Living together with flatmates is a great life experience. It allows you to never be alone, to share experiences to have accomplices in the activities you do, and it makes you grow a lot. Living together can be very nice because everyone enlivens the environment with their own personality.
However, the relationship with flatmates is not all fun and games.
Living together is not easy. Everyone has different needs, desires and habits and it is difficult to reconcile them when you have very different personalities or when you share a flat with several people.
Arguments between tenants are therefore very frequent, and sometimes it takes very little to set off a spark. And if you want to live in harmony, you have to know how to prevent these situations!Let's see together what can trigger quarrels between tenants, how to solve them and above all how to avoid them.
The most common reasons for flatmate quarrels
What do flatmates quarrel about? For the most diverse reasons that have to do with everyday life.
Use of rooms, household chores, dating, everything can lead to a quarrel or a real fight. Problems between roommates are one of the aspects that gives most cause for concern to those about to rent a shared flat.
But don't worry, knowing the main reasons that lead to misunderstandings is the first step towards avoiding them and creating perfect harmony in the home.
Late payment of rent
One of the reasons people decide to rent a shared flat is because the cost is split, and it is possible to live in a nice area at an acceptable price. But it is essential to be regular in payments in order to get along!
The most bitter arguments between flatmates are precisely over late payment of rent and bills.
Late payment can lead to penalties, and nobody likes having to pay more than agreed because of a roommate who missed the deadline.
Living in a DoveVivo apartment DoveVivo apartment makes this problem disappear because everyone has individual payments, and late payment by one of the roommates does not create problems for the others
Space organisation
The most difficult aspect of shared living is space organisation. When it comes to shared flats between students or workers the problem is the management of common spaces. Those who live long-term in a flat tend to take many of their things with them, the problem then becomes how to distribute them.
There will be those who tend to leave them around more in order to 'colonise' the common spaces more, or there will be those who prefer certain rooms and will tend to occupy them more than others.
Cleaning
People's hygiene habits could not be more different, and this is one of the main reasons for fights between housemates. There are the neat freaks as well as those who tend to forget to clean. There are those who tidy up after using the common areas and those who leave everything in a mess, very often to the detriment of someone else who will take charge of tidying up.
In addition, arguments can arise about the shifts for cleaning and the regularity with which this should be done. As well as the time of day to be dedicated to this activity, because cleaning can be very noisy and there may be someone sleeping, studying or working in the house.
On the cleaning front, each person has to make a small effort to avoid being too obsessive or too uncaring.
Cooking shifts
After the bathroom, the kitchen is the common space that is used the most. You might be lucky and have roommates who dine out, but at least dinner is a meal you will have together at about the same time. If the times are the same, it is necessary to figure out who and what will cook. It is good to be careful not to occupy this room for too long because some other tenant might need it.
Not to mention the shopping factor. It is very important to understand who has to do it, when and how the cost will be divided.
Living together, it can happen, even unintentionally, that one eats another's things, and this can lead to very heated disputes. That is why it is better to divide up the refrigerator compartments, respecting each other's things.
Damages
"He who breaks it, pays for it!" goes the old saying.
This is the best way to get along, although not all your housemates might think so. With several people using common spaces and objects, it is not difficult for something to break. There are the very responsible people who are immediately ready to take the blame, but there are also those who pretend that nothing happened.
Some damage can also be very substantial, and if the guilty party does not come forward, it can be a cause for even heated arguments between housemates.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is how to repair things that break down on their own. For some tenants they may be essential, while for others they are not. Here it is necessary to find a meeting point between the different needs.
Party
Some people leave their parents' house and move out on their own precisely because they want to throw parties and invite whoever they want. But if you live in a flat with other people, you should make sure that this policy goes well with everyone.
Parties mean people who make a mess late at night, who come into the house and who may even cause damage, whether intentionally or not. Remember that living together with others requires compromises.
The party factor is an argument that should not be underestimated. Before giving one, it is very important to know whether the others agree and, above all, whoever organised the party must make an effort to clean it up.
Boyfriends and girlfriends
Visitors may not only be friends who come to party, they may also be boyfriends and girlfriends.
Nobody will quarrel with their flatmate over an occasional visit, but if these become too recurrent and noisy, they may be annoying.
The boyfriend or girlfriend must not turn into an additional housemate who eats from the communal fridge and uses services without consideration, which others will then have to pay for. So, it is all right as long as the visitors do not become invasive and do not break the internal balance of the house.
Taking out the rubbish
Anyone who lives in an apartment building knows how annoying it is to take out the rubbish, especially if the lift does not work. But you certainly cannot pile up rubbish forever!
Very often the neat freaks will take care of this task, but it is not right that they do it all. In fact, rubbish can trigger quarrels between housemates because everyone should do their part.
It is not fair that it is always the same people who maintain an environment in which everyone lives together. In turn everyone should contribute.
Temperature in the flat
It may not be the first quarrel you think of, but trust me, if you start living with someone you will realise the problems that room temperature can create in both summer and winter.
On the one hand there are the 'warmists', who would like to keep the air conditioner on all summer and in winter turn on the heating only when strictly necessary. Some people prefer to sleep in the cold and for some not even the temperature in the bathroom when taking a shower is a problem.
On the other hand, there are the 'cold-lovers', who would like to avoid turning on the air conditioner in summer and keep the heating on all day in winter. There are those who can create a real tropical climate in the bathroom!
Complaints about temperature are the most common, it is important to find compromises to avoid a joke turning into an argument.
How to deal with fights at home between housemates
When quarrels arise for the reasons, we have just seen or for others, how should they be handled?
If you are thinking of sharing a flat, you need to know how to deal with roommates to restore peace after a bad argument.
After all, you will have to share a part of your life with those people. It is better to resolve everything as soon as possible so as not to drag out bad feelings that can lead to real spite.
When an argument occurs, it is very important that one of the disputants, or even an outsider, takes charge and helps the others to discuss the problem civilly.
It is essential to talk openly about the issue. Perhaps it is simply a misunderstanding, but if not, everyone must voice their opinion in order to arrive at a solution that suits everyone.
Methods to avoid conflicts with housemates
Even better than knowing how to solve quarrels is knowing how to get along with roommates to prevent problems from arising. Just follow a few small tricks from the first day of living together and you will see that life together will be a piece of cake.
To live in harmony with your housemates you should:
- Establish rules and limits: from day one, it is essential to establish clearly how life together should be structured, even making diagrams of who cooks, who cleans, who throws the rubbish and when they have to do it;
- Spend as much time as possible out: staying at home is nice, but could become a problem when living together, if you are a student you could choose to study on campus, or if you are a worker you could work with your computer from a café or library, just as you could have a quick lunch out or meet friends at the café instead of the living room;
- Respect other people's things and spaces: the decisive rule for good coexistence is respect for others, their spaces, their things and above all their feelings.
Knowing the main reasons for roommate conflicts, how to solve them and how to prevent them will help you create a climate of harmony in the home. And everyone will be grateful!
