<p>Part of the roommate experience is learning to handle sharing, discussion, and compromise. Your daughter should apologize that her friends sat on her bed, but explain that she would really like to be able to have guests over. She should offer to buy a rug or some folding chairs for her guests and to text or call the roommate whenever someone is coming over as a warning (not for permission). She can promise that she will be in the room whenever her guests are and that her guests will not touch her roommate’s side. Then ask if the roommate has any additional concerns. If that doesn’t work, say, “Hmm… I still really want to be able to have my friends over sometimes. Would you mind if we got [CA’s name] for her input?”</p>
<p>There’s a reason a lot of Universities are now requiring a “Roommate Agreement” be discussed, signed, and witnessed by the RA or House Proctor in the first week on college. Things like the visitors, overnight guests, personal property, etc. are required to be discussed and if necessary mediated by the RA or higher ups. If no agreement/compromise - there is a roomswap program that can happen after the 1st 2 weeks - even though inconvenient for the students anf families.</p>
<p>The majority of these issues are succesfully mediated without resorting to a room swap, but sometimes is necessary.</p>
<p>The Roommate Agreement is a great idea to “force” roommates to talk about these issues early on and start the mediation process - since they are adults and need to learn this skill of compromise.</p>
<p>CJ</p>
<p>My daughter sent me an e-mail this morning. Her roommate occasionally has friends come over to visit when my daughter isn’t there. Just last night, my daughter returned to her room in the evening and one of her roommate’s friends was sitting on my daughter’s bed. She got off the bed when my daughter came into the room. My daughter could care less if she was sitting on her bed. It wasn’t a big deal to her. The other friend was sitting on her roommate’s bed. My daughter thought that was a bit strange since her roommate made it clear she didn’t want anyone sitting on her bed.</p>
<p>Even though my daughter thinks this whole issue has to do with a germ phobia, I’m not sure. Why would her roommate be okay with one of HER friends sitting on her bed? She doesn’t seem to be too upset that HER friends are contaminating their room. I would like to point out that the roommate’s friends are girls. Sometimes my daughter has one or two male friends visit. I’m beginning to think that maybe the roommate has a problem with GUYS sitting on her bed and being in the room when she isn’t there.</p>
<p>Also, my daughter told me that last weekend her roommate spent the weekend with a friend who goes to a nearby college and stayed in her friend’s dorm room over the weekend.</p>
<p>Now I am getting more concerned about this as it seems to be a double standard. My daughter is not allowed to have visitors sit on her roommate’s bed. She is also not allowed to have visitors when her roommate is not there. However, it’s okay if her roommate does these same things.</p>
<p>I’m going to let my daughter work this out herself. I’m not going to intervene. I’m just trying to get some opinions and feedback.</p>
<p>CJ – My daughter and her roommate signed a roommate agreement the first week of school. Her roommate did not bring up either of these issues (sitting on bed or having visitors when she isn’t there) at that time. Do they now need to sign an “amended” roommate agreement?</p>
<p>Here’s a suggestion for what your daughter should now say, “Oh, I’m so glad that it’s now OK with you to have our guests sit on each other’s beds! By the way, I’ll be having some visitors over while you’re away this weekend–I assume you’re OK with that now, too, right?”</p>
<p>^^ I agree, this is a 2 way street. While I agree you should let you daughter take some ownership to resolve, it also depends on how assertive she is as a person. You should let her know it is NOT OK for her roommate to make all of the rules and live by a double standard where these rules only apply to your daughter. They are peers sharing a dorm room…she shouldn’t be expected to be the maid for her roommate who seems to have control issues in addition to the germ thing. Your daughter might need some support to standing up to her roommate who seems to have unreasonable expectations on how things should work.</p>
<p>You daughter has a right to have friends visit any time she wants, except during the times when people normally sleep. I do not think it is unreasonable for someone to ask that their bed be off limits. It isn’t a piece of furniture, and it is rude to sit on someone’s bed unless they have made it clear that they want you to sit there. Sure, a lot of people are laid back about it, but you can’t make that assumption. Bring in chairs or get folding ones. If there isn’t enough room for that, entertain elsewhere. Get some crime scene tape or something to make sure visitors know the bed/shrine area is off limits. OK, don’t really do that.</p>
<p>Way back when I was in school, I came back after my only weekend at home the whole semester and my comforter on top of my bed was covered with potato chip crumbs and some sort of spilled drink. I had never cared if anyone sat on my bed and really liked my room mate. I don’t think she realized someone had even made a mess on my bed but they did. Also, I had a basket of laundry sitting on my bed and a boy had taken a pair of my underwear out and they were playing catch with it-- not cool.</p>
