Is sharing a house/apartment with a friend always a bad idea?

She moved back into her parents’ place this most recent time moving back from out of state. From what I remember of her room and apartments, I’d say she’s about as neat as I am- somewhere in the middle, the occasional laundry or dirty dish build up but nothing gross.

And I know she’s gotten into the music, art, and decorating that I’m into (that was another reason for us drifting apart- we both started off as sort of hippies, drifted towards punk, then she did an about face towards rap and pop music while I stayed where I was.) Now we’re both into, for example, retro furniture, so she likes the furniture I have, and there won’t be any arguments about decorating the living room or anything.

I live in an apartment with my best friend and then another sort-of friend. Best friend and I get along really well and it’s been really fun. It helps though that we lived in the same room during our second year at uni – which was not that fun – but we figured out how to deal with eachother 24/7. Now that we have seperate rooms, it’s cake.

I’ve never had a problem with living with friends. I’m kind of a shitty roommate because I’m a slob. I am still close friends with every single roommate who was a friend previously. All my friends were pretty laid back and we kind of knew what we were getting into. I’ve had 4 sets of roommates that I didn’t know that didn’t work out well. I’ve had 4 sets of friend roommates, living together for 1 to 3 years and it was all hunky dory. I’ve had a bunch of other housemates I didn’t know that we tolerated each other without major trauma.

I had a real bad experience with this. The girl in question had been my suitemate in the dorm for four semesters so we thought things would work out. We had about the same tolerance for squalor and we liked the same music and had lots of the same friends. But:

First of all she moved into my place, a house I was buying. The rent was half the house payment and it was pretty cheap. She was okay with that.

Four days after she moved in she met A Guy. I’ll call him Alaska, 'cause that’s where he was from. It is also worth noting that her first month in the house was the month of June, in Oklahoma, that the house had air conditioning, and that I don’t mind being hot and I hate air conditioning. My roommate was completely okay with this for four days, until Alaska. He essentially moved in–that’s right, right after she met him.

At that point I had all the disadvantages of a roommate (things disappearing out of the fridge that I had specifically earmarked, say) and none of the advantages, since Roomie and Alaska would get home from work and go straight into Roomie’s bedroom, and stay there only coming out to raid the fridge.

After only a couple of days, it turned out that Alaska was miserable in the heat, not being accustomed to those climes, so could we run the air conditioning.

I was at the time morally opposed to air conditioning, cars, paper towels, and whole bunch of other stuff that’s now becoming once again politically correct. Plus I love hot weather and besides which, running the air conditioning was way expensive, even way back then in the '70s of the last century. But Alaska was just gonna die without it.

So…I taped over all the AC vents in MY room, put blankets under the door so I’d be comfortable, in my own house that I was paying for. And when we got the bill, which was more than the house payment, I thought it was not too fair to split it in half. I didn’t even think it was fair to split it in THIRDS, since I hadn’t ever, ever wanted the AC on to begin with. Roomie pointed out that the bill probably wouldn’t have been so high if it had been the whole house, because after all some of the heat oozed out from under my door, and if I wanted to be hot I could just go outside, but who wanted to be hot, anyway? But she finally, grudgingly said that she and Alaska would pay two-thirds of the electric, even though she didn’t think it was fair, and she was in the smaller room anyway. And it was really unfair since she was paying my mortgage (half of it anyway), so she was getting only a temporary benefit whereas I was putting $$$ toward a long-term asset. And also my presence (!) was cramping their style.

So this gist of this was, after inflicting AC on me in my living room and kitchen during two out of three of my favorite hot months of the year, Roomie and Alaska moved out in August to their own place. Leaving me determined to starve, if necessary, to make the payments on my own so’s I wouldn’t need a roommate.

Honestly, I’ve had better luck moving in with a complete stranger whose name I got from a college bulletin board.

I think how your roommates are with those of the preferred gender makes a huge difference. My best friend moved in with a girl from school - the two of them got along perfectly - and then she had to deal with her roomie’s boyfriend, who was over a lot and didn’t really clean up after himself. Another friend of mine had a roommate - they were fine as well - and then said roomie started dating a guy who hogged the TV and would not leave my friend alone when she just wanted to enjoy some quiet time.

My current roommate and I don’t have steady boyfriends, but she did until recently, and they were both very decent about it - I never felt like I had to tiptoe around someone else in my own house.

