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?

The kitchen is the most used common room in a home. When there are housemates, the kitchen is often the place for casual conversation, laughter, and sharing.  It can also be a source of irritation and anger when members of a household don’t have the same standards of cleanliness and/or guidelines are not followed.

It happened to me, once. Early in my housesharing experience, a house meeting was called. Turned out I was the culprit – everyone else but me aware that I wasn’t doing my part in keeping the kitchen clean. I tell you I was shocked! Really I had no idea.

I’m sure there are many different household rules that have been created to manage this. Here are two:

1) The kitchen should always look as if no one has been there.

2) Clean your own dishes and one more.

What other ones are out there? Do you have one that works for you?

In sharing housing, the kitchen is the center. Everyone has to eat. Few people have the money to eat all their meals out. So how do you share a kitchen?

The easiest is to have separate food. This avoids conflict around shopping, meals, cooking, meal times, tastes, guests, money, etc.  The refrigerator can be divided so that each person has their section of the fridge. Shelves and cabinets assigned to different people.

Some prefer to have meals together. It’s communal, it builds relationships. On the practical side, when you share food, you also share the basic tasks of shopping, cooking and cleaning. By sharing, you  simplify. For instance in a house of five adults, one person can cook one night and also do the dishes. That means that for four nights dinner is made and dishes cleaned for you. It can also save money, since you can buy in bulk.

Which is better? Depends on what you want.

What good sharing kitchen arrangements do you know?

There are house sharing arrangements in which sharing food is part of the package. One person shops, cooks, and/or cleans in exchange for rent.

However, for most other sharing housing arrangements, it is worth thinking carefully about whether or not you should try to share food. My bias is that each person should have their own food.  By not sharing food, one potential source for conflict is removed. It’s a simple as that. No negotiations about shopping, money, who’s cooking, who’s cleaning and what time meals will be. No requirement to be home at a certain time or to inform of plans to be out of the house. I know that this doesn’t sound friendly – but it can be. There’s no reason resources can’t be pooled together if housemates are home together at meal time.