Is it too late to be a good roommate?

College Life
1

<p>I live in a 4-person suite that has a living room and two bedrooms. One of my roommates rarely ever stays in the room, another is always doing stuff with her sorority, and the third one never really “clicked” with me. Sorority girl and the third roommate are practically best friends, but I always feel like the awkward extra wheel when I try to talk to them and they quietly reply without looking in my direction. We do talk sometimes, but the four of us as a group never really discussed a schedule for cleaning the common areas of our room.</p>

<p>I have a really busy schedule with my classes, so all I’ve really been doing, cleaning-wise, is taking out the trash and doing the dishes when the sink gets full. I didn’t think my roommates were doing much either - the place is normally messy on a typical day, and they throw their clothes around everywhere, but apparently they were cleaning and I wasn’t. </p>

<p>Last night one of my roommates confronted me about it, saying that even though she leaves her clothes in random places, at least she cleans the bathroom and sweeps the floor sometimes (I haven’t done either.) She said it would be nice if I actually started cleaning around the room sometimes. She didn’t yell at me, but her tone was all sarcastic and I could tell she was actually upset about it. I said sure, and then I swept the floor and did the dishes and vacuumed our huge rug. But I feel even more awkward than usual talking to her now, and I wish I could just ignore all of them without looking like even more of a *****. </p>

<p>I think I’ve just generally been a bad roommate. Mostly because I didn’t clean, but I also spend too long in the bathroom and use too much toilet paper and other things like that. Little things that add up and probably annoy the hell out of my roommates, but they’ve been too nice to ever mention them.</p>

<p>Do you guys think it’s too late to be a good roommate? I doubt I’ll ever make friends with any of them, but I want to at least be respected by them and avoid any trouble.</p>

2

<p>Sounds like they’ve already decided they don’t like you - and had long before they noticed you weren’t helping out much. But it couldn’t hurt to start.</p>

3

<p>Its all a good learning experience about what you will do differently. I would buy a 24 roll of toilet paper to start!</p>

4

<p>My daughter is in a room with 6 girls. They have a weekly chore list where they rotate the cleaning jobs (things like vacuum, clean bath, run dishwasher). This way it is fair and nobody is stuck with the same job.</p>

5

<p>She should have said something earlier before getting so mad. It’s not too late, just start cleaning a little more and being more mindful of how you can be a good roommate. I would honestly just keep up with my chores a little better and then try not to spend too much time around them so there isn’t room for more conflicts.</p>