“They used to have really, really wild parties and their friends used to do stuff in my bathroom,” said Greg, Shippensburg University Frustrated Student #1. “They’d break stuff, and I have to pay this because there’s no proof.”

The Russian Roulette of randomly chosen roommates can either create a home away from home, or an uninviting trap that students have to go back to every night. Simple precautionary measures can be taken to help with these common roommate problems.

Frustrated Student #2, Joanne, lived in constant survival mode with one of her roommates. To her fellow student, Joanne’s food was always up for grabs.

“She uses my stuff all the time without asking,” said Joanne. “I usually don’t say anything.” She hesitates to bring up the uncomfortable conversation with her roommate, fearing it would harm their friendship.

“I hate when people assume they have an open invitation,” said Frustrated Student #3, Andre, referring to middle-of-the-night trips his roommate made to chips and soda that were stored under his bed.

Cleaning was of high importance to Andre. He experienced living with students on campus who kept cleaning low on the priority list.

“They don’t want to pitch in,” he said. “It just makes me mad because you realize you’re taking care of other people. You’re essentially like a mother to someone else.”

His unwanted parenthood caused a lot of headaches and a sense of helplessness with the situation. “There were always tense moments, like when I would wash the bathroom and they would dirty it up within an hour,” he said. “What is it about college students? It’s just like Lysol wipes- people think Lysol wipes clean everything.”

“I don’t have a problem with people [smoking marijuana], but they did it out in the common room, and that is such a liability on all of us,” Greg said, calling his experience with his pervious roommates as “his hell.”

Greg fretted about potential career ending consequences if his roommates were caught. He also paid for damages they caused such as having to replace water purifier filters after they poured Vodka through them.

Advice and Facebook Apps

Communication and compromise are two key aspects in getting along with roommates, said Assistant Director of Residence Life Melissa Kougher.

“When you are first in, everything’s great,” she said. “Then little annoyances happen.”

If students have conflicts they can bring up the issues to their resident assistant (RA). The over 50 RA’s at SU are trained to mediate conflicts by meeting with students and giving each of them the chance to discuss the dilemma.

If problems persist, the next step would be to go to the resident director (RD). RD’s are graduate students who are usually in the counseling department or the Organizational Development and Leadership Program.

The next option would be to go beyond the RD to residence life directors like Kougher. She handles the worst of the problems. Some universities make it difficult for students to change roommates if they have major disagreements, but at SU it is easier for students to move to another location in extreme situations, she said. Kougher feels it is better to have that option than to force students to room with others that they do not get along with.

“It really just boils down to communication,” she said. “We definitely encourage people to sit down and talk.”

Kougher advises that students be honest about alcohol use when filling out the questionnaire in the roommate preference sheet. The questionnaire asks students to list privacy preferences, how active their social life is and sound levels for music and TV.

RoomSync, a roommate finding Facebook application, offers students the ability to contact a potential roommate that matches their lifestyle. Users have profiles that include their average bedtimes, amount of visitors, neatness levels, tobacco use and how active they are academically.

“This application has been working very well for students,” said Housing Assistant Yvonne Shoop.

They can also look at students who have the same major and similar Facebook interests. RoomSync’s software has caused a rise in re-enrollment levels and a drop in roommate transfer requests for various universities that utilize it, according to their website.

Using RoomSync, being honest on the student request questionnaire, having open communication and asking for help from housing staff can make living with roommates enjoyable, if not, a tolerable experience.

“[Having roommates] helps you from being lonely because you can have one friend to eat dinner with almost all the time,” said Andre. “It broadens your friend circle.”

The students in this article have chosen to keep their identities anonymous.

Share