Roommate Troubles: Sharing the kitchen/living room

Buddy Lee

Alright H/A, I've been having some issues lately with a roommate. First, I will describe to you my living situation.

I live with two other guys for the summer. I knew the one guy before I moved in with him. He seemed like a great guy and it seemed like he would be very easy to live with. He seemed clean and organized; he's describes himself as very "goal oriented." It seemed to me like it would be a pleasant summer.

I had never even met the other guy, and I know that this was a risky move. I expected my troubles to come from the stranger, but he and I have been getting along extremely well when he is around. His girlfriend is really cool and I never get annoyed by her or anything. I'm not sure about how this guy lives, though, since he hasn't been living in the apartment very much (he doesn't start summer school until June and he's working on restoring a car back home, so that's where he has mostly been living).

Now, the roommate troubles are coming from the guy who I knew before I moved in. Much to my surprise, he is leaving the kitchen extremely messy. He never cleans up the counters when he is finished with them and his dishes are disastrous. He will use a pot to make macaroni and cheese, then instead of properly cleaning it, he will just put some water in it and leave it for days. Yes, literally days. I have seen fat solidify on his plates and cookware. It's ridiculous. We have a dishwasher, yet he piles his dishes in the sink.

He drank some beers with his girlfriend last weekend. I was gone for the weekend, but I returned on Sunday evening. The beer cans were on our end table. They remained until Tuesday, when I finally brought it up to him.

Now, I don't believe that I am being unreasonable by expecting the shared living spaces (the kitchen, bathroom, and living room area) to remain at least partially clean. I would be okay with some dishes remaining in the sink for a full day, but any longer than that and they pile up and it's an inconvenience to everyone who uses the kitchen.

So, the questions come in here: First, am I being unreasonable by wanting some effort involved in keeping the shared living spaces conveniently clean? Secondly, how should I address the situation?

I brought it up to him tonight after giving him plenty of notice that I was going to talk to him about how we are handling the shared living spaces, but he seemed pretty uninterested and it was almost as if he was offended by everything. He said that he wasn't going to "do everything according to my time schedule." When I brought it up to him, I wasn't asking him to do ANYTHING according to my time schedule, all I was asking of him was that he would try to keep the shared areas cleaner.

tl;dr: Roommate does not clean up well after himself in kitchen/living room. Help!

MurphysParadox

Good thing my wife doesn't read these forums - she'd consider me quite the hypocrite after this post given how long some of my dishes sit around the apartment... shhh!

You are in no way unreasonable for your desire that things be cleaned. This "do everything according to [your] time schedule" is bullshit because he isn't being made to clean up by day X because you need the dishes... he's being required to clean up after he's done with something according to his own schedule.

If you want to have some fun, any dishes used by him that sit for more than 36 hours should be moved to his room's door - just outside (and next to the door so that he has to walk past them every time he goes into the living room) is best. If he bitches, say that everyone is responsible for cleaning their own shit and that you needed the sink. If he starts dumping them on your bed, kick him out.

You can also get your own cookware (or if the set you have is your's) and lock it up. If he wants to cook then he'll get his own dishes (which are helpfully left outside his room).

Another option here is to charge him extra and just clean his shit up. Talk to the other roommate to see if he's at all interested in helping - if so, you two can split the profit. I'd say +25% to +33% would be great (depending on what the total amount is - I hear parts of the US, a third of a place in rent might only be $100... which is just insane compared to where I live).

Lastly, you can also kick him out. Tell him you want him gone and get another roommate.

What does the other guy think of this messy roommate? Does it bother him just as much or is he a 'meh' kind of guy?

useless4

I started throwing away dishes clothes anything that didn't have an electrical plug on it. Those went in his bed.

My roommate was a health hazzard on a whole new level. think used condoms riding on top of his knee deep trash and dirty clothes in his room.

I still use paper plates and silverware and red plastic solo cups because i never want to be mistaken for part of a dish problem in a house. I can safely point fingers back now and say fuck you I don't use dishes clean up your own stuff.

Really though once a week or so I would just take a huge garbage bag and start tossing.

Buddy Lee

Murph, I don't know what the other roommate thinks... he hasn't really been around long enough to say much about anything. For all I know he could be just as messy (or messier) than the roommate with whom I'm currently having a problem.

Also, I absolutely cannot kick him out. He and the other roommate are planning on living in this apartment for at least nine months, but I am only here for the summer.

I basically think this guy just needs to learn how to take constructive criticism, how to be more aware of when he's being inconsiderate, and how to take more pride in his apartment. He just seemed to get really offended and stubborn when I brought it up to him, even though I told him a few times that I wasn't trying to attack him personally.

