My bills are not sky high, but being in school and not being able to work godly hours every week, I would like to keep my bills down even more. By having a roommate I can save myself about 200 dollars or so. Off about 900 dollars total bills that is great. So I talked myself into looking for a person to rent out my small room- (11’ X ~10’). I currently pay 275 a month for rent (I got a spectacular deal), with a roommate I can cut that in half (we’ll say 140) and probably around another 60 dollars on utilities.
For those saying it isn’t worth it, here is the kicker- Normally I would agree with you. However, in two years I will have to get a roommate when I go to MU. Dorm or roommate with somebody off campus. Either way- I need to get used to having a roommate. I have NEVER had one before…
So, I am not particularly looking forward to this, and I have to move my weight set downstairs, but no problem. I signed up for Roommates.com and if no bites come my way, I will post some notes around my school. I would prefer a student like myself. One that knows the importance of study and homework and wont have the radio blasting or a bunch of drunks over.
I am going to screen the hell out of each person interested. Male or Female doesn’t matter. I would prefer a straight man or a gay woman, but I won’t pick about too much. That is about all else I know how to screen people. Anybody have any good screening techniques? Things to look for, questions to ask, etc?
A friend of mine had a roommate who brought home increasingly weird things, including a real headstone, complete with dirt still on the bottom. Might want to ask if he/she has similar intentions.
Actually, on a serious note, the main thing is understanding what sort of roommate you want, explaining to them, and seeing if that is them. Both of you want as little friction as possible, so a good upfront understanding of expections will be good.
Things I’ve considered when looking at a potential roommate:
Social life: Is this someone who is going to have people over continually? Never be home? Do they have friends who’ll be forever dropping by? SO who might be around a lot?
Housekeeping standards: Can we live with each other’s standards, or will heads roll over dishes in the sink?
Stability: Does this person have a history of flaking out in arrangements? Not paying bills?
I’ve never advertised for a roommate, and I haven’t lived with someone I didn’t know beforehand since my freshman year of college. If I were trying to gauge a roomie candidate, I would ask him or her to tell me about where they’d lived before and with who. I’d worry about someone who spent a lot of time bouncing from place to place and always seemed to have huge issues with other people.
I would also try to interact with the person as much as possible before agreeing to live with them, and try get a look at where they currently live. Anyone can put up a normal front for a few minutes, but things like “I can’t sleep without my William Shatner album playing” and “Deodorant is a capitalist plot” might take a while.
A few years ago I had a roommate who wouldn’t talk to me, refused to get a job, refused to pay any bills, and moved out after a week leaving me with the remainder of the lease (6 months) to handle by myself. He was a friend of a friend.
Two years ago, I was supposed to have a roommate but he decided he loved his EX-girlfriend too much to move, he lied and said he was still coming, forcing me to do all the legwork of finding a place myself. He never came, and he severely screwed up my finacial situation for a short time. He was a friend of another friend.
My advice is: Go with people who are advertising for roommates, not someone reccommended by someone else, and get to know them well first.
One tip I cant stress enough is be careful about the phone. Preferably get him/her to have his own phone, etc. Otherwise get 900 block on it (call your phone company and ask, its a free service) and you wont have to worry about people calling 1 900 HOT LOVE or whatever…or having “psychic friends” or any of that other 4.99 a minute stuff. Even then, a basic agreement about long distance, etc is a good idea.
Trust me Ive been burned on this not only once. (But only once on the 900 calls)
So you might want to know where they are from etc. (IE if you are in California you dont want a homesick first time away from home type from Maine calling Mommy and Buddy and good dog Rover at prime rates) Also having love affairs with someone in Holland is not the greatest. Unless you live in Holland.
If you are a fanatic housekeeper I dont advise a roommate at all, they are more stress than its worth when you are in school to have an Oscar/Felix situation. Don’t room with people you work/study with. it generally ends up that you see way too much of them and it gets irritating.
In general do they have friends? A job? Evidence of hobbies, interests that are healthy? (They don’t have to be your hobbies, but better someone with an obsessive interest in collecting and cataloging butterflies than someone who sits home all day listening to “that was our song” over and over and occasionally emerging to order chinese food…) The more they seem like a well rounded person the better your chances are.
Oh and decide how you feel about penis-shaped soap-on-a-rope up front. Thats an awkward one to change your mind about.
(NOTE …all above or versions thereof have happened to me, (!) but there is hope. I did swear off roommates for a long time, but now I am married and put up with all my husband foibles. Well, I havent divorced him for them yet anyway.)
I’ve had some bad roommate experiences, and I still couldn’t tell you how to weed out the whackos. Everyone puts on their best behavior when interviewing. Often the most charming candidates are the ones who will cause the most grief down the road.
My suggestions are to have more than one interview, to talk to them long enough about enough things that you give them a chance to slip up. Discuss finances, housekeeping, sleepovers, schedules, social life, hobbies, food, problem resolution. Ask them how these things were handled with their previous roommates. Ask them what problems they had with previous roommates. Ask what they think are the difficult issues about living together. Ask them to tell you about their best friend – you may get some insight into what their values are.
