Moving out for the first time

[Amysicle]

Your thread reminded me of this: http://forums.beyond.ca/st/119892/th...-the-pad-etc-/

[leutyc]

Originally posted by Amysicle
Your thread reminded me of this: http://forums.beyond.ca/st/119892/th...-the-pad-etc-/

A+++ Thread, Worth the read!

[thrasher22]

Make it clear not to hold something back if its bugging you. If something is irritating just tell them. If you all make it a habit no one will be offended, and no one will become "that" room mate that puts up signs reminding everyone to take out the garbage or do dishes. I fucking hate "that guy".

And 22 lol

[Blacura]

The hardest thing for me was not being possessive of my possessions. If you have a TV or computer and are thinking of allowing it to be used as communal think again. I made that mistake once with one of each, really regretted the TV sharing. I had to keep telling them to not leave dvd menus or still images on in the case of burn in. Got to be a big pain in my ass, started resenting them. Even kitchen things - blender, pans - I have a problem when they aren't looked after the same way I would.

If you think you may have an issue with that think about buying things together.

Like was said earlier be considerate. If someone's bedroom is below you don't do tae bo at 6am.. don't watch movies loud when they have to get up early, If you have separate friends don't have them over too much invading your room mates space.

Figure out bills before, and have a method of collection. I hated chasing people for money, if you owe money for a bill be speedy.

There is some good some bad. You'll have issues, financial ones are the worst. Be mature, nip things in the butt before they get out of hand.

[Cos]

Originally posted by Speed_69
At what age did everybody move out for the first time?

18



My adviCe is to keep your own space and make sure you are legally protected if someone tries to fuck you over. That could haunt you for years.

That and just enjoy it, you will only get this once. I moved out to an apartment, moved in with my wife a month or two after and that was it...

[Rat Fink]

.

[Supa Dexta]

Don't buy nice shit that will get ruined.. And don't buy cheap shit that will break in no time.. I wish I hadn't bought half the cheap furniture and stuff over the years, that ended up in dumpsters.

[ekguy]

I had the pleasure of living on my own in my first apartment at 18 in New Brunswick though which made it much cheaper.

Lived with girls always never had guy roomates but I agree completely that things we're usually clean other than when we partied or drank too much.

Anyways a lot of good points were made, communal electronics usually never works out and gets taken advantage by the roomates who didn't pay for the stuff...

I'd be more apt to hate someone touching my kitchen stuff than anything else as I hate to cook myself anything with shitty cooking gear or not well looked after stuff.

Always try to do your fair share of the shores, maybe even sometimes doing the shores of another roomate as they may repay the favor down the road.

Also, taking turns buying a 24 pack of beer every other weekend seems to help haha beer is never a bad thing.

[black300]

Originally posted by ekguy
I had the pleasure of living on my own in my first apartment at 18 in New Brunswick though which made it much cheaper.

Lived with girls always never had guy roomates but I agree completely that things we're usually clean other than when we partied or drank too much.

Anyways a lot of good points were made, communal electronics usually never works out and gets taken advantage by the roomates who didn't pay for the stuff...

I'd be more apt to hate someone touching my kitchen stuff than anything else as I hate to cook myself anything with shitty cooking gear or not well looked after stuff.

Always try to do your fair share of the shores, maybe even sometimes doing the shores of another roomate as they may repay the favor down the road.

Also, taking turns buying a 24 pack of beer every other weekend seems to help haha beer is never a bad thing.

Are you truing to say chores? Shores never heard of those before besides the water shores.

[Boat]

Don't split the cost of anything with your roommates, new furnature/ tv etc. Just one of you buy it so there are no problems if you decide to part ways.

Have your bills paid on time. Very important. Especially dealing with cable/ internet bills (If they are seperate from utils and rent). Whoever is paying for the cable wants to have the money on time, but at the same time they dont want to harass you for it.

Get you own pot/frying pan. Don't let other people use it. Get a pink one so it stands out, so they wont mix it up

Write everything down.

Keep a notebook of the purchases you make, and the rent payments you paid, and their amounts.

Keep receipts. When it comes to purchases of toilet paper/ communal things, write them down in your book.

Sorry for the long read.

Have fun!

[psycoticclown]

Originally posted by Blacura
The hardest thing for me was not being possessive of my possessions. If you have a TV or computer and are thinking of allowing it to be used as communal think again. I made that mistake once with one of each, really regretted the TV sharing. I had to keep telling them to not leave dvd menus or still images on in the case of burn in. Got to be a big pain in my ass, started resenting them. Even kitchen things - blender, pans - I have a problem when they aren't looked after the same way I would.

If you think you may have an issue with that think about buying things together.

