Shared house: how does everyone else manage?

chappers

liz545 wrote: »

there's always the hide your belongings/sabotage route.

Sabotage now I like that idea.

Now the cleaner idea is a good one we rented a house back in the eighties where the LL provided us a cleaner for a couple of hours a week( cleaned all common areas) and a gardener once a week to cut the lawn.Think we each paid an extra £15 a month on our rent in the summer and £10 in the winter.It worked out great the cleaner loved us she looked on us as her long lost sons, used to bring us round homemade cakes and stuff. It also inspired us to keep the place abit tidier in between her visits.

It is hard house sharing but it does have it's rewards I have made some lifelong friends from when I was house sharing, it's all about finding like minded people to share with.

Pez2

Jen_L wrote: »

Should I ask the LL to chair it, I could do it but know that I would likely end up being disliked by everyone as I would be really fair so its better if some impartial does it...

It's generally not your landlord's responsibility to deal with these kind of things, and you could just end up annoying him by bringing him into it.

You just have to stick up for yourself and be straight with them. You might not win any popularity contests but what's more important to you, being liked by all of them or having a nice house?

LillyJ

When I lived in shared house I hated every minute (did it for 3 years).

But to sort the milk issue, I bought one lot of goats milk, then topped it up with normal milk when it was empty. No one ever stole it again!!!!!:beer:

I used to hate getting up in the morning to be unable to make a cup of tea as there was no milk. I cannot cope without tea in the morning.

As for the washing up, I never got around this one, it is a losing battle. I once got to the end of my tether and put all the dirty crockery in a bin bag and put it in my housemates bedroom. It took her 2 days to notice.



As for washing in the machine, I just put that in bin bags too if it was left for a long time (once it was there a fortnight).

For the TV, not much you can do there either, other than walk in and say "oooh I have been really looking forward to watching xxxxx" and then pick up the remote and turn it over, with a really excited look on your face. It will confuse them and they probably won't protest.

With the bathroom, you will have to make a rota, although it doesn't always work, and people complain that they have had a busy week etc.

Try asking for 2 quid off each housemate in order to pay for cleaning stuff for bathroom, they probably won't refuse if you embarass them into it!



One more (non money-saving!) suggestion - have you considered a cleaner? Between 5 of you, if you had somone for 2 hours once a fortnight, it would cost you less than £2 a week each, and I know for my cousin this was the thing that stopped her going insane when she shared. They just did the communal areas eg lounge and kitchen, and meant that the house got a good old clean every fortnight, making it less of a chore the rest of the time.

I know money is tight with pretty much everyone at the moment, but it might be worth a thought if it saves your mental state! You will be able to afford it on the money you save on subsidising college student's milk!

GOod luck

EDIT Sorry just read the rest of the thread and realised someone has come up with the cleaner suggestion already!

LillyJ

youonlygetonelife wrote: »

I think that the age of the student maybe the problem. 17 yrs is very young; for this day and age, to be living in a shared house.

I was 17 when I first lived in a shared house, you cannot let her get away with it because of that!!! She is old enough to be able to do the washing up and needs a kick up the backside.

I was not like this at that age when I shared, and am still friends with my housemates from one year, and they would have told me if I was.

top_drawer_2

chappers wrote: »

I very much doubt your LL will want to get involved in your house squabbles I would suggest you and the other willing person get together and as was said arrange a meeting where you can all air your gripes.

Im worried though that we will end up being cast out as the Moaning flatmates and it will cause endless amounts of tension. I am thinking that a conversation with each of them might work in terms of the bin/kitchen. But if that doesnt work then maybe involve the LL. I know its not ideal but with such a mixed bunch of people living together its difficult to negotiate with them all - he actually rang me to ask whether the willing flatmates accusations re probs when we first moved in were true.

With the TV I am considering proposing a booking system by which each person can book out tv time to watch a programme but as its only us whose bothered and then having the tv switched off the rest of the time then I am worried about being cast out again by the other two....this would stop the endless hours of hogging the tv but seems petty when no-one else actually wants to watch it/no-one else is in the house etc and it would mean I too could sit and watch mindless rubbish while I eat my dinner or to relax.

I can also mention the milk situation to the college student and possibly re her attitude that she is somehow entitled to not be totally responsible for herself. If that doesnt work then dyeing it green worked well at uni!

I would love to get a cleaner in, not sure the others would see a problem though.

