There’s a good blog post on “When Sharing Hits the Fan” written by  Emily Doskow, (author of The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community) in which Emily describes the how managing expectations, anticipating obstacles, and agreeing on how to resolve problems are essential for a good sharing relationship.  While she is talking about sharing in general and not just for housing, it is worth reading. Read the comments also. The pictures are fabulous.

The key to a successful housemate arrangement is a good match.  Expectations must be talked about in the interview. If you have very different expectations, you are going to be unhappy sharing housing.  One common one: the person who thinks the housemate will be a “best friend” while the other expects to be independent. This can happen to friends who choose to live together. Other kinds of expectations are around how meals happen or the type of television that is watched.

Anticipating obstacles can be done by simply asking the question, “What could go wrong?”  This is a nice way of exploring potential disagreements. The question should also lead into an agreement on how you would communicate if an issue arises.

Once you are living together, if you have an issue – communicate.  Look for common ground, put yourself in your housemate’s shoes. Adapt and be flexible. But that doesn’t mean becoming a doormat. You should be willing to find a solution that is agreeable to all parties. Maybe you can use a third person to help mediate an issue – but first try to do it on your own. After all it’s your relationship and your housemate.

A note of warning.  Though this blog is dedicated to the idea that there is a good housemate for every person and that sharing housing is a great idea, there are people who are not good housemates. Those housemates I call “nightmare” housemates, because their behavior can make home far from the haven it should be.  This is why it is so very, very important to interview carefully and check references. It is why it is important to be clear during interviewing about your expectations of sharing a home.

Nightmare housemates are those who is unable to live cooperatively with others. They don’t acknowledge that their behavior affects others and are impervious to requests for changed behavior. There are different ways of being a nightmare housemate.

Assuming/insisting I have more rights than you

It is the householder that most easily falls into this trap.  After all it is their space before you came along. However, once the conditions of your living together have been established in the interviewing phase, changing the conditions “because it is my house” is a great way to alienate a housemate. A more subtle (true) example comes from the interviews I did for my book.  The rental for the apartment came with one parking space.  While the householder had a car, her housemate didn’t.  Though they split the rent evenly, the householder felt that  that the space was “hers” and would demand that the housemate’s boyfriend move his car when she came home after he had parked in it for an evening.

Refusing to modify behavior

To live cooperatively, you have to be willing to make minor adaptations in your behavior.  Whether it is remembering to turn off the porch light or discarding your leftovers before they turn moldy, those requests made by housemates are to be considered. One nightmare housemate, rather than responding simply to requests, she launched into long-winded explanations for why she did what she did, as if the explanation would justify the behavior and she would ignore the request.  Good housemates are able to make minor adjustments for the comfort of their housemate.

Not following through on requests/promises

No one likes to nag.  No one likes to have to repeat requests, and by the way, the receiver doesn’t like it either. Actions speak louder than words. If a housemate has made a request and you have agreed to it, do it.  If there is a chore list that is part of the conditions of living in that household, do your chores.  Pay your bills on time.

Are there other ways in which individuals can be nightmare housemates? Maybe, but I think that this pretty much covers it. In sum, the nightmare housemate is a self-centered person. Avoid them.

Not everyone is self-centered.  You can find a good housemate for you.

As I have interviewed people for my book and talked to others about the whole world of sharing housing, I have noticed a pattern.  People who had lived with housemates successfully, ended the experience because they had one nightmare housemate. And after that experience they said, “Never again.”

At this point I ask some probing questions. Invariably, I find out that the interview and selection process they used was flawed.  They were either desperate to find housing, ignored warning signs (including their instincts), and/or didn’t even think about the interpersonal aspects of sharing housing. The interview was sloppy, and they didn’t check references.

If you recognize yourself in this description, realize that you are wiser now and that you can have a good home sharing arrangement.  Just choose carefully!

“We have better instincts.” That’s what my new friend Mary said to me when I was telling her about the idea that more senior citizens could be sharing housing.

That’s a hopeful idea. Seniors have spent a lifetime of living. Even if they haven’t shared their housing, they have certainly met many people through work and social activities.  They have had the opportunity to observe and to participate. They’ve learned when their first instinct about a person turned out to be true and when it didn’t.

It would be interesting to read stories about interviews when you immediately knew it would or wouldn’t work with the home seeker. Do you have such a story?

Here is a References Worksheet. Use it as a guide when you call references for your (possible) future housemate.

Also here is longer discussion on how to check references.

It is absolutely essential that you ask your future housemate for references. Someone can be charming and lovely in an interview who changes character after moving in.  Both the person seeking a home and the person who is seeking a housemate have a right to ask for references. And then you must check them. There are two types of reference: income verification, and housemate habits.

Probably before you even interviewed this potential housemate, you learned as much as you could about the person through the ‘Net. Facebook, Twitter, and a Google search can tell you quite a bit. If you didn’t do it before interviewing, do it before checking references.

Reference checking should be done by telephone, not electronically. Make a telephone call. For some it is a bit scary to call someone you don’t know. If it is scary for you, just take a deep breath and do it anyway.

For income verification, you should call the person’s place of work and talk to his or her supervisor. Make it quick. Leave a voice mail. Be direct and clear. “I’m considering _____as a housemate, and I want to verify that she works for you. Please leave me a message at ________.”  A supervisor should be willing to help an employee find housing and would not mind the phone call. If income is coming from another source also, talk to that source, too.

For finding out what the person is like to live with, a different set of questions is appropriate. When you introduce yourself, explain clearly why you are calling and ask the person for 10 minutes. That’s enough for you to get the information you need.

