Top tips for a happy houseshare
They do say that you don’t quite know your friends until you’ve travelled or lived with them. How true!
From our own experience of having shared houses as students and as adults, here are some of the things we would say are common things that are best discussed and agreed on before you embark on a houseshare:
- Preferences for keeping communal areas e.g. kitchen, bathroom clean – what are your views about keeping kitchen sinks free for others to use, and how soon after you’ve cooked or had a meal? Some people are ok with leaving dirty dishes, pots, pans and cutlery for a few hours. Others can tolerate them being there for a day, a few days…
- Cleaning responsibilities – how often would you clean the WC? Who does this?
- Bin management responsibilities – who’s responsible for taking out the rubbish from the kitchen? Putting bins out for collection? Bringing them in after collection?
- Sharing stuff e.g. cutlery, crockery, pots, pans (especially non-stick pans…) – how are you with sharing your belongings with others? Do you prefer that they ask your permission? What happens if they borrowed but returned your things in a different condition?
- Having guests – how would your housemates feel if there are others visiting the house, at whichever times of day or night? What seems reasonable? What would feel intrusive?
Like any relationship, house-sharing relationships can go through challenging times, particularly when house-sharers have different ideas of what’s reasonable, considerate, acceptable, or not.
If something is not quite working out in your houseshare, get together with your housemates early so you can have a friendly conversation. The longer you leave things, or the more you avoid talking about things that are niggling, frustrations build and resentment will grow, increasing the likelihood of issues being blown out of proportion.
And now… with Covid-19 being something we will have to live with, it’s all the more important that you get talking to your housemates to agree:
- how will you support each other if one of you falls ill or needs to self-isolate?
- how can you as a group work as a household ‘bubble’?
- what are your do’s and don’ts that you agree collectively to abide by, to keep each other safe?
If you need advice, feel free to discuss with your landlord.
