Your housemate works in air conditioning and drives in an air-conditioned car. When he comes home he finds the house unbearably hot.  You work outside in the hot sun and love to have the windows open. So what if the house is 80 degrees – it’s summer!

Ooops! You have a disagreement.  What do you do? This depends on how strongly each feels about their position. You need to communicate so that you can find a compromise.

Here is a formula for resolving housemate issues.

• Find a time to talk face to face.*
• State your issue – just the facts.  “When I come home from work the house feels hot to me.”
• Add why it is a concern for you. “and I’m uncomfortable.”
• Ask: “How do you see this issue?” Give the person a chance to respond with their view.
• Paraphrase what that person has said. ” So what you are saying is __________.”
• Ask: “What would be a good compromise that satisfies both of us?”

By the time you have gone through the first two steps—airing of differences and paraphrasing to clarify understanding— it should be easy to find a compromise. Make sure you build the compromise together, this will improve the chances that each of you will follow through on it.

Take these steps to cool down the temperature on any housemate issue.

* Texting and email can make conflicts worse! Don’t use them to air a grievance.

Which do you prefer? The modern condo with an open floor plan and cathedral ceilings? Or the pre-war rambling house with multiple rooms with doors, nooks and crannies.  If you are sharing housing with unrelated people, you should prefer the latter.

These spaces allow individuals to have privacy even when others are home. Think about it  – your housemate has a friend over and they are visiting in the living room. You have  a friend over and you are making tea in the kitchen.  In a house with doors you can close the doors and each of you have your own visit with your friend. In an open space – well the likelihood is that either the four of you visit together or one pair goes out or you simply don’t have friends visit you at home.

Older houses were built for bigger families.  Maybe intuitively they understood the value of separate spaces?

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.

Saving money in shared housing is not just saving on the cost of housing. You also save because you can share the basic housewares.  Below is list of some of the more common machines used.

1. Vacuum Cleaner
2. Toaster Oven
3. Toaster
4. Iron
5. Blender
6. Food Processor
7. Lawnmower
8. Can Opener
9. Coffee Maker
10. Coffee Grinder

And those are just household small appliances. Setting up a household also requires trash cans, bath mats, curtains, dish racks, extension cords.  You get the idea.  There is a great list of basic household items on the University of Michigan site. “House/Apartment Setup Checklist” (Scroll down, PDF will automatically download.

When you move into a house that’s already set up many of those items are already there. That’s a great advantage.

If you do buy things for your home, it is a good idea if one person owns an item, be it the coffee maker or the living room curtains. In other words it is a bad idea to share the cost of buying a household item. At some point you will go your separate ways and it’s good to be clear then who will take what items. If there are items you and your housemates agree you need, plan who will buy what. It is that person’s decision if they buy top of the line or budget. After all she will own it beyond the time spent living with you. You can save money on these items. Check out this link for some great advice: Graduation Time: Setting up Your New Home

When people use what you own, wear and tear is inevitable.  Be prepared for this. Use other people’s possessions with care. Clean up after yourself.  If you break something that belongs to someone else, replace it.  Look at this post on Dutch rules for great guidance on living well with another person’s possessions.

One word. Don’t. Don’t even think of it.  Do yourself a favor.

For housemates to live together comfortably, it is good to impose a complete and utter taboo on sex with each other. Otherwise things go wonky.  The emotions that get stirred up are deep and painful. One person’s fling is another person’s crush and what do you say to each other a week later? Inevitably one of the housemates moves out but probably not without some stormy and painful experiences. So if you want to keep your home a comfortable place to be, do not get sexually involved with a housemate.

Yes, of course, there are exceptions to this rule. It might happen that two people who get to know each other in the daily rhythms find themselves falling in love. I heartily suggest a long conversation about what this means to you and how you will manage it before falling into bed. And if you can’t have a heart-to-heart real conversation about life and love, then you don’t have the communication to manage the changed relationship.  You would no longer be just housemates. If you are going to have a love affair,  one of you should move out first, then see if the relationship works.

I’m guessing that the happily-ever-after scenario is rare. Far more common is the casual sex scenario that leads to trouble. With a firm taboo in place, a housemate relationship with the other gender can be wonderful—kind of like a brother or a sister.

Absolutely.  In addition to the other benefits of reducing housing costs, there are other advantages for two single parents sharing their home.  How well it works depends of course on the adults, the children, and the space being shared.

The first advantage is that the children can play together. This of course depends on the ages and genders of the youngsters, but even children of different ages, when thrown together, figure out how to do stuff. (That is, if they are not addicted to television and video games, but that’s a different issue.) The nice part for the parent is that when children are occupied with each other, they are not seeking parental attention. In one shared housing arrangement, the two adults each have part-time custody of their children. The children enjoy being together so much, and each parent finds it so much easier when both children are there, that the parents are seeking to synchronize their custody arrangements.