I think I'm more annoyed by this because when he was asking me to move in for the summer, he made it sound like he was so clean and neat and wanted the apartment to reflect that. Too bad that he's an idiot. Aaagh!

-EDIT-
Also, I don't want to resort to any douchebag things like putting dirty dishes in front of his door or something like that. I think that's just being immature and just asking to multiply the problem. I guess I will only even consider something like this if the problem persists or gets worse.

Monolithic_Dome

Pretty much what murphy said, although I'll add a few things:

1. Don't be all passive agressive. Leaving notes, making your own messes, that sort of thing. It always always always makes things worse. If you've got beef, bring it up face to face
2. When you talk to him, be sure to stress that y'all are all paying an equal share of the rent and all of you deserve the common areas to be left in a livable state.
3. Some people like to set up a schedule, IE I'll clean this week and you've got next week. If you can avoid the "well but you made more trash" argument, this at least guarantees that nobody is doing all the cleaning.
4. Make sure that there are enough trash cans around the place (one in every room), and that they are big enough. spending a couple bucks on garbage cans is sometimes an easy fix. People tend not to leave shit around when there is a perfectly good garbage can right there in the room.
5. Many times the source of the problem is a back-log in the dishes queue ("the dishwasher was full and I didn't know whether they were clean or dirty"). There are lots of ways to solve this, including sticky notes and hand-washing (use the dishwasher as a drying rack)
6. Sometimes you just gotta buy a big ol' stack of paper plates and cups and ask that he use those for all non-essential purposes. At least it cuts down on the dishes pile.


wow, that ended up longer than I thought. Guess that working for 2 years as an RA will do that to you

Buddy Lee

Monolithic_Dome wrote: »

Pretty much what murphy said, although I'll add a few things:

1. Don't be all passive agressive. Leaving notes, making your own messes, that sort of thing. It always always always makes things worse. If you've got beef, bring it up face to face
2. When you talk to him, be sure to stress that y'all are all paying an equal share of the rent and all of you deserve the common areas to be left in a livable state.
3. Some people like to set up a schedule, IE I'll clean this week and you've got next week. If you can avoid the "well but you made more trash" argument, this at least guarantees that nobody is doing all the cleaning.
4. Make sure that there are enough trash cans around the place (one in every room), and that they are big enough. spending a couple bucks on garbage cans is sometimes an easy fix. People tend not to leave shit around when there is a perfectly good garbage can right there in the room.
5. Many times the source of the problem is a back-log in the dishes queue ("the dishwasher was full and I didn't know whether they were clean or dirty"). There are lots of ways to solve this, including sticky notes and hand-washing (use the dishwasher as a drying rack)
6. Sometimes you just gotta buy a big ol' stack of paper plates and cups and ask that he use those for all non-essential purposes. At least it cuts down on the dishes pile.


wow, that ended up longer than I thought. Guess that working for 2 years as an RA will do that to you

The thing about it is that he suggested before we moved in that we set up a cleaning schedule. I see no problem with this except that it doesn't solve the issue that I'm having. I'm not his mother; I'm not going to clean up his dishes for him all of the time. I would have no problem doing the dishes for a week straight as long as he would rinse them out properly instead of letting them soak for days.

It's not only that, but he leaves ziplock bags and aluminum cans in the sink for a very long time. When I confronted him about this, he said that his family always washed the bags and cans out before they threw them away. That doesn't give him an excuse to leave them in the sink for days on end. One can of creamed corn sat under the sink for a long time before I found it.

Seriously, he's just not taking the time to put any effort into keeping the kitchen clean. There are always crumbs and wrappers on the counters and dishes/cookware caked with condiments and old food in the sink. It's ridiculous.

P.S.: I was an R.A. myself for a year, so I've had my fair share of confrontations. Usually I'm just the neutral party, though. Interestingly enough, the roommate I'm having trouble with was an R.A., too...

TechBoy

While there is certainly nothing wrong with you wanting the kitchen spotless clean (your title also references the living room, but you didn't talk at all about it...?) you have to remember that you're living in a college apartment. What you described is the norm in my apartment and from what I hear, the norm in many other apartments. Most of us college folk are extremely busy and extremely lazy, and that directly translates to apartment maintenance having the absolute lowest priority. You're fighting against the grain here, especially as the summer subletter they invited to live with them. But assuming the guy isn't a completely shiftless, homeless bastard, and just the garden variety college lazy, there are some things you can do to alleviate your situation.

1) Forget about things being spotlessly clean. That will never happen unless you personally decide to run around cleaning up after everyone. Since you've already made this post, I'm assuming that's not something you're willing to do so you need to figure out what degree of messy you can tolerate.

