Good tips. I'd also suggest asking what they do (student, administrative assistant, teacher, etc.) I serve for a catering company and sometimes don't get home until 2-3AM. I'm quiet and respectful, but not everyone is cool with someone coming home late on a fairly regular basis.

I like to make my list of material/immaterial things a roommate needs to know about me. Always been a big help!

#1 most important question to ask (especially if sharing a bathroom): What type of toilet paper do you buy? I could never live with someone who buys cheap 1-ply sandpaper.

Climate control! Do you both hate/love AC and heat? That's really the only issue I have with my roommate. She loves to have the central air on while I would much rather have all the windows open and the fans going.

I am planning to move out of my current situation to *hopefully* a private space. The tips are all useful and should be asked since you want to be comfortable wherever you choose to move to.

Seconding the cleaning habits. I spent four months once doing all of the dishes for three of us because the other two couldn't be bothered. I also had a roommate once who didn't know what an indoor voice was and screamed she was going to kill me because a banana fell out of my bag and I left it (because I didn't realize it had fallen out).

Also figure out how you stand on the AC/heat. I had a roommate once who HAD to have the AC at 77 and would stay up later than all of us to ensure that it was at that. She'd also change it to that even if someone else had put it on 76 or 78.

I'm never living with other people again. The only benefit, so far as I can see, is if you get locked out you can call them.

The last roommate I ever had would leave our front doors wide open after going on a weekend bender. We were living in the basement apartment of a brownstone, and mine had the window to the street. The second time it happened, I handed her an extra month of rent and moved promptly out. The real lesson there is if a potential roommate grills you about your cigarette/alcohol/drug use and she says she's "clean," it might be because she's a recovering party animal, and you are catching her on a temporary mend.

Oh, and the same roommate who threw the banana? Also felt like it was perfectly acceptable to leave the door unlocked. It was not fun when I had to get up at 5 AM for work to see the door open because she couldn't be bothered to see her boyfriend out and lock the door behind him.

After living with all sorts of people at school, the dishes seems to be the one unifying incendiary event in making people angry with each other, but this is what worked for us-

Assign dish days. You always do monday, wednesday, friday, they always do tuesday, thursday, saturday, whatever. Do ALL of the dishes on that day whether they're yours or not. You might luck out and have 6 dishes or you might not and have 2 sinkfuls, but when you start fresh every day, nothing has a chance to get too horrible, and no one has a chance to get too mad.
If your roommate cooked a 3 course meal on your dish day, you can kindly ask them if you can wash dishes together, and then actually wash them together. You might be in the same situation some other time.

That was the only thing that worked for us. Taking turns (without a deadline) leads to procrastination, assigning days was an easy way to just suck it up and do it.

If someone NEVER COOKS and abhors the idea they should have to split dish duty, ask them what chore they will always do instead. We had someone always take out the trash, for instance.

and Good luck :)

emcguire - i like the dish duty idea. :)

The one thing that really makes me nutty is the buying of common supplies.
I live with two dudes, and I don't know if they're just oblivious or if they just have a higher tolerance for being out of stuff, but it is incredibly irritating to be the only who buys:
garbage bags, compost bags, recycling bags, dish soap, sponges, toilet paper, paper towels, plastic wrap, etc.
We set up systems. They don't follow them. Sigh.

kickingleaves, Perhaps they should pitch in their share of $ and you buy the common supplies so at least you don't run out of things. It is a "pick your battles" type of thing.

I lived in a house with four other people at one point and we made a chore chart. Everyone scoffed at first, but at the end of the week when the kitchen was a mess we always knew who to talk to.

When I moved into a one-roommate situation, that roommate didn't want to use the chore chart and the place was always a mess.

If there are pets involved, make sure to discuss the division of cleanup. I've been in situations where the other cat owners don't clean the litter box, and I've also neglected my duties. It never ends well.

Lastly, if you're moving in with your significant other HAVE THIS CONVERSATION. My boyfriend kind of brushed this off when I tried to talk to him and the first few weeks of living together were tough. It's less awkward to confront him about dirty dishes than it was to confront a roommate, but I really wish we had ironed this stuff out BEFORE we moved in.

Live and learn!

This post really brings back memories. The dishwashing wars. The toilet paper buying wars. The food-stealing roommates. The roommates who would invite guests to stay in my room when I went away for the weekend. The day I regained my sanity & really started to live a good adult life was the day I moved into a tiny studio apartment. My own little home. It was a delicious experience.

room temperature was a big issue with my roomates. two of the girls wanted it kept on 50 in the winter to save money... I finally got them to settle on 60 (half way in between). still, it was an uncomfortable winter for me.

Along the lines of #6-Food Habits, I always ask my prospectives about *food allergies*. It's good to know if the smell of peanut butter, my fall-back breakfast staple, will cause a roommate to experience mild nausea or a full-blown epi-pen episode.

A friend of mine started screening for only children, because many seem to have an interesting sense of entitlement and never properly learned how to be considerate to equals in close, shared quarters. Her last three turned out to be only children, and this is why she will soon be living alone!