I did it for the past year and half and it turned into a fucking disaster. But then, that’s mostly because of the people that I lived with. It was all fun and games at first - it was a fucking sweet house, amazingly nice for college students. Every night was a grown-up version of a slumber party, with weed, Pabst, and all-night Are You Afraid Of The Dark and Twin Peaks marathons. We’d have jam sessions, cook dinners together - it was fun as hell.

Then the trouble started. First, one of my housemates got in a bike accident and had his jaw broken. The experience left him somewhat bitter and traumatized, and he was very irritable, and this attitude did not leave even after he had completely healed. He eventually got a 10,000 dollar settlement, and quit his job, figuring that he’d be alright on just that money. We told him to invest it but he didn’t. So gradually he became more and more stingy.

The other housemate started this experimental-music project that basically consisted of him and his friends coming over and jamming, aimlessly and repetitively and atonally, for literally two or three hours on end. This started to get on my nerves, and on the other guy’s nerves, and we had a very nasty argument about it. It led to music-man subletting his room to someone else and moving out. Oh yeah, and he ran out of money too.

The guy who took the sublet was a very cool laid back hippie/technogeek and engineering genius who had an endless supply of amazing music and various psychedelic drugs. Living with him was extremely fun, but then eventually (since he’s an electrician) he started bitching more and more about energy costs, hounding us to keep the heat down and turn all the lights off and everything. I thought this was pretty reasonable and even pitched him some money to buy Compact Fluorescent bulbs, but the other guy became very annoyed by this and there was some tension developing. Also, these guys would get into arguments frequently over social issues - on the one hand, there’s this hippie technogeek and future Al Gore, and then the other guy is a car-obsessed metrosexual.

Overall, though, this period was alright. But then, the next year, we renewed the lease and a new guy took the hippie’s room. This guy was so put off by my other roomate - who really can be a huge prick and difficult to get along with - that he just decided to basically live with his girlfriend and rent storage space in our house. So he was NEVER there, and I was left with the other guy. And this became very awkward. Jobless and school-less, he would go whole days just stuck in his room with the lights off. When I’d bump into him, we’d have tense and uncomfortable conversations. He’d find little things to hound me about, and it got really annoying. There were good conversations and good moments too, but overwhelmingly, it was an awkward situation.

Now the new girlfriend-living-with guy is moving out (predictably) and subletting his room to someone I have not met. The only thing I know about him is that his email address is cubsfan38 or something. Since I am of the opinion that Cubs fans are the most annoying sports fans ever, I’m leery of this, but who knows, he might turn out to be a decent guy once he moves in. But still, it’s a total stranger.

In other words, the situation has TOTALLY FUCKING GONE TO HELL!

That’s my two cents. Be careful and very foreward-thinking before going into something like this.

That’s what I’m trying to do. My friend and I haven’t really discussed anything other than the possibility- she just mentioned she was unhappy with her current boyfriend and wanted to get a place on her own (the two of them have moved back here from North Carolina into her parents’ place to save up money to get their own place). At the time I was in the middle of breaking up with my boyfriend wondering how I was going to make rent when my landlord raises it next month and contemplating potential life with 3 cats in a studio apartment.

So it was more along the lines of, “We should get an apartment together,” “That would be cool- I know you like cats.” “I love cats.” “I have cute furniture.” “I love your furniture!” No real plans, no time lines, nothing like that.

I have lived with a roommate that I clicked with in a way I have never experienced with any other person. If she had been a dude I would have married her. She was so fantastic and we got along on every possible level. I miss living with her but I moved across the country and she stayed in Texas so that is no longer possible.

I have a roommate now that I spend most of my time wanting to strangle or evict, depending on the day. She and I have been good friends for a long time and as far as rent/cleanliness/etc we are a perfect match, but she is dealing with a lot of crap from her past and is not in the best mental state. She lies to me and hides things from me all the time and because of that I have trouble trusting her with anything which causes me to be on pins and needles anytime we interact, but we truly want to stay friends once we no longer live together so it makes dealing with the problems we encounter awkward at best. We have found that we are excellent friends as long as we don’t live together because all the crap that we could ignore about one another and just enjoy each other’s company can’t be ignored anymore. It follows you home and watches The Simpsons with you on the couch. It invades your home life and you no longer have a comfortable place to escape from the crazy. You can’t get in a fight and take a couple of days to cool down without seeing each other because you are always there, all the time, no matter what. Make absolutely sure you are willing to be miserable for the prospect of lower rent before you move in with a friend because it could very well come to that.

