Living with Housemates

1SECTION 1

Suggestions on Running Effective Housemate Meetings

Before you begin 51. To stay organized 62. Conversation flow 63. Brainstorming effectively 74. Suggestions on group decision making 75. Testing and iterating group decisions over time 7

SECTION 2

Creating Your Housemate Agreements

1. Governance and communications 92. House responsibilities 93. Food 94. House cleanliness 105. Sharing items 106. Laundry 107. Respectfulness and mindfulness 118. Environment 119. Guests 1210. First thought on events 1211. In case of emergency 13

INTRO

Welcome Message 3

Contents

2

3Hey Campus friends, Im Olivia!

I wrote this guide for you in hopes of helping you create a shared culture in your home, centered around ideas and practices of community living. I hope that the shared culture you create together will help foster harmony, mutual respect, positive relationships, and friendships in your home!

Campus Guide for Living with Housemates is a quick nuts and bolts guide for setting up a foundation of house agreements between all housemates.

When everyone has moved in, we suggest setting up a meeting with all housemates in order to create these agreements. We suggest reading this guide together at the meeting to help guide the conversation, choosing one person as a facilitator to keep everyone on the same page.

In Section 1 youll find suggestions on how to organize your meeting and how to make group decisions effectively.

In Section 2 youll find key questions and topics to discuss as you create your house agreements.

Tip: Theres a lot to discuss in this initial meeting. You might want to section off a good part of the afternoon, or cut up the meeting into multiple days during your first week.

4 Suggestions on Running Effective Housemate Meetings

Suggestions on Running Effective Housemate Meetings

5Before you begin:

Got some snacks? Perhaps some wine, and some nice music?

Setting up a nice ambiance

Checking in with everyone

Go around the room and have each person share how youre arriving - in other words, what feelings, mood, or state of mind are you bringing to this moment?

Examples

I have a horrible headache so its hard for me to focus right now. Otherwise Im fine.

Im feeling really excited because an old friend is coming to town.

I had a stressful day at work so my mind has been on that.

I spent a lot of time today out in the sun so Im feeling relaxed and slightly exhausted.

6 Suggestions on Running Effective Housemate Meetings

Lets go over some good ways to organize group conversations, especially for decision-making:

It can be helpful to choose someone as the facilitator.

The facilitator can keep track of time, conversation flow, and writing notes on comments and action items as people speak.

Its common in a group for those who are more extroverted to speak more, and those who are more quiet to sometimes go unheard. Some suggestions to make sure everyone is heard:

You can go around the room in a circle, giving each person a chance to speak.

You can assign one person to be the lookout person (ex: the facilitator), to watch the flow of conversation throughout the meeting and help invite people to speak up who havent yet.

1. To stay organized

2. Conversation flow

Tip: Setting a timer for each point of your meeting can help manage the flow of the discussion.

Tip: Id suggest keeping your group notes in a shared Google Doc.

7Remember that brainstorming out loud as a group can sometimes lead to ineffective results (some people dont speak up, some louder ideas dominate, etc.).

For some decisions, aggregating everyones ideas anonymously will allow for more freedom and equality. Collecting ideas on slips of paper, or creating a gmail address for housemates to log into in order to collectively and anonymously write in a shared Brainstorming Google doc can allow for housemates to feel more comfortable sharing their ideas.

Agreement is based in consent. Consent only happens when people actively collaborate and peacefully agree to a decision. Agreeing under pressure is not consent. And you cant consent to something you dont know about.

As an alternative: If there are objections to a certain suggested agreement, make sure those against a particular action have a chance to explain their point of view. After everyone who objects has a chance to speak, the decision still goes through if 3/4 of the people agree (or a majority, or whatever fraction you find fair).

You might like to figure out what types of decisions work with majority vote, and what types, if any (perhaps something safety related?) might still merit allowing anyone to have a veto.

Think of the agreements you make here as working agreements: once youve made them, youll stick to them - for a certain amount of time (a week or two, a month or two, you decide). Even if you dont like it, do your best to try carrying out that agreement during that allotted time. Then, at the end of that period of time, reconvene to assess how it went and if you want to change anything about the agreement.

3. Brainstorming effectively

4. Suggestions on group decision making

5. Testing and iterating group decisions over time

8 Creating Your Housemate Agreements

Creating Your Housemate Agreements

9Key questions to consider:

How will we organize meetings? How often?

Which meeting are mandatory and which arent?

What methods do we all like in order to make decisions as a group?

How do we communicate on a daily basis throughout the house? Group email? Cork board? Kitchen fridge? Facebook group?

How do we bring up issues that come up between meetings? Or where do we keep a list of them to discuss at the next meeting?

Which responsibilities will be individual? Which will be shared? Which will be rotated? Will we use a chore wheel or another mechanism to figure out these tasks?

