How to Avoid Sucky Roommates in College

By Amanda Brown

Finding a good roommate is tricky, because it doesn’t matter how well you know someone, it’s hard to tell what it’s like living with that person.

Chances are we’ve all heard (or experienced firsthand) our fair share of roommate horror stories. You know, like the roommate that puts the if it’s yellow let it mellow slogan into practice on the reg, or leaves a healthy residue of hair around the shower after shaving. Sometimes you get stuck in sucky roommate situations, but I think we all can agree that you’re better off if you can avoid it before you’re locked into a lease. Here are a few tips to save you from a sucky roommate before you find yourself stuck with one.

Give it a test run

Before you room with someone try living with them for a week and see how it goes. It’s hard to know what you’re in for by only meeting your potential roomie over coffee. Invite them to stay with you for a week or vice versa to get an idea of what it will be like living together.

Find roommates through friends

It’s easy to go through Facebook or Craigslist to find a roommate, but it’s hard to really know what it will be like living with this person. Search for roommates through friends that know someone who’s looking for a place and who they lived with in the past. Talking to friends to find people they roomed with in the past gives you the inside scoop on what it’s actually like to live with so-and-so. A friend will be the one to tell you if they slacked on paying rent on time or treated their apartment like a revolving-door.

Be careful about rooming with your bestie

Rooming with a close friend can seem like a grand plan. You go way back and hangout so much that you pretty much live with each other as it is. Why not room together? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

You can know someone really well and get along great, but if you have different lifestyles, and fail to respect each other, living together can get ugly very quickly. Respect is essential if you do room with a close friend. Make sure you guys have mutual respect for each other beforehand. Don’t assume that just because you’re homies it’s no big deal to be a little late on the rent one month or slack on picking up after yourself. It can be hard to come back from a sucky roommate situation with a close friend.

Make sure your lifestyles match

This is a big one. Make sure you and your potential roommate have compatible lifestyles.

If one person’s a clean freak and the other has cleaning standards that are a little lax, it will be hard to find a middle ground. Or if you’re someone who likes being alone and your roommate loves having people over, that’s another tough situation. Find a roommate who’s on the same page as you to avoid the drama that comes with conflicting lifestyles.

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