Sharing Common Areas with Your Apartment Roommate

You may find that it’s easy enough to keep up your own room in your apartment, but what about maintaining common areas? Read on for our guide to maintaining harmony in shared spaces in your home with a few simple maintenance habits.

Set the rules
Whether you and your roommate are new to each other or are moving together into a new place, laying the ground rules early is a must. That doesn’t mean you need to create a draconian lists of do’s and don’ts, but it does require thinking carefully about the habits that drive you or your roommate crazy, and then getting those details out in the open. Living with a roommate requires compromise, so be reasonable and willing to work out differences for your mutual benefit.

To share or not to share?
Often, the biggest roommate disputes revolve around food. Money can be saved when roommates pool funds to buy in bulk, but if one of you has a significantly larger appetite than the other, someone will feel short-changed. Similarly, if one roommate has special dietary needs, whether by preference or due to food allergies or a health condition, be sure to respect the other by either not cooking certain foods on shared pots and pans or by not eating the other’s vegetarian, vegan, lactose-free, peanut-free, wheat-free or kosher food and beverages.

Everybody cleans
Another area for potential conflict is having a different tolerance for messiness than your roommate. Coming up with a regular cleaning routine and sticking with it can help by ensuring that common areas get clean before you or your roommate can get squeamish about the disorder. The best way to keep the workload fair is to have each roommate clean up after him or herself every day and then split the work on cleaning common areas such as the bathroom or kitchen.

Spend time together
The easiest way for petty resentments to get out of hand is for communication to break down. Don’t let that happen! Even if you and your roommate each lead separate, busy lives, find a way to do something fun together regularly, whether it is going to the farmer’s market, seeing a movie, or having a dinner party. Creating a bond through shared experience is the surest way to maintain a happy household.

Don’t let squabbling over common areas spoil your relationship with your apartment roommate. Create clear, reasonable rules at the beginning of your time together, and share in the work and enjoyment of your apartment. You’ll never regret the effort to make your home a happy one.