Advice on how to deal with suitemate

<p>@vlines I like the stripper angle! Now this thread is getting interesting.</p>

<p>Well, if she is stripping or robbing I think I should have her pay her own tuition from now on!!!</p>

<p>Or pay the upcharge for a single room with private bath.</p>

<p>Real life example: My D who checked the night owl box was paired with someone who turns in early. After classes, sports practice, dinner, studying and a job that often ends at 11 then more HW not in room cause roomie is alseep when she gets “home” and rummages around and goes for a shower before bed. The shower is down the hall, but she still has to turn on her small light to get her things and return things to closet, hamper etc. Some night w/o homework the earliest she could be getting ready to turn is is 11:30 or so. I don’t find 1am at all late in the college world when in HS she was up until 1-2 for homework almost nightly.</p>

<p>I have no doubt there are college kids who don’t fall into bed until 1:00, again that is not the point. The point is if one of the roomies is sleeping is it an act of kindness to refrain from doing things that might wake them up especially if they ask you not to.</p>

<p>What if kiddies daughter asked the suitemate not to go to bed until after she showers? Is that an acceptable.compromise?</p>

<p>But if a kid likes to sleep until 11:00am is it fair to ask the roomie not to move around and make any noise until they’re up? Does she get to ask the bathroom share girl not to shower on Saturday mornings?</p>

<p>I went back to read the OP and the shower is on the OP’s daughter’s side, so no shared wall issue. Does this mean that there are teeth brushing restrictions or flushing restrictions too? How gross would THAT be?! I bet the suitmate could move her bed to the other wall and get earplugs.</p>

<p>Or at least the white noise machine mentioned previously.</p>

<p>I think several people have suggested that on "school nights’ it’s reasonable to keep it quiet from midnight to 7 AM. What happens outside those hours and on weekends really has no bearing. This really doesn’t need to be “over analyzed.” Frankly, I’m shocked that there are people that really seem to not understand that when you live with someone you make some reasonable give and take.</p>

<p>The best thing, of course, would be for OP’s daughter and her suitemate to go out for a cup of coffee and talk this thing out, finding a compromise. This is actually a relatively small annoyance on the spectrum of annnoyances–a ten minute shower at 1 am does not hold a candle to a lot of other inconsiderate behavior, like someone blasting music or a tv nonstop at all hours, or being a total slob in the bathroom, or permanently having the boyfriend over and in the shower all the time, etc. Either or both of them could end up in worse situations.</p>

<p>That being said, I am thinking of my boys’ college experiences. Their dorm floors stayed busy until after midnight most nights, with a lot of students coming back from the library/labs/jobs at 11 or so, and then socializing a bit to decompress before turning in. And all of them played intramural sports, and have had a lot of games scheduled at 11 pm or even 12…a lot of games are scheduled late so that more students can participate instead of having conflicts.</p>

<p>And my sons always seemed to have at least one 8 am class every semester. They lived.</p>

<p>This whole situation brings me back to when my oldest son was a baby, and we lived in a condominium above a woman who worked as a nurse on the night shift. She slept from roughly 9 am til 5 pm. Any noise at all during the day upset her, from whatever source.
Unfortunately, she had the unit next to the laundry room for the floor, and across from the elevator. She had meltdowns whenever people on her floor did their laundry during the day, or when people on my floor above her did their laundry during the day, because she claimed she could hear the noise from the machines. She had meltdowns when people moved in or out or had furniture deliveries.</p>

<p>And she really had meltdowns if she heard any noise from our unit. She did not even like us to walk in our unit (even though we did not wear shoes inside). She did not like if we showered or gave the baby a needed bath during the day. She did not like if the baby pushed his truck across the floor or knocked over his blocks, or if we watched TV. And on those days when the baby just wailed…</p>

<p>We tried to be as quiet as possible, but…we needed to also live as a normal family!</p>

<p>Her proposed solution was that we should vacate the unit daily from 9-5.</p>

<p>Whenever she was home during the evenings, she would pound on her ceiling with a broomstick hoping to wake us up. She would also sometimes run up and down the halls on our floor and her own, banging on the door and walls.</p>

<p>I am thinking that in this situation, the OP’s daughter can find some room to compromise, and that the suitemate also needs to learn to live within an environment that is not always optimal for her.</p>

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Is that why my W yells at me for leaving my shoes in the wrong place, or not cleaning off the counter, or to turn up the volume on those dancing/singing contest shows that I’d just as soon leave on mute, or…?</p>

<p>(She doesn’t really yell at me, but she does have something to say about it)</p>

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<p>Is it possible that the pipes run along the other side or something?</p>

<p>I am very much an early bird and when I was a student at Northeastern I was doing a sport that required me to wake up before 5 am, so that will color my opinion.</p>