<p>Because we were good friends, we worked it out. Nobody sat on my or her bed unless we were there, especially if they were eating. And we policed each other’s stuff if other friends wondered in with people we didn’t really know. And all partying took place outside the room unless we were both there. But all that might be hard if you’re not really good friends with your roommate. Our neighbor’s roommate used to have guys stat over, if you know what I mean, with the other roommate there. That room mate experience ended really badly!</p>
<p>^^^^^^^
Please excuse my typo’s!</p>
<p>Not surprised at all by the double-standards.</p>
<p>Consider that most freshmen are for the first time in their lives, living away from parents. It’s often the first time that they’re expected to behave like an adult. Yet, adulthood doesn’t just magically happen – it’s actually a gradual process of growth, and college is supposed to be a part of that.</p>
<p>As such, I don’t think the situation has anything more to it than the fact that it’s just a roommate with an irrational, unreasonable demand who has yet to learn that this is the case.</p>
<p>I suggest making suggestions to work it out and for both sides to make reasonable accommodations to each other. Sometimes, the results may be surprisingly simple.</p>
<p>How I see the situation is that as long as both sides are reasonable and happy, that’s all that really matters. It’s a problem, though, when one side gets the short end of the stick and is unhappy because of that, as with this case.</p>
<p>tell her to chill out. it is one thing if it is everyday, but come on. esp if she s not there. now if the roommates stuff is being stolen that’s one thing. they both have to live there. now it would be nice if she asked in advance, but still</p>
<p>What a great learning experience for your daughter. I really mean it. She ain’t in Kansas (home) anymore. </p>
<p>Our kids are going to be confronted with unreasonable requests from co-workers, bosses, neighbors, etc. the rest of their lives. Suffering silently isn’t go to serve her own interests this time or in the future.</p>
<p>I encourage a thoughtful discussion with her own demands about what is important. </p>
<p>BTW, its obvious these two are not a good match as roommates, so a switch for next semester would be in both their interests.</p>
<p>My D’s first year roommate had the bed phobia issue. They had lofted their bed and the roomie was also scared of heights so D had the top. However, because of the loft bed, there was plenty of room to sit on the floor.</p>
<p>The roommate was a nice girl but she had some friends D didn’t like. Once she came in and found them playing with some of her things. The next morning, she was almost late to class because she couldn’t find her hairbrush. One of the friends had put it in the freezer of the room’s fridge. At that point, she complained to the roomie and she agreed to visit those girls in their room. Since D didn’t like them, they didn’t come by when D was home.</p>
<p>D solved the problem after that by becoming an RA and getting a private room.</p>
<p>Her school also requires that overnight guests be agreed to by the roommate. It was nice when I sent my 16 year old son to visit D that she had her own room that he could share.</p>
<p>Ridiculous, really? </p>
<p>With all the thefts that take place on college campuses? I doubt that the roomate is being unreasonable, I’m sure that there is a reason for the roomate to make this request, even beside the possibility of stuff being taken out her dorm by random people that she does not know. Maybe your daughter is engaging in other stuff…(i.e. multiple random hookups in the dorm). Sorry but certain…girls really cut lose in college…maybe it’s too much for your daughter’s roomate, as it would be for a lot of people. That stuff may seem like fun and games or “exploring” in college, but sometimes it may end up in a dangerous situation or quite frankly, the way you seem to be sheltered, a drunk girl –> assault accusal of athlete.</p>
<p>^How did you make the jump from the daughter’s friends–who are said to be girls–simply hanging out to irresponsible promiscuity? I suppose there are also photos on Facebook of OP’s daughter doing coke off a guy’s shaft?</p>
<p>The roomate may be a germophobe or not, or she could be someone who is good at manipulation. If the roomate is really a germphobe, she wouldn’t allow friends to sit on her bed like that (think about the character of “Monk” on the tv show allowing someone to sit on his bed…). From my perspective, the roommate is playing both ends, she got the D to do the toilet cleaning (which few people like) by telling her she is germphobic and re-inforces that by telling the roommate no people over…then promptly has friends over, sitting on both her and D’s bed…</p>