I've moved in with a stranger 3 times in my life - twice due to college, and once by choice as a college grad.
Two of those times, it was perfectly fine, and as for the other... I moved out after 6 months.

A few annoyances I keep in mind now:
- computer noises. Do they keep their AIM with Napoleon Dynamite sounds on all day and night? Can you really stand having a computer in the living room that says "Virus Definitions Have Been Updated" on a regular basis?
- Dishes, definitely, but also vacuuming, bathrooms, and bringing out the recycling and trash. The one fool-proof way I've found is a chore chart. We had one in college. Every week, a different person was in charge of keeping the kitchen, living room or bathroom tidy. This might mean doing all the dishes or hand-washing the bathtub rings, or simply folding the throw blankets on the couch.
- Leftovers. Specifically state who gets what container that's in your fridge... or don't count on having lunch at work tomorrow. I can't count the number of meals I've lost simply because I'm the last one out of bed.

#11: what do they do for a living and for how long? is their job secure? do they have savings if they lose their job? I once had a roommate who quit his job about a month after moving in, then never found another one. he fell behind in rent and it was a nightmare trying to fix the situation.

that said, I currently live in a 90% wonderful roommate situation. any grievances are minor and reminders not to stress out over the little things.

Find out if the potential roommate is one of your siblings. If the answer is yes, run the other way. It's awful people, completely and fully awful.

I'd find out what where they stand when it comes to loaning/borrowing/sharing. I am an only child, and like @smurfberry said, I have specific issues when it comes to sharing.

My philosophy is that I don't borrow your stuff and you don't borrow mine. Certain items like kitchen utensils should be shared by everyone. But I do not do borrowing and lending of clothes, bath products, food, or stuff like that.

I lived with 3 other roommates once, and we were *supposed* to take turns buying coffee for all. 3 of us would always buy the biggest container of cheap crappy stuff like Folgers, while one girl would buy tiny tins of costlier stuff like Illy. She would always drink our coffee, but when it came to be her turn in the rotation, she would throw a fit if we drank her coffee. And she was the same roommate who always borrowed clothes/used up everyone else’s bath products/ate everyone else’s food—all without asking or replacing the stuff she used up.

Roommates? No, thank you.

Coexisting or sharing with a stranger is setting yourself up for misery - If you only share with friends there are open channels of communication in place to resolve disagreements and you're are invited to one another's on-premises social gatherings.

If you split the food & cleaning supply budget (try shopping together and split the bill) there's no "stealing food".

Chore charts are juvenile: Why should I wash dishes on Wednesday when I have dinner out that night - Do we really have to rearrange a chart/schedule???

Perhaps one of you prefers to cook and the other prefers to clean? Perhaps one enjoys vacumming and the other does better with bathrooms...
...or if you both hate doing chores, hire a cleaning lady.

If you set expecations beforehand, make allowances for at one another and treat one another respectfully - you won't have problems.

@bepsf--I doubt that people who need to have roommates are going to be able to afford to hire a cleaning lady.

@foodefafa--

There's no such thing as "job security" nowadays...
...and your last roommate quit - There's no preventing someone from doing that.

If folks had abundant savings - they probably wouldn't be looking for a roommate, would they?

Goodness! All the misery associating with having roommates. I am so glad that I haven't had the pleasure (fingers crossed).

In college I rented a bedroom from a family living in a single family dwelling. I had to share the hallway bath with the homeowner's two teenagers and another bedroom renter. It was ok because I don't remember being irked often.

I could use the kitchen to cook very simple and fast meals, using the family fridge to store perishables, using their washing machine and dryer, etc.. Sometimes they even invited me to watch TV with them in the living room (not my territory).

Granted, I must tidy up the bath, kitchen, and laundry room after using. And I shall never ever assume that the real estate outside of my rented bedroom is mine to use as well.

All in all, that was $250 a month well spent.

Now a days, depending on where you live, renting a room is perhaps still the cheapest living arrangement. In Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley, one can still find a bedroom for rent for as low as $200 a month. Renting a suite (master bedroom) is more, at $300 to $400 to start.

The good thing is that if you and your landlord are well matched, it's like living as a family. You can pick up their mail while they are on vacation and watch after the house and/or the pets. You can go on vacation knowing someone will be home every night and/or help moving your car once in a while (to prevent a dead battery).

The only downside is that you probably can't have a pet. No homeowner would rent a bedroom to a pet owner so don't even bother to ask.

oh, it's definitely a lot cheaper to hire a cleaning lady than to rent a separate apartment, especially in a city like NYC or SF. When I first moved to New York I saved about $600 a month by having a roommate, so that $50 a month I spent on a cleaning lady (we had her come every other week at $50 a pop) was well worth it, as my roommate, while willing to clean up after microwaving her Lean Cuisines in the kitchen, was not familiar with how to operate a broom or a toilet bowl cleaner.

OH - also have the talk about using each other's stuff. Obviously, if it's my tv in the living room or microwave in the kitchen you're welcome to use it, but I don't feel equally sharey about my Kitchen Aid mixer.

