The Best Tips For How To Deal With Messy Roommates
A good roommate can be hard to come by!
If you’ve had the traditional college experience, you may already know this.
While roommates can be beneficial in many ways, they can also be hard to handle.
If you’re wondering how to deal with messy roommates, you’re probably facing the latter.
Living with a messy roommate, especially if you’re the total opposite, is a stressful situation to be in.
No one wants to come home after a long day only to find out they have to clean up after their roommate.
Not only can a messy home have negative effects on your mental health, but it also causes you to waste unnecessary time cleaning up.
Luckily, just like any other relationship in your life, there are a few steps you can take to try to work things out and avoid having to change your living situation.
How to Deal With Messy Roommates
Although there are different ways to approach the situation, the best approach is to start small and escalate as needed.
Check out the useful tips below to help fix the situation.
Understand Their Perspective
The first step in addressing someone’s actions (or lack thereof) is to try to get a sense of where they’re coming from.
You and your roommate are different people with different backgrounds, personalities, and priorities.
Understanding the reasons your roommate might not prioritize keeping your living space clean is an important step to figuring out how to approach the conversation about necessary changes.
If you’re close with your roommate, you might already know these things.
You may know that he/she is overwhelmed, depressed, distracted, or just plain lazy.
If you don’t know what’s happening, start observing and asking questions.
Have a Conversation
Once you feel like you have an idea of what might be going on, it’s time to have an honest conversation with your roommate.
Approaching this carefully is important because pointing fingers can cause your roommate to become defensive and shut down.
Although it may be a difficult conversation to have, it’s better to have it early on to ensure you have a peaceful home.
Think about how you’ll phrase things before you begin:
- “I’m feeling overwhelmed by how messy our home is all the time. Would you mind if we worked together to figure out a way to keep it clean?”
- “I like to take my shoes to my closet when I take them off. I noticed you leave yours by the door. Do you think we need a shoe rack by the door?”
- “It seems like things have been staying messy around here. What do you think about making a cleaning schedule for us to follow?”
- “If you want to put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher when you’re done with them, I’ll be in charge of unloading them when they’re clean.”
Using words like “we” and “us” will feel less accusatory and are likely to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.
Although it is a way to set rules, it doesn’t seem so authoritative.
Pointing out that the way the two of you do things is different, not necessarily right or wrong, but maybe there’s some way you can compromise is a good neutral approach too.
Set Expectations
We always have to remember that our way is not the only way and it’s not the best way in everyone’s eyes.
The thing about expectations is that everyone’s are different.
Your acceptable level of cleanliness may be closer to neat freak, which is obviously different than your roommate’s, and it’s not likely that you’re going to change their opinion.
Instead of setting your expectations, you’ll need to reach reasonable expectations for the two of you together.
For instance, if your roommate wants to keep their personal space a mess, that’s their right, so long as their personal belongings don’t end up in shared areas (kitchen sink, etc.).
However, you will want to come to an agreement on ground rules for any common spaces.
This will be a different story if you’re in a shared space and don’t have separate spaces at all, such as a dorm room.
Close quarters like this where you each just have your side of the room, is a tougher situation to deal with.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t come to an agreement.
Clear boundaries up front will make this much easier.
For example, you can agree to keep all dirty clothes in a hamper and not on the floor.
Common areas like dorm rooms, a living room, or a shared bathroom are important to set expectations for.
Make a Plan
If your roommate agrees to work together to maintain a clean house, don’t just leave it at that.
It will be easy for he/she to just forget about the conversation.
It’s a good idea to come up with a plan so you both have assigned household chores.
Both of you should probably agree to keep your own belongings in your own space, either in your bedroom or on your side of the dorm room.
Agree on what you’ll do with things like dirty laundry, dirty dishes, shoes at the door, and any things specific to your living situation with your roommate.
The good news is that a simple conversation is sometimes all it takes.
After that, you’ll want to discuss some sort of chore list for regular cleaning.
You may even want to consider brief but regular meetings to make sure no changes are needed.
Clear expectations are easy to set and make reminding your roommate about chores in a polite way a lot easier!
Chore Chart
A chore chart can be made to specifically assign tasks to each of you.
Chore charts are a proven and effective way to keep organized and on track and are probably the best option if you only see your roommate in passing.
You could split tasks evenly that each of you will do regularly, or take turns on specific tasks that no one enjoys, like cleaning the bathroom, so it feels fair.
Cleaning Schedule
Creating a cleaning schedule might be right for you and your roommate if they are reliable and willing to put in the work, but just need a little reminder.
A cleaning schedule can just be a list of tasks that need to be completed each day with no specific assignment to either of you.
This approach might feel a little less parent-like and might go over a little bit better with your roommate.
Just make sure you think your roommate will take responsibility for this schedule along with you.
You don’t want to have to go back and start assigning names to tasks later because that can cause more stress between the two of you.
Try to think ahead to any possible problems that could come up to prevent creating strong rifts with your roommate that will be difficult to repair.
Cleaning Day
Just like regular cleaning, chores should be shared, and the whole house deep cleaning should be shared too!
If you’re both doing regular cleaning tasks, this doesn’t have to be weekly.
However often you agree on, set a date on a specific day that works for both of you to spend a few hours cleaning everything from top to bottom.
Alternatively, if you live in a space with several people, hiring a cleaning service to do this task once a month might be a good idea.
If there are enough of you, splitting up the cost might be worth the headache!
Choose Your Battles
Your roommate’s messy habits aren’t just going to miraculously disappear after your conversation, no matter how much planning you do.
Even if you managed to find some common ground, make a cleaning checklist, and set clear boundaries and expectations, they are still probably going to need some time, patience, and gentle reminders to hold up their end of the deal.
Give Them An Ultimatum
We all want a harmonious living environment, but as a last resort, you may need to go for more extreme solutions.
Ongoing roommate conflicts about anything, but especially something like the importance of cleanliness is just not something most people want to live with.
If your roommate isn’t working with you, it might be time to have the next awkward conversation and present an ultimatum.
If you live in a dorm room, this might mean getting the resident advisor involved.
If you live in a residential home or apartment, your roommate might consider a self storage unit for all of their belongings that they just can’t seem to keep organized.
Worst-case scenario, it might mean it’s time to ditch your messy housemate and find a new place of your own or a new roommate.
If your roommate’s messiness just doesn’t improve and you don’t have a roommate agreement to uphold that you can’t get out of, then this might be your best bet.
Conclusion
Approaching the subject of cleanliness with a messy or dirty roommate will probably be uncomfortable.
However, in most cases, you’ll probably be able to get them to see the importance of a joint effort to keep your home clean.
Take your time to make sure that you don’t make things worse with your approach and always make sure you are only expecting your roommate to do their fair share without setting unrealistic expectations.
A chore chart is a great way to stick to a specific schedule that works for everyone.
Hopefully, with these steps, your issues will be easily resolved.
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