2) If you want your roommate to change, sitting down with him and laying out what you want will annoy more than anything. If my summer subletter came to me and said, look, you keep leaving your dirty pans all around. Can you please wash them and put them away within a day? I'd be like o_O Don't tell me when to do my dishes. No matter how polite or reasonable his time frame was, he's telling me what to do. If he had instead said something like, Hey, can you try to clean up your dishes after you use them? I can't really use the sink when they're stacked up like that. Phrased that way I'll be more aware of the fact that the crux of the issue is that he wants the sink to be not cluttered so he can use it, not that he's some kind of controlling neat-freak who wants to boss me around. I'll also be more likely to comply if I agree - which I do cause who doesn't like using the kitchen sink.

3) Compromise on a middle ground. My apartment also had the issue of way too many piled dishes. Since nobody really likes doing dishes, our compromise was we agreed to avoid just piling them in the sink by simply rinsing them off and sticking them in the dishwasher. A simple rinse takes a fraction of the time and effort of hand washing, and the net result was the same: no (major) piles of dishes in the sink.

I'd also highly recommend simply getting used to it being somewhat messy. You seem like a very neat person and you seem to be very fixated on the fact that you thought your roommate was going to be really neat too. Things will go a lot smoother if you simply lower your standards a bit. Get used to things being slightly messy and having to clean up other peoples (small) messes. As long as it doesn't get so bad as to hinder your ability to do things around the place (e.g. block off the sink) it's better to just let things slide. Give and take and things will go fine.

Buddy Lee

TechBoy wrote: »

While there is certainly nothing wrong with you wanting the kitchen spotless clean (your title also references the living room, but you didn't talk at all about it...?) you have to remember that you're living in a college apartment. What you described is the norm in my apartment and from what I hear, the norm in many other apartments. Most of us college folk are extremely busy and extremely lazy, and that directly translates to apartment maintenance having the absolute lowest priority. You're fighting against the grain here, especially as the summer subletter they invited to live with them. But assuming the guy isn't a completely shiftless, homeless bastard, and just the garden variety college lazy, there are some things you can do to alleviate your situation.

1) Forget about things being spotlessly clean. That will never happen unless you personally decide to run around cleaning up after everyone. Since you've already made this post, I'm assuming that's not something you're willing to do so you need to figure out what degree of messy you can tolerate.

2) If you want your roommate to change, sitting down with him and laying out what you want will annoy more than anything. If my summer subletter came to me and said, look, you keep leaving your dirty pans all around. Can you please wash them and put them away within a day? I'd be like o_O Don't tell me when to do my dishes. No matter how polite or reasonable his time frame was, he's telling me what to do. If he had instead said something like, Hey, can you try to clean up your dishes after you use them? I can't really use the sink when they're stacked up like that. Phrased that way I'll be more aware of the fact that the crux of the issue is that he wants the sink to be not cluttered so he can use it, not that he's some kind of controlling neat-freak who wants to boss me around. I'll also be more likely to comply if I agree - which I do cause who doesn't like using the kitchen sink.

3) Compromise on a middle ground. My apartment also had the issue of way too many piled dishes. Since nobody really likes doing dishes, our compromise was we agreed to avoid just piling them in the sink by simply rinsing them off and sticking them in the dishwasher. A simple rinse takes a fraction of the time and effort of hand washing, and the net result was the same: no (major) piles of dishes in the sink.

I'd also highly recommend simply getting used to it being somewhat messy. You seem like a very neat person and you seem to be very fixated on the fact that you thought your roommate was going to be really neat too. Things will go a lot smoother if you simply lower your standards a bit. Get used to things being slightly messy and having to clean up other peoples (small) messes. As long as it doesn't get so bad as to hinder your ability to do things around the place (e.g. block off the sink) it's better to just let things slide. Give and take and things will go fine.

1) I'm not thinking spotless here. I want to be able to set something on a counter without getting fucking fishstick crumbs from his dinner two nights ago on it. I want to be able to defrost something in the sink without moving nasty, gross-as-hell dishes onto a counter. I don't want to have to wear shoes in my kitchen. This is the type of clean that I'm aiming for. If it was just my kitchen, I would probably have it spotless, but I'm willing to deal with a little messiness. But this is just ridiculous.

2) I didn't tell him I want him to change, I just brought it up to him that it really bothers me when I don't have sink space. I never said "Hey, do your dishes in 24 hours." Instead I said something like "Why can't we have our sinks clear of dishes and stuff like that? There's no reason that dishes need to sit in the sink when we have a dishwasher. I can understand if you have to leave for work, but if you're just going to leave them overnight when we have a dishwasher it seems a little ridiculous." And I also asked him what is up with the cans and ziplock bags in the sink, because seriously, what the fuck is that shit?

