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Have an Untidy Roommate? Follow These Tips to Encourage Cleaning

Have an Untidy Roommate? Follow These Tips to Encourage Cleaning

Have an Untidy Roommate? Follow These Tips to Encourage Cleaning

When you live with a roommate in your apartment, you may enjoy the companionship and the money you save on rent. However, you may not spend time enjoying their messes. Do you find yourself always cleaning up after your roommate? This can become tiring for you, as it adds more responsibilities to your plate. At our apartments for rent in Wilmington, NC, you will want to establish some ground rules and create shared responsibilities with your roommate. These are a few ways to encourage your messy roommate to pick up the slack.

Sit Down Together

Write down a list of all the chores that need to be done to keep your apartment clean and tidy. Pick an afternoon or evening when you are both free and sit down to talk about these chores. By setting aside the time, you can prioritize this discussion without any other distractions. Look at each room in your apartment and write down the tasks that need to be taken care of in each room. For example, in the kitchen, you need to take out the trash, unload the dishwasher, clean appliances, and so forth.

Assign a Frequency of Tasks

Some cleaning tasks need to be done each day, while others may only need to be done monthly. Take into consideration the frequency of the tasks in your cleaning schedule, and make sure to note these tasks on the calendar.

Decide Who Does What

Once the list of chores is written out, you can start to fill in the chore chart by designating who will take care of each job. As you start assigning tasks, consider first the ones you like to do. Try to start with the preference to give everyone the jobs they actually enjoy. Once you get to those jobs that no one wants to take, you need to come up with compromises to keep things even.

Hang the List

After the chore chart is finalized, print out copies for each of you. Consider posting the schedule in a common space so that you can all stay updated on what needs done and when. As you work through the schedule, cross off tasks so that your roommate knows things are being taken care of.

Talk about It

If things are not working with your cleaning schedule, you need to talk about it and make changes as time goes on.  Talk about what is and what is not working. Do not be afraid to switch out tasks and take responsibility for different chores just to switch things up and keep them interesting. By communicating with your roommate, you can keep the peace and listen to their concerns.

When you want to encourage your roommate to take care of their responsibilities, you should not tiptoe around these conversations. If you are looking for the perfect place to call home, check out our apartments for rent in Wilmingon, NC with your roommate today!

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