Bring your own toilet paper:’ roommate agreements after midterms
When the fall semester at Utah State University started, Chandrelyn Kraczek, an undeclared freshmen, didn’t know who her roommates were.
She found herself rooming with five other girls who were already friends before the school year started, she said.
As the semester progressed, she and her roommates had grown close to the point where they can joke around and be friends, she said.
Now two months into the school year, where class schedules have been set and midterms have passed by, the strangers in the dorm room are not so strange anymore.
“We get along pretty well,” said Landon Jensen, a student in biological engineering. “We all have similar interests and I think we’re just compatible in that way and we’re all kind of aware of what kind of needs to happen for things to work.”
Jensen and his roommates share the responsibilities of paying for utilities, cleaning the apartment, and doing the dishes, he said.
“We don’t have, like, a set up of chores or things that we’ve set apart,” Jensen said, “we just kind of pitch in when we can.”
An important aspect of living with other people in the same apartment is being courteous of others, he said, and to realize what’s important to someone when it comes to their living environment and how it may differ compared to others.
Sometimes, those differences between roommates can cause disagreements and conflict — such as cleaning the room or doing the dishes — which is the major source of conflict in his apartment, Jensen said.
Kraczek said the best way to solve a disagreement is by talking it out.
“If you have a problem, talk to the person ‘cause, like, beating around the bush never helped anything,” she said.
A way to prevent disagreements can be to set guidelines for the apartment or form a roommate agreement.
“If you’re not getting along with your roommates,” said Carson Manser, a freshman in computer science, “I recommend getting a written agreement so you have some kind of binding thing that you can all abide by and that will keep everyone in check.”
Manser said he and his roommates adopted a “bring your own toilet paper” policy. This includes everything from shampoo to food and means that everyone in the apartment uses their own supplies instead of sharing or using someone else’s.
“That came from the first week, that all the stuff that we had brought for everyone to use just kind of vanished,” he said, “and so we decided to use our own stuff so no one got mad about what they paid money for disappearing before they could use it.”
Respecting boundaries and roommates belongings is an implied rule that Kraczek’s apartment follows too, in a “don’t eat my food and I won’t eat your food” policy, Kraczek said.
Setting down a written agreement can increase communication between roommates and clarify what needs to be done when and how, Jensen said.
“I think we each have like different ideas of what is ideal in our living environment,” he said, “but we all have different upbringings and different ideas and different expectations and when those aren’t met and when it’s crunch time, it’s stressful, that could be just frustrating.”
Manser agrees, and said that a roommate agreement can also help prevent time conflicts, especially when more than one person is trying to get ready in the morning.
“Writing out who’s going to shower at what time is important, so that whoever slept in that morning gives the right of way to whoever has that time slot.” he said.
Whether implied or written, having a set of guidelines and rules within an apartment setting can help solve problems when they arise, Kraczek said.
“See what they want,” Jensen said ” ‘cause maybe you’re not going to be best friends, but maybe it’s more of a ‘I want to make sure that we’re on the same page of our living environment’ and stuff and at least you can get along if you’re not best friends.”
— miranda.lorenc@gmail.com, or @miranda_lorenc