For those who have lived with roommates after college, how did you go about determining if you would be a good match?
I recently signed a lease on a 3/2 house in a college town. Being a vet student living on loans, I can’t afford to have a place to myself, and my change in living situation was sudden enough that all of the people I knew had already committed to year-long leases. I put an ad on Craigslist and had a number of responses from undergrads, grad students, and recent grads. I showed the place to one person today but she walked through the house (still empty, I haven’t moved yet) and just said she’d let me know by the end of the week, so I don’t really know what she’s like as a person outside of the fact that she didn’t murder me on the spot. I’m pretty laidback about a lot of things, and I’m not the most organized person myself, but I do have certain requirements vis-a-vis not doing stupid shit like leaving the trash open all the time for my dog to go rooting around for gut-busting goodies. I found my current roomie on CL by picking the first person who didn’t send off major whackadoodle vibes, and she’s nice and all, but I have had some issues with her being oblivious to things like that with the potential to cause harm to my animals (and, in one case, the carpet, when my cat had explosive diarrhea from the roomie putting out extra cat food where both cats could get to it). Do you have any tips for wading through all the possibilities? Once I do have roomies, how do I broach this subject without sounding like a total “my house, my rules” kind of dick?
Read it thoroughly, and add any clauses about who cleans up what or deals with whatever household chores and money matters. Sit down with the potential roomies and the form, and clear up all the clauses about who does what and any financial and penalty clauses. Don’t move anybody in that does not agree and sign. Plan on enforcing the clauses.
Nothing like ending up with a slob roomie that refuses to clean up after themselves. There is an online recounting of one guys absolutely insane nightmare of a roomie, he was crapping and peeing all over the apartment so the guy had to block his bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the flat and go in and out through his patio door. The roomie was certifiable, apparently he ended up in a mental facility.
Found it. Of course, being online it may be totally made up, so whatever.
A letter of recomendation is nice, but, unless it is on real letterhead stationary, it is real easy to fake. And being on a letterhead just means they were in an office long enough to grab a couple of sheets of paper.
You may want to ask for a current credit report - or not. I’d think “Pretty demanding asshole, aren’t you?” if someone wanted to see a credit report.
Resumes/C.V.'s are also good - any unexplained gaps? Might have been ill, might have been in jail.
Either go for same age/background or wildly different - a 25 yr old sharing a home with a 70 year old might be an excellent fit - both can learn much from the other.
There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle years ago of a widow with a big house in Berkeley (UCB, properly known as “Cal”) who had been renting extra rooms to undergrads - according to the “feel good” story, it made for mutual education and entertainment. Something to consider.
Thank you for your thoughts. As a stipulation of my own lease, they will be applying to the property management company, who runs a credit check and possibly background check, and being added to the lease, so that solves one problem.