<p>I feel that if the OP’s daughter is “afraid”, all this about “what is normal” is moot.</p>
<p>Yeah, maybe if she is hypersensitive, that’s another issue to address, but NOT now. We are conversing with the parent, not the girl with roommate issues. </p>
<p>If your bed is made, people aren’t sitting on your sheets, so it’s not the same thing at all as someone sleeping in your bed IMO. I recall that most people in college at least tossed their comforter over the bed so that the bed was covered. I wouldn’t want to sit on my OWN bed in the middle of the day without doing that. My street clothes aren’t really any more sanitary than anyone else’s 
Not that I’m one to worry that much about germs.</p>
<p>Frankly, my freshman room was so small that if a couple of people were sitting on the floor, there wouldn’t have been space to walk across the room. My room didn’t tend to be a hangout spot, because it was much smaller than average. </p>
<p>I recall people having roommate disagreements about food, noise level, neatness level. I don’t recall anyone really complaining about someone sitting on their bed. It may have happened but IME it wasn’t common.</p>
<p>When you live in close quarters with someone everyone has to give little. That is something today’s kids with their own bedrooms and sometimes their own bathrooms don’t learn before they head for college. If they can’t emotionally do that, can’t get or can’t afford a single the problems begin. Sitting on a bed is a different issue than being sexiled. Everyone has the right to sleep in the bed they are paying for.</p>
<p>Of course people sat on beds. There was hardly any place else to sit. That’s why you put a bedspread on them.</p>
<p>Yes</p>
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<p>This is why so many kids “loft” their beds in their rooms now–so they can accommodate a futon or other compact seating for hanging out. There are kits at Home Depot and even services that will do it for you.</p>
<p>Speaking of germs, my pet peeve is shoes in the house. It grosses me out completely. Right now I am trying to sell my house and my agent said people don’t like taking off their shoes or wearing those awful “booties,” so when showings happen people are tromping through with every imaginable thing on the bottom of their feet. Fortunately, we have all tile and wood floors (no carpeting) so they are easy to clean.</p>
<p>No lofting in my room–it was a quad with 2 sets of bunks. Rumor was that it was the smallest quad on campus. I’m not sure if that’s true but it was smaller than the other ones I came across for sure. I looked on my school’s housing page and it looks like it is a triple now. Those lucky kids :)</p>
<p>My son didn’t loft his fully but he did raise his bed enough to fit the dresser under it, which gives him more space. For seating he got one of those bungee chairs which is nice because it folds up flat so it doesn’t take up space when not in use. So he has that, and his desk chair and I guess the bed (trust me, I doubt he cares if people sit on his bed–he is not finicky about that sort of thing). I suppose he’s managing.</p>
<p>If people are that picky about “bed sitting” and “dirty clothes” then have a bed throw on top that can be removed after sitting. </p>
<p>gee…“dirty clothes”??? lol</p>
<p>Dirty clothes as in the roommate is “entertaining gentlemen callers”, yuck.</p>
<p>I highly doubt that was what mom2 was referring to. </p>
<p>“people are that picky about “bed sitting” and “dirty clothes” then have a bed throw on top that can be removed after sitting”</p>
<p>My H gets mad (well not really mad, but annoyed) if I put a suitcase on top of our (made) bed. He feels they are dirty things. Doesn’t bother me at all, but I’m not a big germaphobic type. He also hates shoes in the house (like Sally) and it doesn’t bother me. </p>
<p>Those are the types of things people learn to “live with” when living with someone else. S1 inherited his slobbiness from H. There are times I would trade that for someone who is alittle dirt adverse. I do wonder if the OP “flew out or over or up or down” but I suppose we’ll never hear. </p>
<p>Hmmm . . . do the folks who’ve posted here about not wanting others’ “dirty butts” spreading germs never, ever sit in public waiting areas? Wouldn’t the same students have to sit in classrooms where other “dirty butts” have previously parked? Isn’t college a time to hone critical reasoning skills and dispel irrational prejudices?</p>
<p>One would think.^^</p>
<p>Really, this is about germs? All those nasty flu germs will be all over the bed whether or not the guest sits on it, because they are airborne. The germs that are not airborne are probably still all over the doorknob, the lamp, anything else a guest may have touched. And roomie’s guests are more germy than other people? Do kids now wipe down the lecture hall seats with antiseptic wipes? The lunch table and chairs? </p>
<p>I just don’t see how someone sitting on a bed presents any risk. Whatever germs might be on their jeans were probably picked up in the same lecture hall the bed owner sits in. I guess the one consolation is that if the bed owner is such a germophobe, the floor must be sterile, so maybe it’s not such a bad place to sit.</p>
<p>The OP seems to have left the building. </p>
<p>Mathyone, in a previous thread you were so high maintenance that you would have trouble with a roommate who simply had an LED clock because that was “too much light” in an otherwise completely darkened room. You’re really not in a position to critique someone who doesn’t want someone sitting on their bed, as that is a far more reasonable request. </p>
<p>I think that the lesson to be drawn is that we all have quirks, and that calmly and pleasantly discussing one’s preferences is the way to go. The assumption that one’s own quirks are immutable natural law and the other person’s are wildly irrational demands is unlikely to have a good outcome.</p>
<p>All I can say is that thank doG I didn’t have a roommate after the first half of freshman year. </p>
<p>I don’t think the sitting on the bed has anything to do with germs, but with control. The bed is the only thing the student has any control over while living at the dorm. Can’t control anything else, the toothpaste in the sink, the heat, the times to eat, what to eat. That bed is all hers. She can make the rules and allow sitting or ban sitting. It is no different than the toddler wanting only the blue cup. There is nothing wrong with the red cup, but toddlers don’t have much power in the world and they can have power over this one little thing. </p>
<p>I have a child whose chore it was to empty the dishwasher. When she didn’t do it,I did it but I’d just throw all the silverware into the drawer because she hated that. She’d complain that I didn’t do it right. I’d tell her to do her job then she’d know it was done right. Power struggle.</p>