Like was said earlier be considerate. If someone's bedroom is below you don't do tae bo at 6am.. don't watch movies loud when they have to get up early, If you have separate friends don't have them over too much invading your room mates space.

Figure out bills before, and have a method of collection. I hated chasing people for money, if you owe money for a bill be speedy.

There is some good some bad. You'll have issues, financial ones are the worst. Be mature, nip things in the butt before they get out of hand.

x10000

I lived alone for about a year which was great, got a bunch of furniture and stuff but I was paying $1200/month for a 2 bdrm place for just me when most of my friends were paying $400 so I couldn't justify paying that much. So I decided to move in with my friend this year, he is like 3 or 4 years older and supposed to be more mature and he was a pretty chill guy so I thought it would be fine. Huge mistake. I moved most of my stuff from my old place (couch, coffee table and various other living room furniture, some shelves, freezer and kitchen stuff) because there was no point in getting him to bring more stuff down and just told him to bring a TV for the living room, a beer fridge and a microwave and some of his own plates. Thought that would work.

Flashforward to present day, half my kitchen shit is wrecked my xbox is broken and I can't stand the guy haha. It was fine for first 3 or 4 weeks but my roommate would keep using my kitchen stuff and just not cleaning it and destroyed one of my pans, which wasn't exactly a cheap pan and one of my Henkals. And at first, I put my 360 in the living room so we could share it, but after about a month, he completely took over the living room, spent about 90% of the time he was in the house in the living room shirtless and just watching TV or playing my xbox and stuff. I didn't really mind at first but sometimes whenever I wanted to to play my 360, I would have to ask him for the TV. And he left all his plates and stuff on my coffee table, left his guitars (he has like 14) on my couch and in the living room, kept telling him to put them away and than he put his piano keyboard on the coffee table, leaving absolutely no room to put stuff. Kept telling him to move the keyboard which he would but he would just move it back the next day. Didn't want to go and look at a huge mess everytime I wanted to play my 360. He would always use my live account and sucked at Halo 3 or COD, etc and destroy my stats after numerous times telling him to stop using it. Got to the point where I just took the 360 back into my room. Brought it out one day cause he kept bugging me about playing it and my friends were coming over. Next day, I come to take my 360 back, got RROD. Turns out he put the 360 on the floor (carpeted) because he was moving shit around and than played MW2 for 10 hours straight causing it to overheat.

And this is only stuff that bugs me about the living room, I've stopped using regular plates now because he doesn't do dishes, I end up doing about 30 meals worth of his dishes every week so I can get clean plates so I can eat again, almost gave up on cooking because I would have to clean for 20 minutes everytime I had to cook. Now I just use paper plates and there's a huge pile of dishes in the sink. Just pisses me off, and nothing I do gets him to clean any of it anyways.

/rant

So yea, choose your roommates VERY CAREFULLY and make sure you each have all your own things so even if he doesn't clean his own dishes or shit, at least you have your own clean utensils. And set guidelines on the public areas too.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I moved out at 24, soon as I was done school and had enough money to live alone.

My advice? Do everything you possibly can to live alone. I am so anal about my stuff, if someone else wasn't looking after it the same way I do, I would be constantly stressed out. Its just so much better to be able to make every decision by yourself.

Very few people I know have zero problems with their room mates, and often it gets to the point where you just hate living with someone else. Even someone you get along with fairly well may have small habits, hobbies, issues, etc. that annoy the hell out of you. Chances are you're not living in a huge place either, share a single common area, share a bathroom, and share a wall to your bedrooms.

Female roommates are usually cleaner except for the bathrooms where they get ready every morning - hair and makeup accumulate everywhere, but everyone's different. They also usually don't share the same interests, so your computer, gaming console, etc. will likely be more available if that's something you share. Also as they live there longer, they will start walking around with less and less clothes on.

Buy stuff such that it will last a super long time and take care of it, so you only have to buy once. You don't need top of the line stuff either, just decent and don't abuse it.

Buy a good vacuum, and buy Swiffer stuff for dusting/mopping, it speeds up the process so you are more likely to do it more often.

Buy some decent pots/knives, but you only need a few of each, you don't need those giant sets with 10 different sizes of pots or 25 kinves. You just need a small, medium, and large pot, and 1 or 2 frying pans. You will find you use just a couple pieces of a large set 90% of the time, so no need to spend a bunch of money on a whole range of stuff. Same goes for knives - just need a small knife, a bread knife, and an all purpose knife unless you're big into cooking or something. Never pay full price for any kitchenware, often its on sale for 60%+ off at The Bay, Canadian Tire, etc.

Buy a Brita water jug or similar so you don't accumulate millions of water bottles. Its better for the environment anyways.

