Whether you’re friends with your roommate(s) or can’t wait for the lease to be over, we all have ground rules. It can be hard to enforce restrictions, but as long as you approach the roommies with respect, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about (and if there is, then you’ve got a bigger problem!). We’ve got a list of tips that can help you and your fellow housemates live in perfect harmony. Check them out below!

What would you add to our list? Tell us in the comments!

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Living with other human beings is hard. Like really hard. And sometimes if it’s your best friend, it’s even harder. How do you tell someone you love that they need to do their own dishes and turn the TV volume down and stop having loud sex every single night. We feel you. In fact, we are you and that’s why we’re giving you some solutions.

initiating the gallery...

[This post was originally written by Khalea - Howard University]

Unless you’re one of the few students who lucks out and gets a single, almost everyone who goes away to school must deal with a roommate. Although it would be ideal to become BFF with your rando roommate,  everyone doesn’t always bond like Rachel, Monica and Phoebe. And because girls like to get their  feelings out via emo Facebook statuses, rather than actually confronting the problem, situations tend to escalate fast.

Here are some problems you may run into within the walls of your shared space and a few solutions if/when you find yourself in a pickle.

She’s sloppy: Her clothes are always on the floor and on her bed, even when she’s not getting dressed. Strands of her hair line your dorm room floor. She has loose papers and party fliers sticking out of her textbooks and strewn all over her desk. And is it you, or does her side of the room smell like gym socks and onions? Unfortunately, all girls aren’t all that neat, clean and prissy. Some are straight-up foul! Maybe they’re used to someone else cleaning for them or maybe they’re just lazy. But if you’re with a sloppy sister, you will probably end up speaking to her about her hot mess on more than one occasion.

Solution: Starring at her mess with your evilest eye won’t suddenly make her realize that she’s too messy. Instead this is one of those situations where you’re going to have to be confrontational (but NOT hostile) and ask for a compromise. You can’t expect her to go from slopfest to neat freak, but you can ask her to make sure her mess doesn’t invade your side of the room and that she does her best to keep all smells at a minimum. Just asking her to “be cleaner” won’t get you very far. Give her clear suggestions like “please put your gym clothes immediately in your laundry and not on the floor.”

She’s noisy: While away at college, most girls enjoy an occasional catch-up session with their friends and family on the phone or on Skype. But what if your roommate is constantly talking on the phone, blasting her music and singing along, and inviting your entire hall over to watch the “Jersey Shore” premiere (at volume lever 50 or higher)? Then you’ve got yourself a noisy roommate. Some people are born with the gift of gab; they’re just naturally loquacious. Although you’ll probably end up wishing your roomie would shut up, at least you’ll avoid being lonely when your best friend can’t Skype. There will always be someone to talk to.

Solution: Throwing her speakers out of the window and locking your door when she invites people over will not solve this problem. Instead sit down and try to set a few ground rules for when it’s okay and NOT okay for her to be loud. It’s not unreasonable for you ask her to be quiet when you’re trying to study and sleep. It is unreasonable for you to tell her she can never have friends over. Suggest headphones for her music and maybe invest in a pair of Bose headphones for yourself.

She’s too Friendly: Your dorm room is probably one of the only places where you’ll find the most peace on campus. It’s your oasis in the middle of the crazy college desert. When your roommate is in your face constantly, you might as well be back in the student lounge or the noisy cafeteria. She always wants to talk to you and “bond.” Don’t get me wrong, establishing a relationship with your roommate is important. Plus it’s way better than boarding with a b-word (see “mean”). But man, can’t a girl sleep…and dress…and bathe in peace?

Solution: This one is tricky because she’s trying to spend time with you…and asking her to stop will make things awkward for the rest of the year. Try using visual clues when you want some peace and quiet. Putting in your headphones does wonders in passing that message along.

She’s thieving: She’s going through your closet, snatching your jewelry up! There’s always someone who wants what they can’t have, so they take it. When it happens to be the person you live with, it causes a lot of discomfort. You’d never want to accuse your roomie of thievery because it makes things too awkward. But when you notice undies missing from your top drawer and earrings missing from your accessory tree, it’s time to confront her and get a lock. Hide your clothes, hide your shoes!

