In this article I have written the biggest problems I have found with sharing an apartment with friends of mine, after my two best friends and I decided to all move in together.

Privacy:
If you move in with a friend you can forget about having any privacy. With a roommate you don’t know if you go into your room and close the door they will usually not bother you unless there is a good reason, but friends will want to hang out. Friends will also go into your room to borrow things when you are not home, because you would not mind.

I can not begin to count how many times my roommates ate something I had been saving or went into my room to borrow my things without asking, and the worst part is when I asked them to not touch my things they took it as a insult like I don’t trust them with my things, or I am cheap for not letting them eat my food.

Bills and Expenses:
The reason why you moved in with a roommate in the first place was you don’t make enough to live on your own right. Well my experience has been that a friend may worry less if their roommate is a friend because their friend will help them out if they were short on the rent or electricity because they spent too much money in the online casinos, but that same person would probably be more considerate and make sure to have the rent money if they were living with a stranger rather then a good friend.

One of my friends would always spend his rent or bill money in online casinos playing blackjack, or in poker rooms online. I like to play some poker online just as much as anyone else but I always made sure to not gamble in an online casino with my rent money. If I was short on money I would not gamble, but I would never allow myself to not have the money to pay my share of the bills.

Chores:
When sharing a place to live it is usually best to divide the chores around the house such as cleaning the bathroom and taking out the garbage. This is another example of something a stranger will stick to more then a friend will, sure a stranger from time to time may have something come up and they did not clean the shower on the ay he was supposed to, but he will usually let you know that he will do it the next day or as soon as he can. Friends will put things off with no explanations at all.

The girl I used to share a place with was a neat freak if I cooked something and left a pot soaking in the sink for 8 hrs she would complain to me until I started cleaning them immediately after cooking, but she would always leave pots and dishes in the sink. When I confronted her about this she said that she can not stand to see my stuff in the sink when she comes home from work but her dishes in the sink do not bother her so I have to clean them immediately but she does not.

Power Consumption:
Unless your roommate has lots of money and lets face it if they had cash they would not need a roommate, then they will be looking to save money and not want to waste money on electricity, and once you agree on things like using the dryer or air conditioning two roommates who meet online or from an add in the paper will usually respect the rules better then two friends will. Friends will usually bend the rules, like leaving the computer on all day or running the ac all night.

When I have lived with friends I would constantly come home and find my roommates using the dryer even though we agreed only 1 usage a week per roommate, and the worst was how often I would come home to find the AC on in one of the bedrooms and no one is even home. This is a very common way for friends to take advantage of one another.

By the time I eventually moved out of that apartment I was no longer on speaking terms with my former best friends and that is why I recommend that you do not ever move in or allow friends to move in with you.


Max Bindenal has a great love for Online Casinos and has been a fan of gambling since his father taught him to play Craps on his 12th birthday.