I wanted to avoid living with the LL as I would hate it that I couldnt treat my home as my home but that I was basically a paying guest - also I would have seriously fewer rights too.

I am also going to make up a list of jobs which need to be done and tick sheets to show who is doing what... I think the 17 year old is possibly a little less than motivated and just doesnt think or maybe I can shame people into doing jobs.

Jen

Mac_Sami

Milk: Just ask the student if she would like to chip some money in for the milk now that you both share it. Even suggest that everyone in the house shares the milk and chips a bit in now and then. If your first reaction to this is to worry that someone might use more milk than you, so it's not fair, then get real and get a grip. It's a few pints of milk, for god's sake - not a £100 bottle of champagne.

TV: Just ask the student if it's okay for you to watch a particular programme.

Bin: If the bin is repeatedly full, empty it when you're happy to, and just politely ask someone else to empty it e.g. you're on your way out and just noticed that the bin needed doing, or ask someone to give you a hand to do it i.e. they will then realise that it needs doing, and hopefully pick up on that - without any nagging.

Sink: Slightly more difficult. How about offering to cook for your housemates one night? They could help with the cooking and washing up after, if they liked. Again, no nagging, and hopefully they'll pick up that they need to help out a little more.

Washing: Some of us are busy in life. We work antisocial hours, and sometimes have more important things on our mind which means we forget that others are around, or forget to put our clean washing away. Just put it in a neat pile somewhere . Okay, so this might be annoying after a while of having to do this, and you may feel it's not your job, but I personally don't see it as an issue, simply because in our house we all do it anyway.

Cleaning: Thankfully we have a cleaner, but because I get on socially with my housemates, we take the !!!! out of something that's particularly dirty, which then prompts someone to suggest that we should clean it. No hassle, a bit of a laugh, no problems.

The biggest two problems I can see are socialising and communication. You don't seem to socialise with your housemates, and you don't seem to communicate much with them. I have issues in my houseshare, and I'm the cause of some of them I'm sure! But because we get on socially, we learn to live with each other's habits, and have a good time. When we have issues - such as someone doesn't wash up, so there's nothing clean left to use to cook with - one of us will be polite about it, in a joking sort of way, it gets sorted and everyone's happy.

If you sat down and had a chat with them (about anything!), had a few drinks once in a while etc, chances are you'd make friends with them, and suddenly when it comes to asking them to empty a bin, it's not a stranger asking them to do a chore, it's a friend asking for a quick favour. Granted, not everyone gets on - but we all have to make allowances, and I'm not saying they have to be your best buddies.

Have you considered that some of your actions and behaviours might wind up your housemates in the same way they do to you? Booking the TV sounds draconian - it's a houseshare, not a prison camp.

top_drawer_2

hello,

Thank you for your perspective. Maybe the advice would be relevant/useful if you had read my original post properly. I am not going to repeat myself and get involved in an arguement about it, I live in the house in question and I know the context of all the problems which you havent been able to pick up - I cant state every tiny detail although I have done my best.

Jen

top_drawer_2

Thanks to everyone for some excellent advice - we will be acting on some of the ideas which are suitable for the household in the next week or so.

Jen

liz545

Jen, there's no need to get worked up - Mac's post seems fairly reasonable to me. In answer to your post's title, most successful houseshares work where the tenants communicate with each other and try and socialise. If you skip the part where you get to know each other and do stuff together, and go straight to leaving notes and rotas, you'll never get along. Seriously, why not suggest that you cook for everyone or go to the pub or something?

Mac_Sami

Jen_L wrote: »

hello,

Thank you for your perspective. Maybe the advice would be relevant/useful if you had read my original post properly. I am not going to repeat myself and get involved in an arguement about it, I live in the house in question and I know the context of all the problems which you havent been able to pick up - I cant state every tiny detail although I have done my best.

Jen

All I have done is picked each of your issues you stated, provided resolutions for them (which basically involve socializing and communication), and suggested that you implement them. I've not said that you should become best friends with these people, but that you should learn to tolerate and understand that not everyone works, thinks and acts in the same way as you. Some people need politely showing that things need to be cleaned, and by being sociable and friendly, it's far easier to get this message across.

Apologies if I've missed something, but nobody's arguing. Perhaps I touched a nerve when I suggested that you may be causing some of the issues in the house. I'm not saying that you are causing these problems - but if you keep telling someone who's distant from you to do things, I can't see how that will help. Get to know them, and it might be easier.

Best of luck with resolving the issues.