DANGER! DANGER, REDROSESFORME!

This whole OP could have been written by me when I was in my early 20’s. BFF, we’d been out of touch while she went through her drug phase, she came back into town, we got a place together…
…only it turned out she wasn’t so over her drug phase. Or she was, but she relapsed. Heroin, among other things. Not good. The problem wasn’t so much that she was breastfeeding while doing heroin, so I had to take her drug addicted baby to the pediatrician for her, or that she literally did not a single lick of housework while I was working all day (our agreement was that I would cover 3/4 of the rent while she kept the place clean and made dinner - basically, I rented myself a housewife), or the multiple times I sat with her bringing her cold compresses and caring for her infant while she detoxed on the couch. No, the real problem was her scummy junkie boyfriend and other friends who would come over, steal my stuff and lose my spoons. Seriously, I went through more than three sets of silverware in less than a year because all my spoons kept disappearing. I can only assume they were using them to mix drugs or something. Finally, after she detoxed yet again with my help and begged me never to let JunkieBoy back in our place, he came over and I told him to get lost. Then she laid into me about how it was her place too and I had no right to keep her friends out. That was the final straw for me. I went to the management company, begged to be transferred to a different lease on a different unit and I moved my son and I across the development from her.

We didn’t speak for a couple of years, until she got herself good and clean and sober for real. We’re good friends again, but she now lives out of state, so we’re “phone friends”.

So…I dunno. Drug relapses are common among early 20somethings, and I don’t think I would take that risk again.

I would also be careful about getting cats with this girl if you don’t have a good idea of how clean she is. Multiple cats in a small apartment are fine and wonderful IF THE OWNER CLEANS REGULARLY. I think we’ve all stepped into an apartment that immediately smells thickly and disgustingly of cat-stench. I would never be able to live with a cat owner who doesn’t mind that sort of smell. The same is true of dogs or even things like guinea pigs. Because of this, I was careful never to move in with someone who had a pet whose pet-caring habits were unknown to me.

The only person with whom I have lived in a place but never argued or had the relationship end is my wife. I have no desire to see anyone else I’ve ever lived with again, and probably vice-versa. Due to the distance factor, that’s going to come true. Unless you are really, really good friends, you probably don’t want to know what new grossness they are likely to come up with, or that they don’t know how to clean or pay bills on time, and the rest of that. Tread carefully!

I had three friends who lived together, any time I talked to one of them they would bitch about the others. The cat was at the top of the list, the owner didn’t buy a strong enough vacuum, wouldn’t change the litter box enough, left the food out for the roaches, etc. And she wasn’t a horrible pet owner just … not as tidy as her roommates would have liked. I also moved into a craigslist apartment with a cat, once she started puking around the house I gave my 30 days notice and was out the door. Cats are kinda like kids – other people’s are cute at first but not so much when they puke on your stuff.

Anyhow, I would stay away from a friend from the past. With a current friend you know this person’s habits – you’ve been out to dinner with them enough to know that you can manage paying a bill together without bickering, you been to their place enough to know more or less how they keep it, and in generally you’ve hung out for enough 4+ hour stretches to know whether or not you can tolerate each other for 4+ hours. With a childhood friend, not so much, people do change. But what’s more you actually have to go thru the motions of being that person’s friend when you see them every day, as opposed to a convenient roommate you split the bills with. I suppose you could do a proper ‘roommate interview’ like you would with a craigslist ad, but I would worry that a friend would be uncomfortable talking about lifestyle quirks, since it can feel you’re like each judging the other one based on how they keep house and in general live their life.

Whynot, it was never anything like that. She’d always smoked pot, which I didn’t mind, but she started doing pills like Xanax and Oxys and things like that. Not a hardcore addict, just a recreational user of drugs that I didn’t like. Combined with her shitty boyfriends, bad taste in music, and not liking her new friends, I decided I liked the company of my other friends better.

One of my best friends grew up 5 houses down the street from me. I was 5 months older than him, and in his class from kindergarten through high school. We did everything together and were best friends from before we could even speak.

At age 20, he moved into my apartment. We lived together 18 months and had 1 fight because he’d done the dishes 3 times in a row and I hadn’t done them. We yelled for about 10 seconds, then I did the dishes and all was forgiven.

We’re age 28 now, and since we moved out of that apartment I was in his wedding and dog/house sit when he’s away. We don’t see each other often anymore on account of his wife and kids, but I still consider him my best friend.