For most people, going to university is the first time we experience living with somebody who’s not a family member. It’s new, it’s exciting, and it’s often also hard! Did you know 41% of roommates say “keeping shared spaces clean” is the top source of tension in the house? 

Some people do have genuinely incompatible lifestyles and there are endless roommate horror stories out there. But the good news is that a lot of common tensions and disagreements can be avoided. Here are three simple ways you can use the Coexist app to get along with your college roommate(s):

1. Set expectations and communicate your needs upfront

People have different ideas of how they want to live in a shared space. We all have different standards for things like cleanliness, noise levels, sharing expenses, sharing personal items, and visitors. This dynamic is made more difficult by the fact that it can be awkward to voice these things ahead of time or sometimes we’re not aware of what to ask or even what our own standards are.

With all that in mind, we prepared questions to prompt thoughtful conversations in the “roommate agreement” template list in the Coexist app. Spend some time together going through these prompts and figuring out what each of your preferences are. Find your common ground and write things down to remind yourselves of what you talked about.

2. Come up with a system to remember home tasks

Who’s taking out the trash this week? Are we running low on toilet paper? When was the last time we deep-cleaned the bathroom? If you don’t have a good system to track and remember what you agreed to, even the most well-intentioned of people tend to forget. 
The home tasks feature in the Coexist app was built for this exact purpose. The best part is, if there’s any task that none of you like to do, you can alternate who does it evenly between each of you.

3. Have fun together

Not everyone is best friends with their college roommate and that’s OK. But we’re firm believers that to have a good space to come home to, you have to have to invest a little bit of time to get to know each other. And if you are already best friends with your roommate(s), college life can get really busy and it’s important to proactively carve out time to be together.

Check out the “roommate bucket list” in the Coexist app lists template library for inspiration. Let us know in the comments what you would add to the list!