The second advantage is that the parent has another adult at home. Depending on the housemate relationship, she may have another person to talk to about her adult life. She can have someone to exchange babysitting so that she can go out while the adult is home and then reciprocate the favor. For quick errands she can leave the child at home with the other adult rather than have to disrupt the child to accompany her. The other adult is there.

It’s very important to consider how the space will be used. Whereas a single person sharing housing usually has a room and the rest of the house is shared, it may be that each single parent will want to have her own living room/play area in addition to the bedroom(s).  Like everything else, this depends a good deal on the personalities and choices available where they are living.

Choosing to share housing with another parent is a good idea.  All the guidelines for selecting a good housemate apply. Interview carefully, know what you can live with and what you can’t, and check references. Beyond those guidelines, make sure you have reasonably congruent approaches to parenting.

Make sure your child also has an opportunity to interview the prospective housemates.  If there’s something that he doesn’t like or trust, pay attention.  Children have good instincts, and it will be their home, too!

Confused by the bills you need to track in your shared home? Tired of using an spreadsheet and working out the formulas? Housemate’s Companion by Slamdunk Software comes to your rescue.  It’s brand new and looks exactly like the basic tool that everyone needs. It not only offers easy management of the bills, it sends the bills to your housemates through email and allows you to track payment.  If you have the confusing scenario of people moving in and out, Housemate’s Companion can simply figure out who owes whom what.

Along with bill management, the next difficult thing for housemates is managing the chores. Housemate’s Companion has a  chore roster ability allowing chores to be rotated fairly. The roster can be emailed or printed.  The author have also added the ability to send landlords notifications of problems. It also tracks the security deposit (bond in Australia).

It has a nice look and a straightforward interface. A series of video tutorials will show you what it looks like and how it can be used.

So far the software is only for Windows machines.  Slamdunk Software (isn’t that a great name!) promise they are working on a Mac version and also an iPhone ap!

Every home needs to be cleaned.  When people share housing the question arises about how the common areas that everyone uses are cleaned.  Here are three methods that work.

Hire a Pro

If you can afford it, the easiest, best way to get the house cleaned is to have someone else do it. Seriously – once every two weeks by a professional will avoid quite a lot of conflict about the quantity and quality of housecleaning.  Since you are saving money by sharing housing, you might be able to afford this option.

Rotate Chores Weekly

Figure out how many chores you have and divide them equally among the housemates. Decide if these chores are done weekly or every other week. Put chores in a set order and housemates in a set order and every week the chore shifts to the next person.

Areas of Responsibility

Create equitable areas of responsibility (vacuuming common rooms, taking out trash and recycling, washing kitchen floor, etc. ) divide them among housemates by preference. Each person is responsible for their area for a month. They can ask for a change at the end of the month. If no one wants a change each person keeps their area of responsibility.

Note

Obviously everyone has to carry their weight in actually doing their assigned chores.

Sometimes I find myself grumbling about mess in the house, something along the lines of “Why doesn’t he EVER clean up after himself?”  Years of experience have taught me to look again. Oh, I say to myself, “That’s mine and that’s mine and that’s mine..” It is a very natural human tendency to look at what others are doing and assign blame before examining ourselves and our role in contributing to the situation we don’t like. It’s the “pot calling the kettle black” or the interesting question, “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to see the beam in your own eye?”

So when you are upset by a messy housemate, the first thing you need to do is consider whether you have contributed to the situation. For instance, are you upset about the dirty dishes left in the sink today but last week you left dishes for two days? Did you neglect to do your chore but now you are irritated that your housemate hasn’t done hers? How have you contributed to your housemates neglect?

If you can in all honesty say that your slate is clean and the housemate’s behavior really is a problem, you need to have a conversation.  It’s possible that housemate has no idea that you are upset. Really. There’s no need to get mad or have a fight. A simple matter-of-fact conversation setting some guidelines for mess should take care of it. Try to be specific about what bothers you. Work together on an agreement that can help you move forward. If your housemate has specific requests of you, you too can adjust your behavior.

All the above assumes that you have a basic agreement about the cleanliness of your home. You made this agreement in the interview process, right? In that interview you talked about your attitudes and expectations for the cleanliness of your home. Your standards were similar enough that you chose to live together. If you didn’t talk about cleanliness then, you may have a harder time talking about it now because no standards were set and no expectations established. If your housemate has standards really different from your own, and you are each unwilling to adapt to the the other a bit, you may not be able to live together.

Sharing housing is a cooperative arrangement for the mutual benefit of everyone living in the house.

Do you have a story about living with messy housemates? How did you handle it?

Authors and attorneys, Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow, have developed a model they call “four degrees of sharing”. The first degree requires minimal cooperation and no planning, while the fourth degree requires extensive cooperation and long-term planning. The whole model can be read here:

They assign sharing rental housing or a single family home to the second degree of sharing. While I agree that there is more cooperation and planning involved than say a neighborhood pot-luck, my take is that the amount of cooperation is dependent on the people sharing. Home sharing could be first degree sharing. It all depends.

What do you think?