<p>So I've recently signed a lease to live in an off campus single family home with SIX other people. That's right. 7 kids (basically) cramped into a little old house not in the greatest repair, charged with coming up with rent and utilities, keeping the place clean (everything from dishes to the gardening!), and not killing each other for the next year.</p>
<p>I come to this board for some advice. Having only been responsible for getting along with one other person in a dorm room, we are all on edge. Already people are griping behind one another's back about who will never do dishes, who will run the utility bill up, how ugly the house is, etc.</p>
<p>I, for one, am sick of the negativity. If this is what the next year is going to be like, I'm going to go crazy! </p>
<p>How can we all live together in peace?</p>
<p>My parents - maybe rightly so - think this is a disaster waiting to happen, and don't want to hear about it or offer their advice. But right now some wisdom is what I could use...especially considering now there's no way out.</p>
<p>UM- you are in a business relationship with these people. The mistake most kids make is to assume that because you’re all college kids it’s all going to work out just great. Hey, it’s a business. Would you take a job not knowing what your salary was? What time to show up for work? Who to go to when you had a problem with your computer?</p>
<p>So decide for now to run the operation like a business- spell out who is the point person who will represent you all with the landlord. Who is in charge of utilities, garbage, internet, locksmith. Who draws up the kitchen schedule (does the last person to eat wipe down the counter or does everyone clean up after themselves?) When the rent is due to the “treasurer” or financial manager. How many days grace period you will give one of your housemates if they’re slow paying for their share of the utilities (72 hours is reasonable; more than that and you’ll all be sitting in the dark eventually).</p>
<p>ETc. You get my point. The griping isn’t productive. Setting up the ground rules and assigning each person some chunk of responsibility to oversee will help you all get along, even if it sounds very corporate or authoritarian right now.</p>
<p>Think about it- when’s the last time you had to worry there was no toilet paper at home? Probably never. Know why? "cause your mom and dad took care of it. Well, Mommy doesn’t live here anymore.</p>
<p>This will be a very educational experience. Blossom has good ideas. Some might even work. No matter what there will be some drama and somebody will probably move out on you or worse–have a non-paying friend become a longterm guest. It might also be the time of your life.</p>
<p>We’ve figured that we need to have a “roommate contract” laying down the laws of the land - from utilities to cleaning up to toilet paper. Taking the time to write this up and draw out a chore schedule (cleaning, taking out trash, etc.) will be a group effort. </p>
<p>The problem is, it’s just not enforcable. We’ll figure stuff out to write on paper, but that’s not to say stuff is going to go how we would like it to. </p>
<p>In a business, if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you get fired. For starters, we can’t fire anyone on the lease, and secondly, we wouldn’t want to - otherwise we wouldn’t be able to afford the house! This is not like a business at all…there is no supervisor who can say, get your ass in shape…or no paycheck.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t think anyone going into this is expecting it to work out perfectly. Quite the opposite, actually! But I’m sick of people complaining without taking any action.</p>
<p>It’s a good idea to have a weekly meeting to go over issues; even better if you make it a communal meal. Regular and positive communication will keep things humming… (use “I” messages if you have issues; be specific about what you want to change or happen; work together to make plans for change if things aren’t working out… )</p>
<p>Agree with Blossom. Make up not just a chore list but put each person in charge of one area. If all else fails I have another idea: my sibling lives in a college town. She works for a landlord. Goes into a similar house every two weeks. Cleans, makes sure the trash has gone out, makes sure the tenants don’t leave the tank with no heating oil, etc. She spends a bit of time with whichever tenants are there answering any questions they have, helping them with who to call for oil, etc.<br>
If you feel there are going to be problems with cleaning or other areas discuss as a group whether you want to pitch in and pay someone else to handle that area.</p>
<p>PS with a group a little peer pressure goes a long way. If one person isn’t carrying their weight all of you need to say so to that person’s face.</p>
<p>Um, the point is not to draw up an unenforcable agreement. The point is that if the person responsible for toilet paper doesn’t re-stock the toilet paper, the person in charge of paying the cable bill won’t pay the cable bill and then voila- no internet. Or if the person whose week it is to mop the kitchen floor doesn’t do it, the person who was supposed to call the landlord to tell him/her about the roaches in the bathroom won’t call the landlord (although the dirty floor and the roaches are probably not unrelated).</p>
<p>So work out a plan which is highly interconnected- thereby making lots of incentives for people to stay on track with their own responsibilities. i.e. a business arrangement. If you have a colleague at work who routinely shows up late for meetings, pretty soon that person finds that by the time he gets there, the meeting is over. So he has to waste the next hour running around finding out what he missed… and people point out that if he weren’t so casual about wasting their time, they’d be more respectful of his.</p>
<p>Lesson learned. Nobody gets fired; it’s just the way people operate.</p>
<p>I lived in such situations for three years after college, in five different houses (well, one was an apartment with only two people, so it doesn’t really count). My wife would add two other group houses to that experience. Of the six group houses we lived in, only one had any significant amount of drama, and even that one was a lot of fun. We didn’t have roommate contracts or anything. We did have clear rules about who did what when and who was the boss of what, and for the most part everyone followed them voluntarily with forgiveable slip-ups that did not permanently damage any relationships.</p>
