Possibly the housing group that one would use if they were in the dorms? If she could set up a meeting with the roommate and one of the campus mediators (if you have one) and try to work our their differences through them?
How close is the apartment building to the campus?
I ask because one of the time-honored ways for roommates who don’t get along to survive is for one of them to live life mostly elsewhere – and on a college campus, there are plenty of places to do this – libraries, dorm study rooms, student centers, even classroom buildings. You really don’t ever need to be in your room except to sleep. You just take your laptop and a few books and go elsewhere.
Some off-campus apartments are as close to the main university buildings as the dorms are – maybe even closer.
Another thing to think about is whether the apartment building itself has any facilities like study rooms or lounges – some of them do, particularly if they rent primarily to students. This could provide another way for one of the roommates to spend time elsewhere.
And then finally, there’s the living room. It depends on the habits of the other four, but if they don’t use the living room for noisy activities such as TV and video games, one of the two roommates who don’t get along could spend time there instead of in the shared bedroom.
I once had a roommate for a semester who was extremely hostile because when her roommate didn’t return she expected to have a single but instead ended up with me, a stranger. We ended up ignoring each other and it worked fine even though I knew she had an irrational antipathy toward me. That may be harder to do with a former friend, but if the two girls can agree to put their emotional baggage to the side and pledge to act like adults they may find the situation to be quite workable. I assume the apartment has a common room of some sort? If so the girls won’t be forced to spend every moment in the room together. Key in all of this is for the girls not to each try to claim the other friends for themselves. If they talk it through they can call a truce. The hard part may be not letting that initial conversation go off the rails. I recommend non-judgmental language like “It’s clear we’re not getting along. Let’s try to figure out how to make our rooming situation as positive as possible” instead of “It’s clear we don’t like each other.”
At least this is an apartment where there is a common area that the girls can all hang out in. She won’t be stuck alone in her bedroom with the girl the way she would be in a dorm situation. If your daughter really wants this apartment it’s going to be up to her to find a way to make this situation work. She can be pleasant and courteous to the other girl while limiting her time around her.
My suggestion would for them to talk it out and also look to see if any of their friends outside the apartment would like to switch. Then be a listening ear and let them deal with it. I don’t think my daughters roommates are even around all that much. Both have boyfriends and one of them is so actively involved in everything I think she’s only there to sleep.