Moving in with a stranger is a very common part of entering the rental market and is likely to be something you do at least once in your life. While it can seem daunting to share so much of your life and personal space with someone you’ve never met, these can often develop into lifelong friendships. However, before you can think about building a long lasting relationship, it’s important to find the right person and set your ground rules for happy cohabitation. In this article we will cover the 10 most important things to consider before moving in with a stranger.
1. Meetup IRL
The quickest way to determine whether or not a stranger is a good potential housemate or not is to meet them in person and have a conversation with them face to face. While the rest of this guide will equip you with important factors to consider and questions to ask to ensure you’re compatible, nothing beats the immediacy of a one on one meeting to let you know whether there is a good chemistry or an uncomfortable tension. If meeting up IRL (in real life) is not possible because of schedule or they’re moving from interstate, a conversation on zoom or facetime can make do. The important thing is to have a chat, get to know a bit about them and, more importantly, find out whether conversation with them is easy or gruelling.
Some potential questions to ask them during your meeting include:
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Are you an early bird or night owl?
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Do you like to leave your stuff out, or put it away right away?
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Are you employed?
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How long have you been at your current job?
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How long do you plan to stay?
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Do you have friends in the area?
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What do you like to do to socialize?
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Why are you leaving your current living arrangement?
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Are you comfortable with an even split of the fridge and pantry space?
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Do you play music loudly after 9 p.m.?
2. Speak to a reference
Reaching out to a reference they have supplied is a good way to find out how they behave towards other people, what their strengths are and what their network of friends is like. Obviously you are going to hear the best version of them from their reference, but the quality of their friends will tell you a lot about them. If the person they choose to represent them is unhinged or unfriendly, there’s a good chance they are too. If they seem like they are kind to their friends and socialise with good natured people, it bodes well for how they will likely treat you.
Some potential questions to ask their reference include:
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Are they a responsible and tidy person?
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Do they have lots of disagreements or conflict situations?
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Was living with them a good experience in general?
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Were they ever late on payments?
3. Social media activity
Having a quick trawl over the social media accounts of your potential housemate can provide a very quick snapshot of their personality. While we don’t recommend gauging your compatibility with them entirely by their social media activity, it can provide you with some easy red flags in case they engage in some questionable behaviours. Some potential warning signs range from having vastly different or incongruent interests to your own, all the way to heated online debates over trivial things and cyberbullying. While social media is often used as a tool to filter out potential candidates, don’t forget that it can also be a useful way to find similar interests and points of compatibility.
4. Trust your gut
Whether it’s from reading their application, speaking to them in person or checking out their social media presence, trust the gut reaction you get. Our guts are our second brains, they can provide us with warning signs that reflect an instinctual response we pick up from unconscious cues. Trusting your gut is a particularly important strategy when determining who you want to live with because it’s important to feel safe and comfortable in your own home. If there’s something that this person does that puts you on edge, it’s best not to find out exactly what that thing is after signing a 12-month lease. Instead, give yourself the opportunity to find out a bit about them and then trust the instinctual feeling you get from them.
5. Be Honest About Yourself
Just as you would want your future roommates to be honest about themselves, it’s important that you convey an accurate and honest representation of yourself. There’s no point pretending that you’re an extrovert if you really need time alone, or acting like a perfectionist if you actually tend towards disorder. Pitching yourself as the person you’d like to be might sound optimistic, but ultimately your true habits will come to the foreground and cause potential tension with the person you have pretended to be. Honesty is the best policy. Being self aware enough to present your strengths and your weaknesses is the best path to finding someone that will accept you for who you are and be comfortable living with your true self over the long run.
6. Are you on the same page about pets?
If either one of you has a pet or might want one in the future, it’s important to make sure you’re both on the same page about the idea of having pets. That doesn’t mean that cat people and dog people can’t live together, but if there are some fundamental disagreements about whether your house is pet friendly, then it’s important to iron these out before it becomes a cat-astrophe. Some further points to consider are whether either of you have allergies to pets, medical requirements for pets or any animal phobias that should be part of the discussion.
7. How clean do you like your home?
Cleanliness is next to godliness for some, others prefer to revel in the disorder. There’s no right or wrong way to live your life, but the important thing is that your level of cleanliness is also tolerable for your house mates. Generally speaking, you want to make sure you both agree on what your minimum acceptable level of clean and tidy is. From that starting point you can build a discussion and agreement on your ideal living conditions. Pro tip: if you find out that neither of you is concerned about cleanliness, creating a cleaning roster is a good safety net to prevent your house from becoming a bomb site.
8. How social are you?
The simple question to ask and consider is: do you like to party? If you do, make sure that your future house mate will be tolerant of your social lifestyle and relaxed about hosting parties if that’s something you enjoy doing. If you don’t like to party, ensure that your potential housemate isn’t going to be throwing massive fiestas every weekend. Just like your level of cleanliness and openness to pets, you don’t need to have the exact same priorities, you just need to be tolerant of your housemate’s interests.
9. List The Things You Won’t Tolerate And Establish House Rules For Roommates
If you’ve gotten past the previous eight topics and still feel that you might want to move in with this person, it’s time to start getting into the nitty gritty details of your living arrangement. Drawing up a list of rules for your house is a good touchstone to return to if things start to go awry. Start by considering a few of the things you absolutely could not tolerate in your home. This might include messiness, mid-week parties, pets or kitchen etiquette. Whatever it is, discuss it with your potential housemate and make sure you’re on the same page. Then it’s time to establish the house rules. This might include a time when noise must be turned down, a rule for sharing the household chores or a time by which you need to pay the rent. The earlier you sort these rules out and the clearer you communicate your needs, the better your living arrangement will be in the long run.
10. Discuss bills
Financial issues are the single most common problem when it comes to household tensions. Whether it’s paying rent late or using more of your fair share of the utilities, it’s important to have some ground rules and common territory to start from, so you can return here when things get messy. Paying your bills on time is the minimum requirement of a good housemate. If they can’t get this right, they’re just not worth living with. Beyond this, agreements of utility costs and divisions are important because not everyone uses the same amount of electricity and water, and not everyone earns the same amount. While 50-50 is generally the recommended division of household utilities, discuss more appropriate divisions if you have drastically different needs and habits when it comes to showers, electricity or even wi-fi bills.