Need advice: Living with friends

[Misty]

I recently had to tell one of my roommates to move out for screwing me out of rent money to the tune of $1,000 :mad: As lease holder I'm stuck paying his part of the rent. I had the nerve to ask the landlord if I could make a partial payment for Sept rent and pay the balance the following month, since I was a little short and couldn't cover deadbeat's share right away. The landlord proceeded to tear me a new one, yelling about how I was responsible...blah, blah, blah...long story short, I had to borrow money to cover the rent, got my ass chewed out, and deadbeat gets to skate. Nice, huh? :mad:

That's not the subject of this thread; I just had to rant a little there. The problem is, a friend of mine is looking for a new place to live, and offered to move in. She's a great person, but I'm a little wary of living with her.

You know the saying, "You don't really know someone until you live with them?" I'm just worried we won't be compatible, and end up hating each other. My sister tried living with her best friend. It lasted six months, and they are not friends anymore.

What should I do? She is not in any hurry to move, so it would be no big deal if I said no. Still, I don't want to try my luck with a total stranger and get burned again. Then again, what if my friend moves in and I get burned anyway? Can anyone here speak from experience?

[Broomjockey]

I can. Pick a stranger. That way, when it all goes south, you won't care. I tried living with my best friend of 18 years. 2 years living together, now I refuse to acknowlege his existance, and he won't even ride on the same bus as me, even if we are at different ends.

The best roommates I've had were the ones I didn't know before-hand. Also, try and not get someone straight out of their parent's home. They rarely turn out to be good roommates the first time around.

[Binky]

DO NOT LIVE WITH FRIENDS PERIOD! Serously, it goes bad!I lived with friends, and as I posted in another thread ages ago, I now have a bad credit rating because they refused to pay a bill that was in my name. After I left, my former friends are still living together, and one is now refusing to pay rent! Why I don't know, all I know is that when I left, they were both up sh*t creak without a paddle, and now they have defulted several times, not paid several bills, and will soon be loosing the place! I've made up with one of them, and was recently over at the place to pick up a few things I left behind, and to get back things the other house mate stole from me, (I still have my name on the bond) and the house mate showed me all these holes in the walls and how they ran their heads through the laurndry sink!!!!!!!!!! So now, I doubt if I will ever be seeing my part of the bond again!!!!!!!!!! F**K it...Your better off subletting to a person who you don't know, that way, you can set ground rules BEFORE they sign over and you can do all the background checks and stuff

[AFpheonix]

Man, if you do let her move in, put down on paper exactly what her responsibilities are financially, and definitely have a set of house rules that everyone involved has agreed on, also in writing. I've had bummer roomies before too, one that racked up a whole bunch of 900 number charges on a phone bill in my name and moved out, leaving me holding the bag.

[symposes]

Ive been told that if you want to remain friends with someone, dont live with them.

I think it just depends on the person.

Ive got a friend thats going through some hard times, Ive offered to let him room with me while he straightens things out. I guess its a little different.
Im already making due with my 2bdrm apartment. Him paying on rent and such just makes it easier on me. I have a feeling though that hes not going to get around to moving in with me.... oh well, being alone has its advantages too.

[morgana]

I'm actually living now with my best friend. It's been working fine for three+ years.

I think it has more to do with setting rules before hand, and knowing your friend well enough to know how well she follows rules.

[NightAngel]

Long ago I roomied with a friend. She is still my friend and has been for 23 years. I also fired this same friend from a job once (I had no choice) but we're still friends.

It completely depends on the people. If you're concerned already then maybe it isn't the best idea.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I would recommend against living with a friend. If the friendship is important to you, don't do it. Especially since you already have misgivings. Trust me, the things that are causing you misgivings are only the tip of the iceburg.

[officegirl]

I lived with someone I considered a friend for about 5 months. We got along great for a while and then, instead of confronting me to my face about a problem she had, she wrote a really long letter telling me how much she can't stand living with me. I was not only shocked but very hurt. Part of her complain was that I never "deep cleaned" the house and that she was the one who always did it. Well, I work two jobs and whenever she decided the house needed cleaning, it was when I was working. I'd ask her to wait and then I could help but she always said it was just too dirty to live in. My boyfriend was over all the time and he never once thought it was too dirty to live in. She also, however, used personal things I had told her as blackmail, spreading the news to people whenever we would fight. She even went through my things once to dig up some dirt on me and it was a very personal piece of information. Needless to say, I moved out early and will never speak to her on friendly terms again. Once our lease is up and the house is cleaned and everything is wrapped up on that end, I won't have to talk to her ever again and I can't wait for that day. I personally will never have another roommate ever again. I have only had one fair experience with a roommate and that was when neither of us was home much. So, if you can afford it, live by yourself.

[K245five]

A few years back, a friend of mine and I shared a place together for about six months.

For the first three months, everything went smooth as silk. We paid our portions of the rent and our respective bills without any problems. Then, evrything started to fall apart.

My roommate at the time would go over to his parents place to do his laundry. Well, one Saturday evening he called our place from there saying he was just going to spend the night there because he was really tired from working all day before that. I'm thinking "Okay, fine. That's cool".

Then, he started spending every Saturday night at his parents house. Then it became the entire weekend, Then the weekend stretched into three day weekends, then four day weekends(Friday thru Monday). Plus, he became really hard to reach after awhile to the point where I legitimately wondered if he was trying to "disappear" or something like that. He was letting his bills go and everything to the point where collections agents were calling. And I got stuck paying rent for the whole damn place because he was conveinently gone when rent came due for those last few months.

Then towards the end he was gone for about 8 straight days. I had to go away for a few days myself for a church function. When I got back, I noticed a note on the door from the landlord saying she wanted to see me, and when I opened the door, I saw that all of his belongings were gone. Like a chicken-s**t, he waited until I was gone, then moved out. He left a short letter on the table saying he was sorry, but he felt things weren't working out and he felt he needed to move back home for awhile and sort things out. He even admitted that it was a chicken-s**t thing to do behind my back, but he couldn't get his nerve up to actually tell me directly. Since I couldn't afford the place on my own, I had to move back home also.

I found out later that he had struck up a relationship with a girl several years younger than him, and that also explained a lot as to him disappearing. He was in his early twenties at the time, and she was in her mid teens. And, the REAL reason he wanted out was because he wanted to move into a place with her.

That wasn't why I was upset with him. I was upset with him because he snuck around behind my back and slipped out the back door when I left for a few days. If he wanted to get a place with his GF, he could've just said so as far as I was concerned.

So, to echo most of the other posters here, DO NOT move in with a friend! It's one of the quickest ways to become "ex"-friends.

[BunnyJas]

I've never shared an apartment, but I have shared a dorm room in college with a couple friends. Things went great since we have similar personalities and shared the same values. However I realize things can get tricky when you are depending on someone to pay half the rent and utility bills.

Statistically, it probably is a bad idea to room with friends. However sometimes it can work especially if you lay the ground rules down before you start living together.

[hawkchick11]

Like others have said, do not live with your friends.

I lived with 2 of my friends, the one I got along great with... the other was so anal about everything, she drove me (and the 2 other roommates) crazy. All of the utilities were in my name, but I never had a problem with them giving me money for them (mostly cuz mommy and daddy paid for everything). I had my son the beginning of June and moved my stuff out shortly after. They finally gave me the money for bills due in June in the beginning of July... and now the one is refusing to give me money for the bills from June and July because she says she already gave me money for those... but she didn't. So now I'm stuck with $300 in utility bills for 2 months when I wasn't even living there.

I still talk to the one nice roommate, because she's being reasonable about things... the other one is just being a bitch.