How To Get Along With Your Housemates

When you are a student, moving into shared accommodation with people you have never met before can be extremely daunting. Even though most enjoy the experience and make friends for life, a clash of standards and lifestyles can lead to arguments. To put these worries to rest, we have produced a helpful set of rules that will help ensure you get along with your housemates and minimise clashes where possible.

Our top tips on how to get along with housemates

1. Bring something to share

When you first move into your house share, be sure to bring something you can share with your flatmates. Food is always good for this, such as a big tub of chocolates or baked goods. Bonus points if you can cook or bake something from scratch. It can bring people together, help strike up conversations, and get housemates on your side almost immediately!

2. Establish rules around having people over

It’s common for people to want their friends and partners to stay over during term time, so it’s worth having a conversation with your housemates and establishing some rules around this. For example, you may not want that one boyfriend staying over every day of the week if they aren’t contributing towards the utility bills. Especially if you aren’t even keen on them!

Establishing some rules early on will ensure that everyone is on the same page, decreasing the chance of resentment building up. This will hopefully solidify the relationship you have with your housemates!

3. Set privacy boundaries

Being introduced to a group of new people can be overwhelming, and it is perfectly acceptable to want your own space. To ensure you feel more comfortable around your housemates, have a lock on your bedroom door; if not, ask the landlord to fit one.

It is good to set ground rules as early as possible, so as soon as you move in, be sure to ask everyone to knock before entering your room. If you have a communal bathroom, it might also be worth creating a schedule to avoid embarrassing moments.

4. Have a cleaning rota

Arguments can break out between students due to disagreements about cleaning. The natural balance of housemates when living in a shared home means there is often that one person who leaves their dirty dishes in the sink until mould takes over, and someone who tends to pick up all of the slack. However, this could be easily avoided if a simple cleaning rota is organised to ensure everyone puts in just as much effort and cleans up after themselves.

6. Plan weekly food shops and group meals

Doing group supermarket shops and batch-meal cooking is a great way to save time and create a social environment in the house. If you decide to do all of your cooking and shopping separately, it might be useful to organise who gets access to the kitchen at certain times.

7. Plan some fun activities

A great way to get along with your housemates is to bond over an activity. You could plan a café trip, a gym sesh, a games night, or an evening with a particular society – whatever takes your fancy. Getting chatting over an activity provides a perfect way to get to know each other better (and hopefully get along!).

And don’t think that your activity has to break the bank. There are many ways to stay on budget whilst having fun. For example, instead of spending all night in an expensive cocktail bar, you could all partake in some good old-fashioned pre-drinking!* Plus, some of these student discounts might give you a few ideas!

*Split The Bills promotes responsible drinking. Alcohol products are for ages 18+ only.

8. Consider everyone’s schedules

It isn’t uncommon to be thrown together with people you wouldn’t normally socialise with within student accommodation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But this can be an extremely irritating situation if it disrupts your sleep. If not dealt with quickly, it can lead to a tense environment, which could turn into a heated argument. Just by being honest about your feelings, the situation could be swiftly defused before it escalates.

If you have conflicting schedules and some house members aren’t coming home until the early hours because they may do shift work part-time to help pay for their course, it might be useful to invest in some earplugs.

9. Be respectful

It may sound obvious, but respecting your housemates and their belongings will go a long way. The last thing you want is to become the person who is always stealing everyone’s food in the middle of the night and using their pots and pans without asking. Anybody doing this will quickly build a reputation as inconsiderate, which will most likely lead to an uncomfortable living situation. Setting clear boundaries at the beginning is the best way to make sure everybody else shows mutual respect for one another.

10. Split your bills equally

If you have only lived with family before becoming a student, being responsible for your own bills can be a massive shock to the system. To avoid paying too much or getting hit with a surprise cost, you must read the fine print when researching the utility companies you might use. An excellent way to organise the outgoing payments is to set up a monthly transfer into one person’s bank account or create a joint account.

However, it can be very confusing to calculate how much everybody owes. Many people thinking about sharing a house worry that others might drag their feet over paying their share. To ensure the responsibility doesn’t fall on one person, online bill splitting tools like Split The Bills can help divide payments of water, broadband, energy, and more, into one simple monthly payment for each person, reducing stress dramatically.

Ready to minimise tension in the house and start getting along with your flatmates?

Discover how our packages can streamline your uni house experience. Have a question? Don’t hesitate to get in touch today!

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