Considering everyone shares utility costs, what are expectations/rules on turning lights on/off? For example, should you turn the lights off when you leave a room?

Do we want to share food?

Do we want to cook together? Do we want to rotate who cooks, when?

Do we want to share groceries? Who goes to the supermarket? How do we know when groceries need to be restocked? How do you split the payment? What if some people like/dislike certain foods that other people want/dont want?

Do we want to pay for a food delivery service? For a chef?

1. Governance and communications

2. House responsibilities

3. Food

10 Creating Your Housemate Agreements

What does clean vs. messy mean to us? (Different people land on different levels of the spectrum for this, and are specific about very different things.)

What type of clean-up is expected?

What should we clean/organize when we leave a common area like the kitchen or living room?

Do we want to make a library in a common space of all sorts of items we can share? (Ex: books, tools, sports items) If so, how do we keep track of who is borrowing each item from whom?

Anything cool we want to purchase together?

Ex: a home theatre, a 3D printer, a sewing room, workout equipment?

Tip: This is a very common topic for roommates to have misunderstandings or arguments about, so please take time going through how you feel about all types of organization and cleanliness. Think about the kitchen, meals, common spaces, enter/exit spaces (shoes, rain, etc), bathroom, guests, parties, etc..

Do we want to have a laundry service pickup/drop-off at the house periodically?

How will we organize washing collective household items such as bath mats and dish towels?

4. House cleanliness

5. Sharing items

6. Laundry

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What are codes that we can use for others to understand when someone wants to be alone and when they want to hang out or are okay being interrupted from their activities?

Ex: What does it mean if your room door is open or closed, if you have headphones on, or if your girlfriend or boyfriend is over?

When is it okay and not okay to play loud music?

How do people like to be greeted and said goodbye/goodnight to?

Ex: Do we want a culture where when someone comes home they go around the house saying hi to whoever is home?

How do you know when someone has retired for the evening?

What happens if you eat someone elses food?

What personal stuff is it okay to leave in (which) common areas?

What is the expected treatment of guests by the host and by other housemates?

7. Respectfulness and mindfulness

8. Environment

Think about how to make your day to day activities (resource usage and waste) more eco-friendly:

lights, heater/air-conditioning, water, and energy usage

recycling and composting

How can you take advantage of outdoor or windowsill space to plant a garden or grow herbs?

12 Creating Your Housemate Agreements

Events are a big part of the Campus experience. Any one person or group or house can host any type of event. For example, we at Campus suggest each house host a weekly potluck - its an easy and informal way to stay connected.

More details on event creation and ideas for events, games, and parties can be found in the Campus Community Guide: Understanding Ourselves and Each Other

Plans and expectations to think about:

How often do you want to host events?

How should you communicate to your housemates when you want to host an event?

What kind of a say do housemates have in that event happening?

What kind of responsibilities do housemates have in helping host events with each other?

Are any events mandatory for all housemates? (For example, housemate agreements meetings?)

When will events be open to just housemates, Campus Members, and/or open to the public?

What types of events are you most interested in hosting?

How do we communicate about a guest potentially coming to stay over?

What kind of a say do other housemates have in this guest coming to stay?

How long can a guest stay over? What happens if a family member wants to crash with you for a weekend? A week? Two weeks? An entire month?

How does that affect the entire house? What is acceptable and not acceptable, or what changes can be made with use of common space or common resources, or contribution?

Tip: Note that your agreements about guests will probably differ between a boyfriend/girlfriend or friend who lives in the same city and could stay or leave anytime, vs. a guest whos coming to visit from a different city for a set period of time.

9. Guests

10. First thoughts on events

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It is recommended to discuss these points early on:

Compile a list of emergency numbers and put them on the fridge and in the hallways of each floor. This should include ambulance, hospital, and 2 family/friend phone numbers for every member. Include specific allergies each person is allergic to, including allergies to medicine.

Who has allergies? What foods or products are they allergic to? How can you support this person with not being exposed to these substances? How can you protect people with allergies that come to events, especially if theres food?

How can everyone prevent a break-in? What are the rules on locking windows and doors? What are the rules on checking this before bed? What are the rules on letting in strangers? What about during events? Where is it okay to leave expensive objects? Whos responsibility are they?

What do you do if theres an earthquake, hurricane, or other natural disaster relevant to your city?

What are fire escape routes, how are people informed of a fire (what if its in the middle of the night) and whats the outside meeting place?

What do you do if someone is very sick? Discuss who has resources like cars, learn where the nearest hospital is, and always have emergency cash available in a common place.

What do you do if you notice a roommate is going through a difficult psychological problem and is showing signs of challenges such as depression, an eating disorder, or alcoholism?

Do all housemates want to take a first aid course together to learn CPR and other useful skills?

11. In case of emergency