Keep your house as clean as possible, you won't worry about surprise visits, everything will wear better and last longer, and likely end up improving your resale value down the road. Its just more pleasant to live in overall that way. It takes a surprisingly small amount of time to vacuum an apartment, dust some main areas with a Swiffer, empty the dishwasher, etc. Put on some music while you do all that stuff. Keep the washrooms clean too, especially if you have female company. Use a clothes hamper too, so your dirty clothes aren't all over the floor in between washes - it takes zero effort to throw your clothes in there instead of on the floor.

If your in a condo/apartment, be civil with your neighbors. Try watch movies or play games a little earlier in the evening, especially if the building isn't concrete. Bring your parties to a pub/bar/club or someone with a stand alone house. There always seems to be a compulsive complainer in every building though, whose tolerance levels are extremely low, and usually they have no idea they are equally if not more at fault for the same things they complain about. This never fails. Not much you can do about it.

Get on your condo board if you don't like the way some things are done, or if you want to better understand how everything is managed. Also keep an eye out for everyone else stuff, cars, etc - you would appreciate the same.

If you have a decent cell phone plan, don't bother paying extra for a land line - most people work all day anyways, so free evenings/weekends goes a long way.

That's about all I can think of for now, lots of other good advice in this thread too.

[CUG]

I'd strongly consider suicide before having male room mates, based only on what psycoticclown said..

[codetrap]

Also, if you want to keep the place in good shape, I would recommend getting one of those steam cleaners from costco or walmat. The Bissel one. They're great for cleaning up stuff before it becomes permanent in the carpets.

Communicate with your roommates. That's the most important thing. Deal with stuff before it becomes a problem. Try to find one that has the same neurosis you do. If you're a neat freak, find a clean one. If you're messy, living with a neat freak is gonna get you murdered.

Oh, and the easiest roommates are usually women. If they're riding the disco stick, it makes a lot of other stuff easier to take.

[Tetsugen]

Congrats on one of the best moments of your life where you step out in the world.

All the advice here is pretty great, just make sure you tread through Yohan's bachelor guide it helped me out a lot when he first posted it.

Also, the best advice I can give to you is to dust and vacuum every two to three days in the winter. I'm not OCD or anything, but you'd be surprised at how much dust and particulates accumulate in just a single day. I would also recommend springing for a Dyson vacuum if you can afford it, it is the single best investment I have made on a appliance. I used to go through a couple of those dust devils every year because they would lose suction or just break down (pet owners will know what I'm talking about). I balked at the fact that I was paying 6 hundred for a vacuum but when it came down to it I was paying that much for shit from wal-mart anyways.

[masoncgy]

Yeah... I would also recommend finding roommates who share common interests with you.

You'll never find a roommate who is perfect... there are always differences between individuals... but finding roommates who are of a similar nature helps...

Communication is critical when sharing a home/apartment. Ground rules have to be laid out and agreed upon by everyone... and it also helps to make a cleaning schedule and have it posted with everyone's assigned duties so that it makes keeping the place clean & tidy a breeze, well... for the most part...

I have had the same roommate for over 9 years now... we moved apartments together a few times and when I bought my house in 2004 he moved into my basement and all is still well, even after that long.

He's a clean freak... I like things neat & tidy but definitely will let things slide... that said, he also made me respect his upkeep and therefore I have always kept up my part to keep him happy and thus I have a happy household. It's worth it to chip in, communicate and do your part.

[Jlude]

Moved out with a roommate at 17, moved across the country with two buddies at 18.

[j.garner]

First time i moved out was 18 dunno if i would count it i was living at camp just north of ft mac. did that for a year stayed at my parents on time off then at 19 moved to my own apartment with gf now were married. shes a clean freak so all has worked well she cleans i cook. What everyone else is saying i agree with i wouldnt live with another guy too many problems when it comes to cleaning and taking advantage of your stuff.

[psycoticclown]

Originally posted by CUG
I'd strongly consider suicide before having male room mates, based only on what psycoticclown said..

Oh man, that's only the tip of the iceberg haha. I'm not OCD or anal or anything, I'm actually very easy going but living with people can really piss me off. My other roommate at the same place is fine, it's weird, I have actually no problems with my other roommate because he's exactly like me, spends 99% of his time in the house in his room, cleans up after himself and has his own utensils and shit.

[KrisYYC]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt


My advice? Do everything you possibly can to live alone.

The best advice given in this thread so far. I agree 10000%.

I did the roomate thing for all of 8 months or so. Never again. It's not worth the $500 or so you'd save versus living alone. Even if I had to work 60 hour weeks to afford my own place I would. There is no better feeling than having your OWN place.