The first thing is to find out how well the referrer knows the person. A good referral is someone who has actually lived with the future housemate. Be wary of a person who claims to have lived in shared housing before but can’t give you a reference of someone he or she has lived with. The next thing is to find out why that relationship ended. Endings tell a great deal about a person. The ending probably had a good reason for it, since this person has agreed to provide a reference.

At this point you might be in a conversation. If you have any particular concerns, this is the time to ask about them. If not, two general questions should lead you into a conversation. Ask, “What did you like about living with _________? What did you dislike about living with _________________?”

Follow up these questions with open-ended questions (requiring more than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’) that allow the reference to talk. You are there to listen and learn. These questions and your follow-up questions should tell you as much as you need to know about your future housemate.

Do end the call at the ten-minute mark as you promised. Keep the reference’s name and phone number.

The reference checks give you more information with which to make a decision. You can either confidently decide to share housing with the person you checked on, or you can decline. It’s up to you.

If you like you can use this downloadable Worksheet-References to track your reference check.

As I interview people for the book I’m writing, I’m hearing stories about the nightmare housing situations.

What is a nightmare situation? It’s when the comfortable feeling between housemates breaks down because of conflict that is unresolved, and communication stops. It is really awful. Home becomes a battleground. If you have lived a nightmare situation, it’s very, very understandable that you’ve had it with sharing housing and will choose to live alone. It seems so much easier than potentially walking into another bad situation.

In ALL the stories I’ve heard the first mistake was in the interviewing process.  The person telling me the story either didn’t investigate thoroughly what living with person would be like, or they didn’t stand up for themselves in negotiating the use of the house or setting expectations. They ignored a little warning from their own gut – often because they could help the person, or they were desperate to find a place to live.

Avoid nightmare housemates by paying attention to your instincts. Talk to the person about all the different areas of living together: kitchen, furniture, closet space, parking, cleaning, rent, utilities, guests, pets etc. Check references. They should be able to give you the names and phone numbers of two people who can tell you what sort of housemate they are.  If they can’t do that, they probably aren’t a good bet as a housemate. Right?

So what if you are desperate? and do choose to ignore you instincts? Be prepared.  You may not want to establish yourself in that house.  Keep looking. Good luck.

Moving long distance presents a challenge.  How do you find a place to live when you aren’t there to see the place and to interview potential housemates? Some people make the trip for a weekend ahead of time and try to jam it all in and maybe they get lucky.  I’m sure some do get lucky. I wonder how many nightmare housemate stories come from panicked decisions?

In addition to using Craigslist and other internet tools to find place to rent, the Internet offers another wonderful tool for interviewing. Skype.  With Skype you can see the person which is a whole lot more than listening to them on the telephone and more than emailing or texting. It is said that a decision is made in the first 30 seconds of a job interview. I don’t know if that’s true for housemate interviews but I do think seeing is a huge help.

This interview is a step in your process. Don’t rent a space without physically seeing it. Use Skype to narrow down your choices and then get on an airplane to check them out.

I’ve just read an article on Helium about nightmare housemates. It’s enough to make one think that sharing housing is a bad idea.  It isn’t. There are plenty of wonderful people out there who are great housemates.

What makes a housemate a nightmare? Self-centeredness. Plain and simple. The nightmare housemate breaks agreements and/or refuses to modify their behavior when something becomes an issue.

You avoid having nightmare housemates by knowing what you want and carefully interviewing. Once you’ve decided that the interviewee is a potential housemate you must check references and employment.  True, the potential housemate will only send you to people who are going to recommend them, nonetheless the  reference doesn’t know what you are looking for.  You can find out quite a lot about a person from references. Ask for two. And then talk to them. Engage in a long conversation. Find out how they know the person, how long,  whether they’ve ever lived with them, and if they have what that experience was like. Ask for specific stories. Find out how often the person has moved.  All you have to do for checking employment is to call the organization main number and ask, “Does [housemate name] work in your organization?”

Also it is essential that the person moving in pays the first month, last month AND security deposit.  Don’t waver on this!  If your future housemate tries to wheedle with you about any of this take it as a warning about how they will behave when they move in.  That extra money is your security about their ability to pay bills and take care of the place.

Some people like to have agreements in writing – the better to ensure that everyone understands the expectations of the arrangement. If you do sit down and make an agreement – do it between the interview and when the person moves in. Don’t have the person move in and then work out a living together agreement. If the person can’t make time to do this, then don’t have them move in.

Most importantly, don’t get desparate for a housemate.  The worst mistake I’ve ever made was when I was desparate.  It didn’t last long, I kicked her and her boyfriend out within 6 weeks – but it wasn’t  fun for the  two weeks the situation developed. It’s really awful, in fact nightmarish, to have someone in your home with whom you are uncomfortable, unhappy, or angry. The best defence against nightmare housemates is to choose carefully.  It is possible.

Your goal in the initial phone call is to determine if there is enough of a match to spend time showing and looking at the space.

You should have a clear idea of what you MUST have in a housemate and living situation. What you must have is very different from what you would like to have.  In the phone conversation you can find out if the “must haves” are met by the space. If not, there is no reason to continue the conversation.

Some examples of “Must Haves” might be space for pets or no pets, space for visiting offspring, or other important people in your life, bathroom access, or convenient public transportation. For years, I had a must have of “no TV”.  That made it much easier to find suitable housemates.

The point here is that your “Must Haves” can simplify the time you spend looking for a housemate.