We know that managing a shared space can be difficult, especially when looking to keep your space clean. We also understand that different roommates may have different standards of cleanliness. Below are some tips and resources available to you to help with this challenge:
- Communicate early and often
- It’s important to have an early conversation about what your expectations are
- Talk about how you can communicate issues, so the communication may not be perceived as aggressive or passive aggressive.
- Your roommate(s) cannot read your mind, so share how you are feeling
- Come up with a plan
- There are lots of options that may work for many sets of residents
- Cleaning charts – assign tasks that individuals are responsible for
- Cleaning rotations – take turns so nobody has to always to the tasks nobody wants to do.
- Assigns tasks to days and establish routine
- Write it down
- It’s always best to keep you and your roommate(s) accountable to a plan by writing it down – that way you have something to refer to and nobody forgets.
- Create a shared document online!
- Utilize your roommate agreement provided by housing!
- Use one of the cleaning agreements for Health and Safety Inspections or Move-out.
- Apartments
- Suite
- Traditional
- Ask for help!
- Sometimes you just need a third party to help you and your roommate see eye to eye on an issue. Your RA or HD can be there as a resource to help facilitate this conversation and provide un-biased feedback to you and your roommate(s) about your plan to keep your apartment clean.