Roommate trouble prevention

[piercehawkeye45]

As of now, I have about a month and a half of my current roommate setup with the house that I am living at. Three other guys (Charlie, Eric, Joe) that I get along with fairly well and the issues I have with them are usually small and short lived. But in a month and a half one of my roommates, Charlie, will be moving out and another, Nick, will be moving in.

The main two problems I am seeing is an increase in belligerence and dirtiness in the house. I am not high strung on either issue since I do tend to partake in both every once in a while, but I do have limits and I am convinced that they will be passed multiple times during the next lease year.

The reason is that the roommate that is moving in, Nick, is an extremely immature, cocky, and belligerent drunk who plans to drink a lot next year with the help of Eric. The problem is that
Eric gets checked both by me, I quit drinking a year ago, and my other two roommates who find him annoying when he gets into that stage. On top of that, when both Nick and Eric get together, they really feed off each other making it even worse. Plus, my other roommate that is staying, Joe, has a steady girlfriend and usually stays at their place leaving me alone with those two.

For the cleanliness problem, I recently found out that Nick's clean apartment is entirely due to his current roommate and that Nick is probably a dirty person. This previously would not bother me, I have lived in extremely dirty conditions in the past, but I personally feel I have grown past that and I really prefer having a decently clean house. Once again, I am not a clean freak by any means, but common sense here. For example, right now I try to clean up all my meals in a 24 hour time period if not right after I eat. My roommate Eric waits to clean everything for the weekend when he will clean everything up. I accept this as compromise because we usually do not run out of dishes for that week but he will do that with dishes we have limited resources of (pots for example) and not clean that up so I will be forced to clean his dishes so I can cook. If Nick is worse than Eric, along with the fact that most dishes will be mine next year (most are Charlie's at this moment), my line will most likely be crossed which is when I have to clean up other people's dishes to eat or the kitchen becomes too messy.


I am looking to prevent fights within my household since I am outnumbered 2 to 1 and it will extend into out outer groups of friends so this is what I was thinking so any comments, suggestions, or personal stories would be greatly appreciated.


As of now, the following are some extended knowledge for preventing this problem. For the belligerent aspect I have brought it up to most of my extended group of friends (ones living outside our house) and all have at least acknowledged the tendency of both to be belligerent. I also have a reputation for being calm and reasonable with my friends so with those two I will have my entire extended group of friends backing me on this issue. For the cleanliness issue, I have brought the dish issue up with Eric in private multiple times and he stubbornly refuses to clean them up after he uses them.


With that, here are my current plans to deal with this situation. For the belligerence issue, this will be the toughest on me personally but thankfully the most apparent to everyone else that does not live in the house. For this, I am planning on using my friends to help me just beat the fact that their actions are immature and should stop into their head. Both of them can respond to a group of people telling them that they are in the wrong but unfortunately that only happens when they are sober. I do not have many other ideas that will work with this. If that does not work, I can either leave when they are both drunk (very unpreferable and sometimes impossible), physically confrontation, or making an ultimatum with my friends to do something about it. Any advise with this issue would be greatly appreciated since none of my friends are going to tell them to stop drinking, they all drink besides me, and they will not have to live with them either.

For the cleanliness issue, I do have some ideas. I will bring the issue up to them personally and expect them to not do anything. My first plan will be to threaten, then follow though, on making all my dishes personal and say they can not use them. This will solve the problem but will leave them without dishes and will get them mad, leading to other problems. This will also only solve the problem with the kitchen, not anywhere else. A second plan is personal humiliation but ragging on them with my group of friends anytime anyone mentions the house being unclean. Once again, any help would be appreciated.



I apologize if this long and if it unclear or jumpy at parts.

[glatt]

if you're out numbered, you're pretty much screwed. Can you move in with any other friends? Life's too short to live with assholes.

[piercehawkeye45]

I'm outnumbered in the house but not with my extended group of friends, who do have some influence over them. I have not ruled out moving out, but I will not make it a serious consideration until problems start occurring and it will be a last resort. Things may not be as a bad as I anticipated (hoping), they will have to find a new roommate or get financially screwed (If I leave they will have to pay my rent), I will have to find a new place, create a riff among my friends, and I really do like the house because it is a nice place to live and it is usually where all my friends come to hang out.

Also, it isn't so much that they are assholes, just that they are incredibly stubborn on a few issues. I just don't want those issues to spiral out of control and ruin a friendship.

[Undertoad]

Explain to them how women like it clean.

[Clodfobble]

I was in a situation that was not as bad as yours, but my lines are also a lot closer in than yours are, and towards the end some of my roommates found it funny to deliberately try to irritate me. Here is what ended up working for me until the lease finally ran out: I changed the knob on my bedroom door to one that had a lock. I spent the majority of my time in my room, and I locked it when I left. I purchased a mini-fridge, and kept all my own food in there. I also kept my set of pots/dishes in my room, and washed them immediately after cooking so I could take them back to my room. I also made sure I only ever threw things away in the garbage can in my room, and emptied it accordingly. Ultimately, I made my own apartment inside what I pretended to be a particularly dirty and raucous hallway leading to my front door. The one thing I lost was the communal TV in the livingroom, but hey, I had a computer.

[Aliantha]

I'd vote for moving out. If prior knowledge gives you the opportunity to know what's up the road, why put yourself though the hassle and stress - which will possibly affect your marks and ability to focus on the real goal - when you know you can avoid it?

Take a detour and give yourself a break. You don't need to deal with that shit when you're trying to do a good job.