3) A compromise is what I'm looking to accomplish right here. It's what I wanted from the start. Apparently I have come off as a controlling roommate who just wants to call all of the shots.

Again, I understand that it's not going to be spotless, but I just want it reasonably clean. Before I moved in with him it seemed to me that he was going to be riding my ass about being messy. He always talked about how clean he wanted everything and how we would clean the apartment every weekend and shit.

-EDIT-
Yeah, with the living room area. I was out of town this past weekend. I returned on Sunday evening to find beer cans and some Smirnoff bottles in the living room. I didn't think it was a big deal; I thought it would be cleaned up the following morning or something. They stayed there until Tuesday afternoon when I finally said something about it. When I brought this up to him yesterday that we need to clean up after ourselves in the living room, he thought I was getting really nit-picky, saying that they had only been there one night.

Seriously, I don't want beer cans sitting in my living room for 2+ days. It looks bad for everybody living there and it only takes ten seconds to clean up.

CrumbBum

I think everyone has more or less touched on the important things. The fact that you aren't going to be there for more than a few months sort of means you'll need to get over it to an extent. I know dishes and things are sort of gross when someone else has used them, but things like beer cans are easy enough to just chuck on your own time. I know you aren't his mother, but that sort of thing isn't exactly an inconvenience. I've had various roomates of various levels of cleanliness, and to be honest as long as the place isn't just filthy, you sort of have to learn how to just deal with it. The fact that he's already been put-off doesn't help, but understand your request was certainly reasonable. At this point there are a couple of ways to approach him:

1) Offer to take care of the kitchen if he'll do the dirty work elsewhere.

2) Try and convince him that the dishwasher is his friend, and that putting things there is really easy.

3) Both of you get angry at each other.

There is a compromise in here some where, but you have to figure out how to be diplomoatic enough to approach him about it. Just as he needs to be more willing to make concessions for you, you need to be more willing to make concessions for him. That is just the way roommates have to work. Approaching him in that fashion will also not immediately turn on his cognitive disonance response where he gets all defensive because he doesn't like to think he is doing anything wrong.

Mephistopheles

So, other people have said this, but I'll reaffirm.

You are subletting for a few short months. You're the "new guy." Sure, you are paying an equal share of the rent, but this is essentially "their place." You're the one that agreed to step into an unknown situation. Sure, you might have been misled, but this guy probably just has an incorrect view of himself.

Personally, I would recommend you wait until the third guy moves in before you even bring cleaning etc, up. At least at that point you might have an ally.

So basically you need to not be so uptight about it. I'm not saying that you're some ridiculous neat freak with crazy standards (most of what you say I agree with), but living with other people is about compromising. And in the current arrangement, any attempt by you to immediately change the status quo of the place will be seen as you being controlling. It's not fair, but I guarantee you that is the way he's going to see it.

One thing you might want to try to motivate him, is to clean his mess whenever he is around. I know that for me and my roommates, if we see someone cleaning up a general area, the other people just naturally help out. Just don't be passive aggressive about it (ie fuming all over). If he says something like "Don't worry about that, I'll clean it up" just tell him you don't mind (even if you do), but he's welcome to help.

Whatever the result I would say you chalk it up to experience and suck it up for the rest of your time there.

Ultimanecat

I've roomed with friends that I had to learn the hard way are lazy and coddled by their mothers so much that they don't even know how to clean, let alone do it consistently. I've lived with girls, thinking they'd be cleaner and ended up still doing any and all cleaning. I've lived with meatheads who leave cups and bottles FILLED with their tobacco spit around for days until I accidentally spill one and have to clean it up whilst simultaneously wretching.

I've had literal swarms of fruit flies, colonies of ants, and countless cockroaches.

The point of all of this? Some people are disgusting and lazy, and no amount of polite suggestion or passive-aggressiveness is going to change it.

The old adage is "If you want something done, do it yourself". Hope that they pick up on it and learn by your good example. Be a douche and do it at inopportune times for them, like making noise and fluttering about while they watch TV (this is as close to passive-aggressive as I condone being). Be comforted by the fact that being mired in waste is good for your immune system.

Basically, you aren't wrong, but there's no way to resolve a lifetime of ingrained bad habits in one summer, unless you're a girlfriend and start withholding sex...

You can also try withholding sex...

Improvolone

Yea, I'd avoid the malicious bullshit of all of this. I think you're more than right to explain that it disgusts you and it's a health hazard to a degree, and that when everything is dirty and used you can't use it, but the long and short of this is you're only there for a few months.
This battle might be better left to the other room mate.