My two roommates, one of whom is a good friend of mine, and I moved into a new apartment at the beginning of August. I moved in about a week later than they did (although I signed the lease before my friend), so I got last choice of the rooms. We pay the same rent - $500 a month.
Since moving in, I’ve gotten small glimpses of their rooms, and I’ve realized that they are somewhat considerably larger than mine. My room is as wide as my friend’s, but his is about one arm length longer than mine (a crude way of measuring, I know), and it doesn’t have one slanted corner like mine does. My slanted corner gives extra space to the other roommate’s room.
Due to my room being smaller, there is only a strip of free floor space between my bed and desk. I can hardly even pace around. It’s not that way in their rooms at all.
Mostly, I’m mad at my friend for picking the larger room without informing me that it was considerably larger. When I moved in, he casually said, “I already put my stuff in that room” or something like that. I trusted him that they were roughly the same. They’re not.
I’m leaning toward just trying to forget about it. Even though I think I have a legitimate gripe, I feel like the fact that we’ve already lived here a while would make me seem cheap and petty to demand changing the rent we pay. What do you all think?
No, you agreed to it both formally and informally when you signed the lease and then moved in last. The fact that you are comparing differences in the size of rooms using an arm length leads me to believe that none of the rooms are that big and that the small difference is being blown up in your mind in the same way that prison inmates get pissed at other inmates because one cell has a slightly better view than theirs. It is all relative and none of it is worth straining relationships over.
This too will pass and hopefully you will have great house of your own in a few years. It isn’t worth playing lawyer with roommates just to shave off a few dollars a month and piss everyone else off while you come off looking cheap. How would that work anyway? You have common spaces that are bigger than your bedroom right? Living with roommates sucks by design. Why don’t you fix your room up better than theirs or just arrange to get one of the other rooms when either of your roommates moves out? Maybe you could ask for a better parking space or something else if you all drive and have limited parking but don’t do it through a direct discount. That is just tacky and I am pretty sure you still wouldn’t be happy even if you got a small discount that way.
I would never resort to a lawyer. My solution would be to talk about adjusting how much of the rent I pay (which I’ve done in other apartments in which my room wasn’t of equal size to another’s). I think something like $450-$525-$525 would be more than reasonable. But I agree with you, it’s probably not worth the enmity.
The time to say something was when you moved in. If you’re all paying equal rent, you should have drawn for room assignment. Now that you’ve moved your stuff in, it will seem petty to argue about a few square feet of floorspace.
I don’t think it would be a big deal or make things too awkward to just say, “Hey, you guys have bigger rooms than me so I think I should pay a little less rent.” Sure, you should have worked it out before moving in but if the one guy is your good friend, and the other is a roommate you get along with well enough to keep as a roommate when you moved, they should understand.
I didn’t mean really get a lawyer. I meant don’t try to play one yourself in such circumstances. SOMEBODY has to have the smallest room and you get there last so that is as good a way as allocating them as any. You could have tried negotiating something up front when the lease was signed but not now. Like I said, it isn’t even worth getting upset over. Their rooms may have other flaws like screwy closet doors, worn floors, or overhead noise that yours doesn’t for all you described. Try to get along with your roommates as best as possible while splitting all common expenses right down the middle. That is the best way to handle things. Otherwise, you will be caught up in a mess of spreadsheets trying to micromanage a simple apartment like a Fortune 500 company. It isn’t worth it.
You have much, much more to gain by making the best use of your room with clever furniture, then by making trouble. Invest in a Murphy bed, or loft bed and you can pace all you like. Visit a nearby Ikea for ideas and affordable furniture. Or ask a friend with a knack for interior design for advice, they will love to come up with ideas for you.
Or his room might have those things and theirs don’t. But if he brings it up in a friendly way and that’s the case, they can say that. He wouldn’t be saying “I refuse to pay the amount we agreed on” he would just be opening up a discussion. They might think it’s completely fair for each of them to pay an extra $15-25.
Too late now to complain about it but it should have been settled before signing the lease. You should have started at $500/each and then bid for first pick of room. To somebody it’s important to they may be willing to pay $525. If nobody wants to budge from $500 then you should all pick straws or flip a coin.
Possibly but nobody like the insinuation of being nickled and dimed to death. If you manage the expenses of a shared apartment down to the square footage level, you have to do it for everything to be fair. That is not fun and will only end it heartache.
Shared accommodations like that are (hopefully) temporary. I have done them with both female and male roommates when I was in college. It ended well for all of them except for my one roommate who tried to play a lawyer (and eventually became one) and died of a brain tumor in his early 30’s. I had no sympathy for that because he was a dick. Don’t be the dick.
I lived with roommates in my 20s. It never occurred to me (or to them apparently) that one should be charged more or less for a larger or smaller bedroom. That truly is nickle-and-diming compared to the rest of the living accommodations.
I would say let it go. It really would come off as a petty complaint at this point. I’ve never heard of paying less rent for a smaller room. And I shared lots of apartments in my college years.
Yup. You look at the space, you all decide on who gets which room and if rents should be adjusted based on size before everyone is signed up and moved in. After the fact is not the time to have this discussion.