Roommate Living

As many of you know my oldest is off to college. We had hoped she would have stayed home and commuted. However she wanted the “college experience” and lives withing walking distance to their school. At first we had looked into residence on the campus for her. We went on a few tours and filled out the roommate compatibility questionare.  The questions were about personality and taste. It is the schools way of matching up students who are likely to get along. Some of the units in the student housing were for two students, some four. This concerned my daughter a bit. She was not really interested in being matched up with possibly three strangers.


Over the summer many of my daughters friends told her they were getting an apartment. A few even asked her to live with them. She decided to lease an apartment with a friend she has had for a few years. Her way of thinking was 1. she already knows and likes her 2. They trust eachother . 3 They are friends, what could go wrong? At the same time they can share cost and have independence. Well they are just over a month into living together and some “wrong” things have happened

  1. roommates friends have eaten DDs groceries
  2. roommates cat makes a mess and roommate does not want to clean it up
  3. DD is now realizing she is allergic to cats
  4. someones portion of the rent was late (not DDs) a notice was served
  5. DDs roommate does not do dishes, cleaning or much else

Since it has only been a month, I told my daughter the following.

Everyone is raised differently. It will take some time to adjust to living with each other. Give her a chance,  communication is most important. All else fails, leave sticky notes as reminders

Since they are both on different schedules and often my daughter is not around. She has put a lock on her bedroom door. this is not to keep the roommate out, but her friends. After all it is better to avoid a problem than have one. Many of these problems are minor. They are easily resolved with communication. My daughter is a very independent person. She has always been the “grown up” and is responsible. She is a good cook too. Being the oldest of four she helped me often with chores around the house. She called me the other day and I asked her how the Roommate living was going. She said “I left a reminder note asking for dishes to be done and the bathroom cleaned”. When she got home the things she mentioned on the list were done. No argument and they were both happy.

When she gets stressed (which seems less often) I just remind her she could have stayed home 🙂 Then I tell her about real roommate problems, like the ones I had. I believe they both just need to find their groove and adjust from  living with parents. especially when some parents baby their kids and do EVERYTHING for them. This does not help the kids (teens) It is our job as parents to prepare them for the world and to leave the nest. My fingers re crossed that they do well together for the rest of the year.

So tell me, have you had roommates? Any problems you would like to share?

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