<p>Being reasonably tolerant of other peoples’ personalities and foibles is a good place to start. One way or another, everyone has to accommodate a little to everyone else. It helps if no one is allowed to be a bully or a manipulator. People DO have to be super-responsible about financial obligations. Dirty dishes are annoying, but it’s not that hard to clean them if they bother you. Covering someone else’s rent or utilities, even for a few days, will seriously endanger everyone’s financial health and personal relationships.</p>
<p>Well, I guess I have more stories from the dark side. And as a landlord later on. Or I just ran with a wilder crowd which is quite possible. And we are talking undergrads here–not more mature college grads who have had that experience already.</p>
<p>We had a very smoothly running group house at Caltech. (In fact 30 years later “Prufrock House” still has an eating group and new traditions. Caltech owned the house, and I believe the four grad students signed leases with Caltech, but there were always quite a few girlfriends and larger eating group.</p>
<p>Caltech–yes that’s a regular Animal House school, please. We are talking UMCP here. It has virtually nothing in common with Caltech nor do most of its students. It’s a pretty rowdy school with a general working knowledge of drinking and debauchery.</p>
<p>Wow barrons. It’s pretty clear you’ve have made up your mind about just everything! I wish I had all the answers pre-planed like you. It must save a lot of time not having to do that really pesky thinking thingy I suppose. </p>
<p>So no sense posting again about anything. There is no need to. We all know what you’d say about anything.</p>
<p>Barrons…why would you type that to a UMD student? Hopefully you’re just joking.</p>
<p>I think even CalTech students would take offense to that statement. I’m pretty sure 99% of the students there have a “working knowledge” of drinking and debauchery (actually, I’m positive, since I have a couple friends that go there). What world do you live in? ;).</p>
<p>Also, the vast majority of students at UMD have something in common with the vast majority of students at CalTech. People are people. And in fact, in my group house, 2 were accepted to Ivy League schools, 3 (including myself) to top 15 privates, and 1 on a scholarship to NYU. So, I don’t think we - or the hundreds (maybe even thousands, but I can only know of so many people) of other students at MD in our shoes - are much different than anyone at the real CalTech. Though I’m not sure how much we have in common with people at the imaginary one you speak of :).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the lease was not given to us by the university, alas, so it is a very different situation for that reason. Ours will require a much higher level of personal responsibility and problem solving, considering the nature of the living arrangements (condition of the home, landlord, etc.).</p>
<p>Additionally, though it is interesting to make some chores on the list contigent on others, I do not feel that would be efficient. I think it could get very vindicative, very quickly. And our house could be a mess. Even businesses do not operate like that - if one person does not pull their weight, other people have to take up the slack. They can’t just decide to leave duties unfinished. Otherwise the company would collapse thanks to one or two bad eggs.</p>
<p>Oh for Heavens’ sake, give Barrons a break. He made an excellent very helpful post (#3). In wasn’t the masterpiece that Blossom’s #2 was, but it was still excellent. And you know, he’s right … this will be a very educational experience, no matter how it turns out. Following Blossom’s suggestions are a good start toward making that education a positive one. JMHO of course.</p>
<p>I’m working very hard for my MD degree. And I am a very smart person.</p>
<p>Someone who would insinuate that CalTech students are better than my friends and me (more mature, smarter, etc.) or even the majority of students at Maryland is just misinformed. I feel that that is, unfortunately, a common sentiment among CC posters, though, and among many parents of high achieving kids. It makes the kids who do go to state schools feel bad, especially impressionable prospectives/freshmen who are not informed enough to know the truth.</p>
<p>But again, hopefully he was just joking.</p>
<p>I just think the stereotypes mentioned are important ones to debunk on a college message board.</p>
<p>My husband lived in a house with eight other guys while in grad school. I remember going into the house once and seeing a “work wheel”…which I thought was the funniest thing. But I guess it worked. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my brother lived in a house with six guys in college, and when I went to visit him, you had to balance your garbage on top of the garbage that was already in the pail. I guess the person who put that final piece of garbage on top that wouldn’t stay balanced was the one that had to empty it…lol…</p>
<p>I’m sure whatever happens, you will learn a lot…although I would recommend not making the house a “party central” location as you will be left with the clean up.</p>
<p>^^ Rude? Are you sure? I’ve seen Barrons described as pompous and overbearing … but rude is a new one to me.</p>
<p>But you know he’s still a terrific resource, and in my tiny corner of the world, one doesn’t ask for assistance and then criticize those who offer it.</p>
<p>UMCP ~ My S is in the same situation as you and we are hoping it will work out. I have gotten some good ideas from previous posts on CC, such as everyone putting a set amount in a jar (say $10 each) to use for common items for the house such as cleaners, paper towels, toilet paper, condiments - things that everyone will use. When the initial amount is gone, everyone puts in $10 again.</p>
<p>My S offered to take over the bills that they share like internet, electric, cable. What he is proposing is that each resident pays up front for the amount he estimates it will cost for the year. He will set up a separate checking account with that money and then arrange for online bill paying. When each bill is paid each month, he would email the confirmation of that payment to each resident so they have a record of it. At the end of the lease, they would divide up equally whatever remains in the account. Only problem is a little resistance to putting up the money in advance (being a considerable amount). We will see what happens.</p>
<p>As for meals, my S has opted for one of the campus meal plans because he is assuming that it may be difficult for them to have regular meals with their varied schedules.</p>