An Open Letter to All Roommates

If you've ever lived with someone (or multiple people) this is for you.

And I'm not talking parents, grandparents, brothers, or sisters. I'm talking left home and moved in with friends, with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or like me, found some strangers on craigslist and moved in with them.

Dear self, Love self. (seriously none of this excludes me)

This is going to be full of what might seem like common sense. It's going to be passive aggressive at times. It's not meant to hurt feelings (as I generally do not write with intentions to hurt anyone's feelings). Trust me, if I want to hurt your feelings I will go straight to you and do so.

I don't have an overwhelming amount of experience with roommates. I'm about two and a half years deep in living with people besides my family. But in that time, I've had a grand total of 9 roommates, and every single one of them was completely different. Every single one of them (aside from 1) was a complete stranger when I moved in with them. We all come from different places; Big Island, Oahu, Arizona, California, etc. Being in Hawaii you meet a lot of people from around the world who lived and grew up completely different than you.

However, if you grew up in Glendale and moved in with friends from high school who also grew up in Glendale, this still applies to you! Keep reading.

Dear Roommate,

I'm sure you're a really good person. I'm sure you're nice. I'm sure you're really easy-going. I'm sure you're super easy to live with. I'm sure you're a good friend. I'm sure you're really clean. 

I'm a really good person. (I gossip a lot but who counts that?). I'm nice! (Oh besides when I'm PMSing. Stay away). I'm super easy-going. (Okay it drives me insane when the shower curtain is left open or when empty cups are left on the coffee table or when dirty socks get left in the kitchen). I'm so easy to live with. (Well I work at a bar and get home late sometimes. Like 4am late. And sometimes I talk too loud and forget the rest of the house is sleeping. But only sometimes). I'm a really good friend, I swear. (I do forget to call sometimes, but just know I'm thinking of you). I'm pretty clean, too. (Okay I like my living room and kitchen to be clean, but don't go in my bedroom, you can't see the floor). 

You see? I'm all of those things too. But sometimes not to the best of my ability, and I know the same goes for anyone who has ever shared an apartment, house, or bedroom. 

It's not all about you, you are not the only person in the house, your schedule is not more important than your roommate's across the hall, your sleep is not more essential, your job is not more stressful, your life is not busier, and your preferred way of living is not always the best way. It's just different.

I've been talking a lot about that lately huh? Different. Ugh. So hard to deal with anything and anyone that is different than what we are used to. Different classes, different jobs, different people.

Differences cause us to butt heads with others. I'm more guilty than anyone when it comes to snapping at my roommates. Whether it's to their face or saying it out loud to anyone who can hear me, passive-aggressie as ever, "SURE WISH THE KITCHEN LIGHT WASN'T ON WHEN NO ONE IS IN THERE!" It's just sassy and rude and unnecessary. 

On the other hand, someone left the light on and we all have to pitch in on electricity bills (and anyone who pays those knows they are hefty). We don't have AC in our house, due to the weather rarely changing here in Hawaii. My heart goes out to those who need heat in the winter and air-con in the summer. We just need fans or blankets. Anyway, it all goes back to being considerate.

Dear Roommate, (and again, dear self)

Be considerate.

Be conscious of leaving the lights on when you only pay a fourth of the bill. Your other three roommates didn't use that light you left on in the kitchen and they have to split the payment evenly anyway. Be nice when the light does get left on. A simple, "hey roommate, make sure you remember to flip the switch when you leave the room" goes over much better than "ROOMMATE CAN YOU TURN THE LIGHT OFF FOR ONCE IN YOUR USELESS LIFE?!" (I'm working on it okay?)

Be considerate of the household sleep schedules. If your roommate has to wake up for school at 7am and you get home from work at 4am, be quiet. No one, especially me, can remember 3 different people's work or school schedules. I'll never get home from a late night shift and remember that one roommate has class early the next day or another has an interview tomorrow. Solution: just be quiet every time you get home late. 

Make good habits.

Be quiet when it's late at night. Put your dishes in the sink. Close the shower curtain after you shower. No one wants to be woken up in the middle of the night. No one wants to drag your dishes out of the living room every day. No one wants a moldy shower. 

Any hey! We all screw up, we all forget things, we all are guilty. I've left my dirty socks under the kitchen table plenty of times. But making good habits as best you can is the quickest way to achieve a happy household. 

Pets. Pets are hard. They are like children except they won't poop in a toilet, which almost makes me want a toddler more than a dog at this point.

 

 We had Hoku the little bitch.

We had Genepaul the chameleon. 

(RIP) 

(JK he escaped and jumped off our 2nd story lanai and has a wife and kids now somewhere in the wild, I know it).

We had Timmy the baby bird.
I rescued him and brought him home to my roommate who is basically an animal doctor.
(RIP Timmy). 

And we had Layla the little shit.

Dogs. Chameleons. Birds. Whatever. If you have a pet, take care of it. If you want a pet, anticipate it being A LOT of work. They eat, they bark, they chew things they shouldn't, they throw up said things, they poop and pee and have accidents in the house when it's raining outside, they escape from their cages and get lost in the house. Pets are not all fun and games and cuddles.

I now know from my experience with pets (and these pets were not even all mine, just extra tenants in my house that I helped care for) that I am way too much of an immature idiot to have a pet right now. Feed self. Bathe self. Repeat. Throw a puppy in the mix and I'm in shambles.

It's one thing to sleepover at a friend's house and politely ask your roommates if they mind feeding your dog and letting him out in the morning. It's a completely different thing to leave for an entire weekend without telling anyone and hope your animals get fed while you're gone.

Be responsible.

I wanted to say "be an adult" but I haven't quite mastered that one. I'm still learning what being an adult entails. You can be pre-adult (yeah, like pre-teen but pre-adult) and still be responsible. For your pets, for yourself, for you house, for your roommates belongings when borrowing them.

If your dog eats my underwear and barfs it up, just clean it up. No argument about how busy you are or how I shouldn't have left my underwear out needed.

Be calm.

This is a big one. Getting angry, getting sassy, getting heated, getting loud, it never solves anything (dear self again). If you have a problem with your roommate(s) talk about it CALMLY like the pre-adult you are. Arguments happen, we get upset at each other here and there, it's the result of living on top of another person in the boxes they call apartments. But wow is everything a million times better when you aren't screaming over each other.

A new one I learned while living in my current house. Talk, don't text.

I'll keep this one short and sweet. Everything always gets blown out of proportion when you bring up issues through text messages. Just talk face to face and skip the 10 pages of drama. This is for all you non-confrontational roommates out there. I know it's hard, but try it.

And the list goes on and on. I could talk for days about all the things that make a good or bad roommate. It's all about learning to be considerate of others. It's a simple concept but a difficult task. I am still learning to do it myself. I've lived with people I consider to be the absolute scum of the earth and I've lived with people who were strangers turned best friends.

At the end of the day, be quiet.

Just kidding.

At the end of the day, just be nice! Be clean. Be calm. You know the drill. Just don't be an asshole roommate because literally no one likes those.

My current roommates: Miranda and Corisa

 We are the best friends ever and the biggest asshole roommates around. 

Practice what you preach,  right?

xo, Tatum