Tag Archives: room mates

Living With a Room Mate

Having successfully survived the year without killing my room mate (or being killed by her :P), I feel like now would be a good time to reflect upon what it’s like to live with a room mate.

I think it’s important to say that Christie and I don’t share a room, so I can’t comment on what it’s like to have that kind of room mate, but we do share a kitchen, living room, and bathroom.

Christie and I have gotten along very well over the past eight months, which I attribute to two main factors: a) we were good friends before moving in together, and b) we have similar personalities.

Both of us are pretty quiet people, so noise has never been an issue. She likes to shower in the morning, I like to shower at night. We’re both good at having open lines of communication so that things which could potentially turn into problems are dealt with before it gets to that point.

Living with another person has also made me learn about myself: I never new how neat I was until I was sharing a space with another person. Christie is… not as neat as I am, but she’s been doing a really good job of being as neat as she can manage, and I’m doing a good job of letting it go if things aren’t always as pristine as they could be. Originally, we had a cleaning policy of “clean up the mess right after you make it,” but that didn’t always happen, so we made up a simple cleaning schedule, which meant one of us cleaned the counters and the other cleaned the floors on alternating weeks. We both found that a schedule was a good motivator for cleaning.

One thing I loved about having a good friend for a room mate was that if I ever wanted to talk to someone, I could just stick my head out my bedroom door, and then I could go back to studying. I loved the impromptu trips to Menchie’s or outings for Mexican food, evenings spent baking, and afternoons spent lying around and talking. I loved having a place that actually felt like home (the dorms never quite did that for me), and I loved having someone who was waiting for me to get home and caring where I was.

Overall, it’s been a great year and I’m very excited for the next one!

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Room Mates!

Okay. I am officially entirely moved in. Except for my posters, I haven’t put them up in my room yet. And my rental harp doesn’t come til tomorrow. But that’s it! Everything is out of its box and in its place. Ahhhh.

My parents leave tomorrow, and then it’ll just be me and my room mate, Christie.  Me and Christie met in Totem Park last year, where we lived on the same floor and joined the knitting club together. So, asking her to live with me this year was kind of a no-brainer and doesn’t have me stressed out at all.

Me and Christie!

However, this is both of our first times living with a room mate; we both had single rooms last year.It helps that we know each other and are friends already; I imagine moving in with someone you don’t know would be much harder.  Even so, we wrote up a room mate agreement a few days ago to make sure we don’t get on each other’s nerves too much. (Seriously though, we’re two of the most mellow people you’ll ever meet – I don’t anticipate much nerve-getting-on.)

We decided that Christie’s bed and desk (essentially her “room”) would be in the living, and I’d take the bedroom, for a couple reasons: we each get our own space, no waking up from each other’s alarms, and I’ll be renting a harp, and this way I can put it in my room and it won’t be in Christie’s way.

We talked about noise (note that we are quiet people) and basically decided that we have to respect the condo rules for quiet time, and in addition just be sensitive about if people are sleeping. That said, if someone is sleeping in until 1 PM (unlikely), the other person can just go about their business without tip-toeing. Regarding visitors, we both pretty much have the same friends, but if someone will be coming over we agreed to just send a text beforehand to give the other person a heads up.

Most of our agreement was regarding cleaning: what needs to cleaned and how often. Mostly we decided that if you make a mess, clean it up right away, and clean as you go. If you don’t make the place dirty, there will be less work less often.  We opted not to make a cleaning schedule because our lives are gonna get crazy busy crazy fast and there will be times when it’s just not gonna happen. Just as general guidelines, the kitchen should be swept once a week, the bathroom given a good scrub down about once a month (or when it needs it), etc…

Honestly, I think we’ll have a pretty good time. Our personalities line up, we already know each other, have similar sleeping habits, and very importantly have our own rooms. I imagine having a room mate in residence would be a challenge; by the end of last year I was glad I didn’t get the double room I had initially asked for. Even still, I believe a pair of room mates can get along with honest guidelines set out in the beginning, and open communications kept up after that.

 

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