« Light up My Room. | Main | Lean On It. »
January 14, 2005
Can't Live with Them.
Can you talk about or give advice for decorating with roommates? Like for example in my house there are three of us and although we are all nice people it's hard to get people to agree/do things your way/compromise--it's just even hard to get started, so we have a spare room with nothing in it, and our living room is also really empty by default.
And a related, smaller problem: how do I broach the topic of wanting my male roommate to take his Nintendo stuff and put it in the closet when he's not using it, considering he uses it maybe once a week (if that) yet it is always sitting on the floor?
All the roommates I've had in the past were pretty stubborn, and I didn't like most of their decor taste... One was a total slob in shared areas, and another filled the apartment with hideous furniture (like a gold velour suburban nightmare 1970s armchair that clashed with everything in the entire universe. I am still not over it.) and tons of knicknacky clutter. This same roommate would select & buy big expensive things out on her own. Ugly expensive things. Like rugs.
And then she'd ask me to pay for half.
Hey everyone! Don't do that. Unless all parties have agreed to this arrangement, pre-purchase. You don't want every apartment move to be like a divorce, wherein your roommate demands her $19.50 back for half of the blender. I think splitting the cost of shared items is a really bad idea in any context, unless perhaps you are married to the person. If you haven't committed to live with them forever, splitting stuff creates problems down the road.
It's better to say, "Hey, I am providing the TV (or whatever), can you provide a microwave?" That way when someone moves out, they just take their stuff, and there are no awkward conversations about who owes whom $14.95 plus tax for half of the wineglasses.
/end rant
Sorry about that.
Anyway, back to your question. You are way more justified in yelling at your roommates to clean up than in, say, yelling at them for having different/no/bad taste. You have the right to walk through your living room without accidentally sticking your toes into a week-old milky cereal bowl, but you don't have the right to force your roommates into replacing perfectly fine shelves because they don't match your table or whatever.
So there was very little I could do about the conflicting taste of my roommates without disrespecting the fact that these ladies paid a portion of the rent. I just pouted a lot, mostly. And held it inside. And then I decided to live alone for a year, reveling in the fact that I GOT TO MAKE ALL DECOR DECISIONS IN MY KINGDOM. I was a little lonely, but I never had to share the couch or look at someone's weird collection of religious icons.
With my boyfriend, sometimes I'll kindly provide him with a solution (usually some sort of storage paid for by me) to eliminate or fix the thing I hate. That way everyone wins. What if you bought your male roommate a nice canvas-covered box or some sort of lidded basket to keep his gaming controllers in? That way, the stuff can sort of stay out & near the TV, but you don't have to look at it. Is that fair?
As far as filling up your empty spaces, that is clearly a larger issue. If it really bothers you and you can get at least one of your roommates to back you up, then you should just get it started on your own. Share your plans with all your roommates, take their suggestions, answer their questions, accept their vetoes with a grain of salt, and if they're totally unexcited or ambivalent, pay for & execute the changes yourself. If the ideas are good ones, usually they'll love the end result.
That's what always happens in my apartment. He'll go, "Ew. I don't know." Then I build it/make it/move it and he's all "Oooooh, it's so nice!"
Ask Apartmentalist is a weekly advice column. It'll appear here every Friday. Do you have a question about your living space? Email Lara@apartmentalist.com.
Posted by Lara at January 14, 2005 08:55 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.apartmentalist.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Can't Live with Them.:
» free online poker from free online poker
Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts. by texas hold'em [Read More]
Tracked on February 20, 2005 10:21 AM
» internet poker from internet poker
I think that the Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum – you can’t understand English literature and culture without it. But insofar as theology studies the nature [Read More]
Tracked on March 8, 2005 08:28 PM
» poker from poker
In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back be [Read More]
Tracked on March 12, 2005 01:46 PM
» tattoo flash from tattoo flash
tattoo flash [Read More]
Tracked on August 6, 2005 06:28 AM
» real estate appraisal from real estate appraisal
real estate appraisal [Read More]
Tracked on August 23, 2005 12:16 PM
» real estate appraisal from real estate appraisal
real estate appraisal [Read More]
Tracked on August 24, 2005 12:36 PM
» diamonds from diamonds
diamonds Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fr [Read More]
Tracked on August 26, 2005 05:13 AM
» commercial real estate appraisal from commercial real estate appraisal
commercial real estate appraisal [Read More]
Tracked on September 7, 2005 07:32 AM
Comments
Hey I really like your site.
online casinos
Posted by: online casinos at May 28, 2005 07:10 PM
poker The philosophic thesis that all knowledge is ultimately founded in experience has in the end led to a postulate concerning the logical clarification of any statement about nature. Such a postulate may have seemed justified in the period of classical physics, but since quantum theory we have learned that it cannot be fulfilled.
Posted by: poker at September 4, 2005 12:35 AM