Texan Mosaic

Story & Photos By Trista Stanley

     Imagine this: You step into your home expecting an oasis. Instead, you are greeted with mountains of laundry and dishes. And the worst part is, it is not even yours.

     Sound familiar? It is not that uncommon for someone to find themselves living with a messy partner or roommate. And it might not be easy to figure out how to deal with it.

     “You need to set some good boundaries,” says Peggy Skinner, SPC professor of psychology. “If it is a roommate, it usually means it is going to be temporary. But you need to establish ‘Ok this is your part of the room, and this is my part of the room’ because you do not have any control over that other person.”

     Skinner says an annoying roommate is typically easy enough to get out of.

     “But if it is a partner,” she says, “it is a whole different story. Part of that may be, before you even become partners, you need to see how they live. And usually, you will see how that other person is.”

Skinner offers certain strategies or techniques for how to communicate or resolve roommate conflicts.

     “Typically, if you are going to talk to that person about what you need to do,” she says, “it is often people who teach communications call it ‘high messages.’ So, you do not go in saying, ‘You made a mess,’ but say ‘I really like my space being clean.’ That way you are not putting blame.”

     Tess Thurston, a full-time SPC student who is on the rodeo team, said she and her roommate live in a tiny space and manage to keep it clean.  She says the two of them communicate well, so if something bothers them one of them will speak up about it.

     But Thurston and her roommate may be lucky they communicate so well.

     Skinner suggests roommates who struggle with communication should not resort to name calling but ask “Can we talk about this?” And, she says, do not do this when they have come home from work or are in a bad mood.

      Joanna Perez, a licensed professional counselor at SPC, said having roommates for the first time can be tough for some college students.

     “Learning to live with a stranger takes a lot of communication and patience,” she said. “Setting boundaries and having good communication is key.”

   Perez says new roommates might try discussing a cleaning chore schedule and determine who will do what and how often. Another plan, she says is even signing a roommate agreement to keep everyone accountable.

     Thurston says she and her roommate have a schedule. She says they dedicate a day of the week to doing chores, usually Sunday. “We usually do all the laundry that day and all the vacuuming and wiping and dishes,” she says.

     She also said for both of them to stay happy there are different jobs they do not really like doing.  For instance, Thurston said she is not a huge fan of doing the dishes. She says her roommate, Austin, is good at negotiating with her and suggesting ways that they will each be accountable.

     If communication is not working and roommates are unable to improve a situation themselves, it may be time for more drastic measures.

     “You can reach out to your resident advisor (RA),” Peres says. “It may be beneficial to get outside help.”

     A quick Google search shows some apartment complexes offer advice for how to deal with messy roommates on their websites.  For instance, Forest Pointe Apartments in Grand Rapids, Michigan, posted “10 Tips to Help You Deal with a Messy Roommate.”

     Number one on the list is “Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.” The last is called, “It may be time to close the door.”

     It warns that sometimes roommates are “going in blind” when they go to college and the school matches them with who they’ll live with.  In that case, the site writes, if there is an extreme case, moving out may be difficult, but it is possibly “the only choice you have.”

     The fact is, while your home may be your own oasis, if you share the space

with someone  else, it’s their oasis too.  Everyone has different habits. 

     Isabelle, a travel writer for Education First, an international educational organization, writes

her own “12 tips to get along with your roommates” advice list on EF.edu.   She

points out living with roommates can be incredibly fun and rewarding.  

     “After all,” she writes, “it could be the beginning of wonderful friendships and those great stories that you will tell to your grandchildren. But just like all good things in life, it usually takes compromises and patience to make it work.”