Look into an “out” clause in your agreement with a potential roomie, where if things really, really don’t work out, you can just invoke the “out” clause and give them X period to move out (two weeks? 30 days? whatever local standards require, I would assume). IANAL, but this strikes me as good self-protection.
Check out sleeping schedules, too. Papa Tiger and I met when we lived 6,000 miles apart, and it wasn’t till we were actually married that I discovered the man literally only needs HALF the sleep I do. So he’s up at all hours when I’m asleep, both late at night and early in the morning, and we’ve had to make some major accommodations to keep it from driving me totally bonkers. Even with a roommate who’s obviously not sharing a room with you, if you’re desperately trying to get that last hour’s sleep so you’ll be human when you get up, and roomie goes in and takes a 20-minute shower, singing at the top of his/her lungs, then bangs around in the kitchen, etc., etc., it can be just as disruptive.
I would also recommend not going with a friend or a friend of a friend. Assumptions are often made between friends that simply would not be between strangers, that you’ll put up with behavior you might not otherwise. Easier to just avoid the whole issue up front.
I’ve had my fair share of roommates and I’ve noticed that when you’re interviewing the person and there’s even the slightest thing you don’t like, don’t take them. (One tends to disregard little things: “She seems nice and has good credit but I somehow don’t like her voice. Oh well, I probably am shallow. Let’s move in together.” Weeks later you’re ready to kill her because that grating voice is constantly yelling into the telephone.)
No matter how small and insignificant it seems to you at the time and how shallow you feel - it’ll grow. Maybe it’s even an indicator for bigger things that will bug you later on.
Plus, I’ll second what Mama Tiger said. Going with friends actually isn’t the easiest thing around.
You don’t want a roommate. You had to talk yourself into getting one. That’s going to create problems right there, as you’ll be resentful of the person being there. I’ve been that roommate, and it was clear that the other person only wanted the rent check coming in, but made no allowances for another person being there, and seemed very resentful of my presence.
MU may have housing restricted to older students; I went to a school with a dorm with single rooms which was reserved for older than average students. It had another dorm reserved for upper class students only. It might be possible to get a single room in the dorm. Or look into a studio apartment off campus.
Having had one roommate go from eccentric to not-paying-the-bills and downright weird, I wish I could give you some good advice. Figure out your and their philosophies on these issues:
Social life: Are they going to want to have loud parties? Do you have loud parties? Is this cool with the other person? Are they (you) going to be out at all hours? Is that alright with you? If they come stumbling in drunk, will you be helpful or annoyed?
Pets: Nuff said. It’ll come up. It always does.
Bills: Do the bills have to be paid on the first of the month every time or is it alright if they slip some? What’s going to be the breakdown on utilities, etc.?
Cleanliness: Are they going to keep the room clean (probably not, in my experience) or are they messy?
House Rules: What kind of rules are you going to want in place?
And another huge one: How much are you two going to interact? Some people hang out with their roommates, some go everywhere with their roomies, and some just talk to em in passing and to pay the bills.
Spend of coupla bucks talking to a lawyer to make sure that you fully understand what your rights are if you need to get this person kicked out in a hurry. Perhaps you can set up a contract that if they do not keep up with, they will be kicked out.
Learn to be very easy going. If you can stand the sight of them, they clean up after themselves, and they pay everything on time, love them and leave them alone.
I’m linking to the roomate questionaire that my current roomie put up. It convinced me that we could live together and that she had thought this whole process out pretty well. You might want to use something similar as a starting point.
If you eat a lot of small snack-type meals all day long, is it a) efficient or b) selfish to stack up the dishes in the sink and do 'em all at once in the evening?
Does ketchup (after being opened) go on the shelf or in the refrigerator?
Pick which is closest to your average bedtime: 10 PM? midnight? 2 AM? 4 AM?
Four friends are coming over for the evening. Do we need
a) 2 six packs b) 4 sixpacks 3) 6 sixpacks 4) 8 sixpacks of beer?
Did you ever share a bedroom with a sibling?
When you’re doing homework do you a) go to the library? b) work at a desk in the room? c) work at a table in the cafeteria d) never do homework?
I’m sure you can come up with questions of your own.
If you’re sharing a bedroom, you MUST establish if either of you snores.
you must also ask if there is a situation or crisis going on in their lives right at the moment (they don’t have to say what it is, just a yes or no) and if it will make them
angry =snapping, shouting, banging doors/other stuff/breaking things
depressed= crying loud, moping around that would cause them to neglect dishes, laundry(as in it would become YOUR job), bills
and if that crisis would mean a person would be after them, calling non stop or try to break in.
and of course, many many other things…
In my experience the most important issues with a roommate are:
1. Cleanliness: this does not mean they have to be super neat. It means you must both have the several neatness tolerances. If you’re naturally neat, you don’t want someone who never picks up after themselves. Conversely, if you’re pretty casual about dishes and such, you don’t want someone hassling you everytime you leave a glass on the table.
2. Noise/Hours: you need to have similar interests in terms of when you go to sleep, and what an acceptable noise level is. Again, you don’t want someone super quiet if you yourself like listening to music and having friends over a lot.
3. Financial reliability: make sure they have a job and a history of paying bills on time. Nothing sucks worse than constantly having to badger roommates for money.