<p>It isn’t behavior I haven’t seen, when I was in college back in the dark ages when big hair ruled among girls and leisure suits and disco had recently gone to their timely deaths, I was on a dorm mediation group (RA’s handled most such things, but also gave kids a peer mediation way out of things), I saw things similar to this. In some cases, the roommate had a genuine reason for requests not to have someone over, specifically bad behavior by the other person, in other cases it usually seemed like you had someone who for the first time in their lives actually felt in control of something (one thing that makes me think this is true: Roomate goes home every weekend, which usually indicates a dominating family IME), so probably for the first time there isn’t mom and dad and potentially older siblings, etc bossing her around. In more then a few cases I saw like this the roommate came from an ethnic/cultural background where ‘family’ dominates (and before anyone give me grief on this one, I came from a similar background). It could also be the roommate is a control freak who feels perfectly fine with her friends being there but not the other way around…or some combination of both (the weekend absences to go home tells me it is way more likely to be the former, not the latter)</p>
<p>In this case, I think the D has every right to call the roommate on her behavior, though it doesn’t have to be confrontational. I agree the D should do this, she should point out to the roomate that it is unfair for her to expect D to not have anyone over, etc while having her own friends over, and that while D is sorry if having someone sit on the RM’s bed bothered her, it also is kind of ridiculous to make such a demand and then let others use D’s bed and so forth… I kind of like what Hunt said, bring it up like “Oh, I am glad you had friends come over, that’s cool, but then I assume that means I can have friends over, too”. If the roommate says no, then D should observe that that is unfair, that roommate can’t expect to have the rule work one way for herself and another for D</p>
<p>Again,I agree totally with others, D should handle this, and if it gets into a ****ing match, then they should talk to the RA. If the roommate is insistent on the rules she unilaterally made, then D has every right to insist it goes both ways, the roommate should be called on this because otherwise D is going to find it escalating if my experience holds. If no visitors without the roommate present is a boundary, then it has to apply both ways, otherwise it is roommate laying down the law and believe me, you don’t want that.</p>
<p>OP’s daughter says that she was hesitant to say anything about unreasonable demands, because “they get along well” and “things are going smoothly so far.”</p>
<p>I suspect that was because OP’s daughter was bending her life around Miss Neurotic Control Issue’s manipulative ways. “I don’t do toilets”? Hey, doll…sorry. If you use 'em, you clean 'em. Otherwise, get a maid and pay her to do YOUR job.</p>
<p>Welcome to real life, sweetheart! :-)</p>
<p>I’m surprised at some of the comments here. I think it’s pretty clear.</p>
<p>Dorm rooms are small. Each person is paying rent for personal space (bed, desk, etc) and 1/2 usage of the remaining common space. </p>
<p>A bed is part of each roommate’s personal space. A roommate may require that the other roommate not use her bed (or any other part of her personal space) for any purpose. </p>
<p>It is completely irrelevant if the roommate is a germophobe, immature, or lets her friends use her bed. It is her personal space to use as she wishes. It is not part of the common space.</p>
<p>Of course a roommate can have friends over (at reasonable hours) without the other roommate there. As long as they respect the other roommate’s personal space.</p>
<p>And this may be unpopular in this thread, but if a roommate’s friends use the other roommate’s personal space after the other roommate specifically asks them not to, the other roommate is perfectly reasonable in requesting that friends not visit without her there. </p>
<p>Then it is the OP’s D’s responsibility to ensure that either the roommate’s bed is not used, or she does not have friends visit when the roommate is not around.</p>
<p>Of course, it is completely reasonable for the OP’s D to ask the roommate if putting a sheet down on the roommate’s bed before friends use it is ok, and to ask the roommate if a friend can stay the night. And it is possible that the roommate will say “yes” to both. But if she says “no”, then it is up to the OP’s D to respect those wishes.</p>
<p>^^^ Perhaps you missed the post by this girl’s mom which indicated:</p>
<p>…“…She is also not allowed to have visitors when her roommate is not there. However, it’s okay if her roommate does these same things.”</p>
<p>Many of picked up on that to say that the overly controlling roommate seems to want to live by a double standard which is not acceptable. If she says the other girl can’t have visitors when she is not there (which is frankly none of her business)…BUT she can…that is wrong.</p>
<p>I agree, if she is being an unreasonable roommate then that is a problem that has to be escalated to an RA or an assignment change.</p>
<p>It’s also possible that the two roommates are both learning how to live with other people in a ridiculously cramped space and start stepping on each other’s toes. It’s not easy for anyone let a lone a teenager to make that adjustment and sometimes people overreact. In that case, communication will go a long way.</p>