<p>I graduated from Northeastern two years ago. I did have an activity with weird hours (aforementioned sport), but I have never heard of clubs or activities running until midnight. I also never had any times that would have gotten us done after 9 pm even suggested as a possibility when I was doing work with a group and we needed to coordinate times to meet. That pretty much always happened during the day. People would hang out with their friends and significant others late at night, and they would go to parties and drink (yes, on school nights as well) but I really don’t remember school activities happening that late. And I was on a team of about fifty people who would have complained loudly if there was any expectation of their being out that late at an activity because they wouldn’t have been able to do it. I’m not saying OP’s daughter is lying at all, but I suspect there may be some schedule flexibility. The library is open until midnight on school nights, so she definitely could be staying there to study late. It’s only open 24 hours during finals week. There are events and concerts and such on campus that are late. The reason I’m saying this is not to question her honesty, but if she has any flexibility at all, can she shower earlier in the evening? People wear pajamas to go to the library. If she’s out studying, there might be an easy way to work her evening around to not need to shower at 1 am.</p>

<p>Northeastern is also a bit of a weird school age-wise because about a third of its students at any given time are living more of a young professional lifestyle than a college lifestyle. Freshman dorms are different because they’re freshman, but after that year, I think dorms develop much more of an adult vibe than many colleges. All upper-class dorms are apartment style, and many students are buying groceries, cooking for themselves, working every day from 9-5 in a suit, etc. There’s also the fact that a lot of students are there for five years, so the student demographic does end up skewing a little bit older. The typical college student schedule people have referenced here doesn’t hold for more than 1.5-2 years for most Northeastern students, because once they start coop, they need to be awake, alert, and present bright and early every day.</p>

<p>I think basic consideration is important for everyone. If roommate can find a way to deal, that would be great, but I’d be really grumpy if I was getting woken up every day at 1 am. Is there really a reason she can’t shower in the morning? It seems like such a relatively painless solution.</p>

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<p>If there is a reason she can’t it’s not being shared. The OP believes it is her D’s “right” to shower whenever she wants. But as GladDadGrad states it’s not just about “rights.” </p>

<p>I had to learn how to screw the tops on things tighter. After countless times of being shrieked at by my H as jars crashed to the floor, I have ‘learned’ how to screw the tops on jars, toothpaste tubes and anything with a lid…tight. Personally I think he should have learned how to grab jars from the bottom and not grab by the lid but heck…that’s what compromise and living with another person is about.</p>

<p>I do not use a blow dryer on my hair. It makes my hair a mess. I shower in the evenings or when I know I a, not going out for a few hours so my hair can dry naturally.
This is a real issue. Some people hate going tp bed with the worlds dirt on them. My d has a roommate who won’t allow anyone to sit on her bed in street clothes as they carry dirt in from benches, etc.</p>

<p>The roommate is being a brat. A slamming door from a down the hall, newspaper deliveries, trucks, buses, these are all part of living with others.</p>

<p>Gottagoworkout, no one is denying the OP’s daughter the right to take a shower but a person cannot be so rigid to not be willing to take the shower earlier than 1 am. If they are so rigid, they should not be living in a dorm either. </p>

<p>I suspect your D’s roommate has other issues besides not wanting people to sit on her bed with that concern. It’s the bacteria and viruses on people’s hands, that touch the same door nobs and shake our hands a person should be worried about.</p>

<p>Most dorms have specific quiet hours, usually after 10:00 PM on weeknights and midnight on weekends. I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect roommates to honor those…</p>

<p>Northeastern’s Residential Life Handbook:</p>

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<p>Is taking a shower really a violation of the quiet hours rules? Then no one could take a shower during final exams. I don’t even want to think about not flushing a toilet for a 7 day exam period…</p>

<p>As many posters have noted, ideally this should be resolved by discussion and compromise by both parties. In my college experience and that of my 3 kids a single bedroom with a bath shared with only 1 other person is an unheard of luxury.</p>

<p>If this is really the only issue between the suitemates I think they are both lucky. They both risk getting worse suitemates should they split up for next semester.</p>

<p>OP here with a couple of things. </p>

<p>My daughter has these nice living arrangements because she earned them by getting into the honors program and I also pay more for this kind of room than I would for another freshman dorm room.</p>

<p>I think part of the problem is that suite living like this, unlike a double, triple, or quad with roommates or a real suite where several bedrooms share a common living area, kitchen, and bath, is an odd way to share with somebody. You only share the bath area where you lock yourself in for privacy after you enter. Therefore, the area you share is never occupied by the two suite mates at the same time. These students can co-habit without any real contact. I don’t think my daughter ever enters her suite mate’s actual room and visa-verse. </p>

<p>The reason I said she had a right to shower whenever she wanted is that I believe that showering is not a violation of quiet hours (as dadx3 and others have said). I would not deny her suite mate the right to shower whenever she wanted either - even if it was early in the morning.</p>

<p>These girls are never going to be friends and if the suite mate wants out then my daughter will not fight it.</p>

<p>Your daughter really has no say if the suitemate wants to move out or not. Like other’s have said, what if the next roommate is worse? I think your DD is being very selfish. She has MANY other options while the suitemate has 2, to sleep or not to sleep. I think you are both being ridicules in trying to make the suitemate out to be the bad person in this situation. What YOU believe doesn’t really matter in this situation. This is really between your D and the SM. The SM asked your D not to shower at 1 AM, the proper response would have been “oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t know it was disturbing you. I will shower when I get up in the morning” and the situation would have been over.</p>