Hi there! I am writing this article in order to give you some tips if you need to share an apartment with somebody you have not known before. I, as a student at the University of Charleston, found out an apartment to share from a list of apartments Charleston WV along with a university fellow who used to work at the University. We followed some strategies to have a friendly atmosphere in our apartment and to keep things working smoothly;

• Discussing house rules if any:

When you are living with somebody, you might have a different sleeping, cooking, eating or working routine compared to your housemates. There it is good to discuss each other’s routines in the start for example; you might not sleep before 2am in the night, while your housemate may have an early sleeping habit at about 10 am. You two then fix a time suiting both at which you can promise not to make noises to avoid disturbing one another. Similarly, you can inform each other in case any of your friends or family will come to visit you, as nobody wants to see people in their living space if they are not informed about their arrivals in advance.

• Sharing the duties:

There are many things to be done in a house e.g. cleaning, buying groceries or paying bills. You can divide these duties among each other so that not a single person gets the burden of doing all things. For example, you can have weekly turns for each member in the apartment, to clean the shared areas such as kitchen or bathroom, so that the house is maintained without any fuss. Likewise, sometimes you can fix a broken bulb in the house, the other times another member can do so.

• Keep each other in confidence while respecting privacy:

Everybody has a different lifestyle, therefore make sure you respect each other’s privacy. However, it is necessary that you keep each other in confidence about informing arising issues relating to living e.g. problem in paying high bills or staying in touch with landlord about getting things fixed or paying rents. For example, if in one month, the bills came extremely high, you can then limit the use of any commodity by mutual agreement e.g. using washing machine one a week to prevent electricity bills. The key is to be friendly and talk to each other in case of any issues.