The bank and I own a house down the highway from here. I've been renting it for the last ten years when my current spousal unit yanked me out of my wonderful town to another town, and then one thing led to another. For a variety of reasons, I kept the house and rented it out.
In the fall there will be five new roommates - four of them are young women 22-26. One of the roomies wrote an ad with me and interviewed the applicants with me.
We asked them questions like - have you previously lived with non-family? How many? How did that work out? How did you organize the work in shared kitchen and shared bathrooms and common areas?
They are all moving in soon. If they get along and get organized, I won't have people emailing me wanting me to do something about so-and-so. For the first time, I'm letting go of my area in the house. The truth is, I wasn't there much in the last year for a variety of reasons. Changes.
My question for anyone who has roommates:
What tips do you have for the new roomies to make it work?
What rules do you break?
rule 0 of wage's house is be naked all the time
rule 1 is can i borrow your car
rule 2 is if you don't have work today, you get to clean the dishes
rule 3 is i am allowed to blast music between noon and eight and i don't give a fuck if you work night shift cause so do i
rule 4 is watch the pressure cooker, nobody wants to die in a hail of bean shrapnel
rule 5 is wipe down the griddle when you're done
rule 6 is don't turn off the blacklight or the lava lamp
rule 7 is close the lid
rule 8 is goddamn it peter stop doing the dishes you aren't any good at this i'll do it
rule 9 is goddamn it peter
edit: in practice i break rule 3 cause my headphones are pretty great