[jinx]

A. Look at it as a learning experience. Get some real insight into people who think and act differently than you. Exercise your restraint and compromise muscles. Hone you negotiating skills.
B. Live alone.

[monster]

Why are you allowing this person to move in if he already has you stressing out 6 weeks before he moves in?

[Cloud]

exactly what Monster said. Find another roommate to fill the slot. Maybe even a brave female one, to bring some actual civilization into your home.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Shoot 'em.

[Shawnee123]

Pierce, if you don't drink, I imagine living with people who just want to party like rock stars (without the money bonus of a rock star) would be very difficult. Drunk people really get on sober people's nerves. I hope you can find an alternate arrangement: the situation you described spells trouble to me.

[piercehawkeye45]

Looking back I did not bring up this point. What I wrote is only what I think may happen in a worst case scenario, not what will most likely happen. I can see next year being fine or I can see it being bad and in case it does get bad I wanted advise on how to handle it. I appreciate the advise on moving out, which if I knew this was going to happen for sure or if I was not best friends with two of the guys I would seriously consider, but I can only see more bad coming out of it then good.

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Pierce, if you don't drink, I imagine living with people who just want to party like rock stars (without the money bonus of a rock star) would be very difficult. Drunk people really get on sober people's nerves. I hope you can find an alternate arrangement: the situation you described spells trouble to me.

I really don't have a problem being the sober one with most of my friends since the majority of them are actually pretty mature when they drink. I have never been so happy with a group of friends in my life so I am not going to ditch out on them. Besides, even when I did drink, certain drunk people would get on my nerves anyways so it really didn't change much from that perspective.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I'd vote for moving out. If prior knowledge gives you the opportunity to know what's up the road, why put yourself though the hassle and stress - which will possibly affect your marks and ability to focus on the real goal - when you know you can avoid it?

Moving out isn't an option until there are already very large problems, which I doubt will get to that point anyways and my intention of creating this thread was to discuss ways to prevent getting to that point if it did happen. Moving out would be insulting to my friends because they (Joe and Eric) said Nick was cool and moving out in speculation of him being an unclean belligerent asshole will cause fights and probably isolate me from the group, which I'm not willing to risk because I am extremely satisfied with my friend situation besides this one part.

Originally Posted by Monster

Why are you allowing this person to move in if he already has you stressing out 6 weeks before he moves in?

My two roommates picked him and when he signed the lease he did have a steady girlfriend who kept him under control. Nick does respond to people who he respects so it isn't an impossible situation and I do have the backing of all my friends that do not live there and even the one who is at his girlfriend's place all the time. If I didn't then I would seriously consider moving out because I do agree with you that it isn't worth living with assholes but when it comes at the expense of best friends, it is different. I would consider Eric and Joe some of my best friends even though we do get into arguments every once in a while.

Originally Posted by Cloud

Maybe even a brave female one, to bring some actual civilization into your home.

Haha, I was hoping his ex-girlfriend would have filled that slot. But right now our house is fine, I am extremely content. It is that I see potential breakdown so what I described is not a guarantee but only speculation. I made this thread for other stories and advise if it did get to that point. Looking back, I did not make that clear enough.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I was in a situation that was not as bad as yours, but my lines are also a lot closer in than yours are, and towards the end some of my roommates found it funny to deliberately try to irritate me. Here is what ended up working for me until the lease finally ran out: I changed the knob on my bedroom door to one that had a lock. I spent the majority of my time in my room, and I locked it when I left. I purchased a mini-fridge, and kept all my own food in there. I also kept my set of pots/dishes in my room, and washed them immediately after cooking so I could take them back to my room. I also made sure I only ever threw things away in the garbage can in my room, and emptied it accordingly. Ultimately, I made my own apartment inside what I pretended to be a particularly dirty and raucous hallway leading to my front door. The one thing I lost was the communal TV in the livingroom, but hey, I had a computer.

That is basically my short term strategy if I get annoyed with roommates and as of now it hasn't gone past that point. If I find my roommates annoying, which is inevitable, I just do something by myself or call someone else.

Originally Posted by Jinx

A. Look at it as a learning experience. Get some real insight into people who think and act differently than you. Exercise your restraint and compromise muscles. Hone you negotiating skills.

That is how I am looking at it right now.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Explain to them how women like it clean.

Hahaha. That would be a very good argument.

[limey]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I was in a situation that was not as bad as yours, but my lines are also a lot closer in than yours are, and towards the end some of my roommates found it funny to deliberately try to irritate me. Here is what ended up working for me until the lease finally ran out: I changed the knob on my bedroom door to one that had a lock. I spent the majority of my time in my room, and I locked it when I left. I purchased a mini-fridge, and kept all my own food in there. I also kept my set of pots/dishes in my room, and washed them immediately after cooking so I could take them back to my room. I also made sure I only ever threw things away in the garbage can in my room, and emptied it accordingly. Ultimately, I made my own apartment inside what I pretended to be a particularly dirty and raucous hallway leading to my front door. The one thing I lost was the communal TV in the livingroom, but hey, I had a computer.

What she said. It worked for me, twenty-something years ago in a house with 21 (count'em) dirty female students ... I didn't even have a computer back then ...

[Flint]

You know what roommates DON'T like? Having the nylon tip of a ƒucking drumstick tapping the surface they planned to scurry across--TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA...

[Shawnee123]

Well, PH, sounds like you know what you're getting into and can roll with what you know might be some irritations. Good for you. Hope it works out for you!