Shoes on/off policy.

TV watching/radio listening habits.

Use of common spaces. Like, if one of you prefers to work sprawled out in the living/dining room - is the other okay with that? Do you need to collect your things each evening or can there be works-in-progress in common spaces?

Go for the private but painfully small studio apartment over the shared space any day!!! It's so worth it.

Use of common spaces should include "no sex" there. I'm sorry, but walking in on my college roommate and her partner (in MY bed) in our dorm room has annoyed me for literally decades. It's not the sex, it's the invasion of MY privacy. Find a place that isn't shared for fun and games of that sort!

I discovered after sharing a house with 50 girls in college (hello, sorority life!) that I dealt much better with male roommates. My last roommate and I got along so well that we settled fights with Nerf products--I knew to ask what was wrong when I walked in the door and was instantly shot with a foam dart. That went both ways--he knew the score. Also, we just divvied up chores so that we felt even, and bought our own food. Plus, we had a dishwasher, which really eliminated 90% of the dish arguments.

Really, my worst roommate experiences were with girls, so maybe my advice is to live with the opposite sex if you're comfortable with it.

I just started a roommate situation this week, and I think it's going to work out well. I'm living with an engaged couple, and we had an extensive "interview" before I moved in. We talked about eating habits, decorating preferences, visitor situations, musical tastes, cleaning habits, media use, temperature habits, and any of the other little things we could think of. It was nice to have an understanding before we started living together, and we've all been very open about asking questions and establishing routines since moving in. As long as you communicate and clean up after yourselves, roommate situations shouldn't be a big deal. Just choose wisely. The person is actually way more important than the space.

I never thought decorating could be such a source of conflict... but when my roommate wagged her finger at me and told me the only way to handle a shelf situation in the bathroom was "six months and six months," I just about lost it.

Not to mention the ugly and horribly uncomfortable red and green plaid sectional couch that she insisted on bringing in - even though she had to drive hours out of state (!) to pick it up from a family member!

@ ladymantle.... sadly, not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford their own place. Good for you though; it sounds like you seem to be in that position.

@ ladymantle.....you shouldn't make assumptions. There are people who work very hard but still require a roommate in order to pay rent.

Remember that everyone has a different definition of "clean"

@ bepsf...

many jobs are more secure than others, even in this tough economic time (cue dramatic music). mine happens to be very secure. someone who was the last one hired in a retail company... not very secure at all.

and yes, my particular roommate quit, but it goes along with the general theme of being aware of where they are in their career path, how likely they are to become unemployed (voluntarily or not: are they a job jumper? is their industry prone to layoffs during slow seasons?), and how they can handle that period. and no, they may not be able to predict whether or not they'll lose their job, but if they've never thought of a backup plan or seemed stunned by the question "how would you pay your rent if you lost your job?" I wouldn't sign a lease with them.

as for having savings equating to not having roommates, that's just silly. I have plenty of savings. technically, I don't 'need' a roommate... but then my savings wouldn't be saved, it would be spent. is it advisable to choose the instant gratification of living alone now, especially in cities with inflated rent, over saving money for a house in the future, or in a worse scenario, as something to fall back on if one is out of work? surely some minor inconveniences now are worth being able to have a savings. really, the apartment you can afford should be determined after you take away a portion of your income to save, and for me and many others, that means having a roommate.

I kind of resent that comment recommending against only children as roommates. I'm an only child, and when I had a shared apartment, I was the ONLY person who seemed to be aware that the kitchen was bordering on too disgusting to cook in because of their messes (one time they left a saucepan of used cooking oil sitting on the stove for over a week, and put it back on the stove whenever I moved it), and had to argue all the time to get my roommates to clean up after themselves (it was that or essentially be their unpaid maid, constantly cleaning up after them). When confronted about their messes they would say that they were "busy" (so busy with those parties every weekend?) and that "adults don't tell each other what to do"...I wasn't aware that adults were supposed to be content with living in a reeking pigsty just because their housemates are lazy. And I've plenty of other stories from that living hell.

But anyway, kind of unfair to say that we only children make bad roommates... I was certainly the only person in that situation with any idea of what cleanliness is.

Hey, guys? Not every reader of AT works. I AM still in college. And yes, right now I'm renting a room. That doesn't mean I have no right to read AT because how DARE I not have my own home.

Back on topic. The things that I've noticed have come up are:

TV/music noise - it's sort of hard to sleep when you need to be up early the next morning for classes when the people you live with are watching movies with full surround sound at 11:30 PM.

Dishes - I prefer to clean as I go, but can rarely put stuff in the dryer rack because it's always full. Same goes for actually finding clean cutlery or crockery, since the others here leave it until the last moment. Thankfully, taking out the trash is easy enough - is it full? Take it out!

Cleaning products and other items - who buys the dish soap when it runs out? Do you alternate in buying a new bottlel? What about toilet paper? Hand soap? House cleaning products? What about light bulbs? Paper towels? Sponges for the kitchen? Laundry detergent? Garbage bags? There's a lot to think about.

I'm sure others will come up as I stay here longer.