Solution: This is the perfect time to be confrontational, because the longer you put off asking her about the stolen items, the worse it will get. Let her know that she’s welcome to borrow things, but she has to ask first. Then it’s up to you to say yes or no when she asks — say no a few times and she’ll stop asking. Many girls with sisters are used to borrowing from their sisters without asking and she might just assume that’s the norm. If talking to her doesn’t do the trick, then you should talk to your RA — no one deserves to live in the middle of a crime scene.

She’s mean: Mean girls are everywhere, and your school’s housing department may pair your with one or two. Not everyone is Miss Congeniality. Your roommate may not greet you every time you walk in your dorm or invite you to lunch. Some people have a hard time adjusting to sharing space. It may really hurt your feelings, especially at the beginning of the year when you want to meet new people. Don’t fret, there are other girls on campus who you’re bound to click with. Hopefully you’ll end up hanging out with them more and barely see the Wicked Witch of Your Room.

Solution: You’re not a trained therapist so don’t even try to de-ice her. Instead just accept the fact that your roomie and you are not going to be BFFs. And if the meanness gets worse for what seems like no reason, ask her what’s up. Maybe she has a family situation at home she’s upset about or maybe she’s annoyed that  your alarm clock ringtone is the soundtrack from Grease. You won’t know if you don’t ask.

When you live with your best friends, it’s totally acceptable to cut loose and dance and sing at the top of your lungs to Ke$ha. Living with friends is fun, carefree, exciting. I wouldn’t change living with my friends for the world. On the other hand, living with a random roommate also allows you to experience new people and hang out with a different crowd.  It can be refreshing, enlightening and you may even gain a new friend out of your random housing assignment. But eventually, with any roommate no matter if she’s a friend or random, disaster strikes because you left your hairbrush out for the third time in a row.

Here are some tips to keep your roommates happy:

Do have roommate nights. Grab a bowl of popcorn, sit on the couch, or your extra long twin bed, and put in a chick-flick. My roommates and I always have Gossip Girl Mondays. Having these nights keeps your bond strong; it’s an easy way to break away from some of the stress of school, especially when it’s midterm week and you don’t say a word to your roommate because you’re cramming for your Chemistry test.

Don’t blast music when your roommate is studying. We’ve all been there—you have an exam in each 3 of your classes and an essay due, it’s 1am and the library is too far of a trek. You are focused, in the study-zone and your roommate decides to have people over for a power hour. Great. Treat your roommate the way you would want to be treated, so respect that she needs some silence and one day she will return the favor.

Do clean up after yourself.  There’s nothing more annoying to coming home from a long, stressful day of classes to dirty dishes in the sink or an overflowing trashcan with yesterday’s tuna can on top.  So if it’s your stuff, clean it up!

Don’t gossip about your roommate! It’s normal to vent about your roommate’s annoying habits, but if you’re talking about her to your whole floor, chances are she WILL find out. If you have a problem, confront her first before gossiping to your hall mates. If still have a problem, talk to your RA; they are there to help you.

Do enjoy your time living with a roommate! College is full of new experiences and having a roommate is one of them.  Try and form a friendship with your roommate because she’s going to be there when you’re freaking out about your final exam at 8am and when you’re trying to decode your new interest’s text messages.

While signing my life away last year… I mean, my apartment lease… many things crossed my mind:

1)   No more crappy cafeteria food!
2)   Yay for bonding! We’ll be all up in each other’s business all the time.
3)   We’ll have so much in common – we all have boyfriends!

Now this has become two (sorta) truths and a lie. I went from cafeteria food to massive amounts of frozen food shipped from my loving mother. (What can I say? She refused to let me live on Ramen.) And being all up in each other’s business turned out to be more than I bargained for. Think assigned chores, paying rent, and dealing with cockroaches when we moved in (still makes me shudder!). And as you may have already guessed, the boyfriend and I broke up. So that leaves (put your hands up!) a single, independent woman who apparently makes references to Beyonce songs when she talks about herself.

Yes, I’m single and living with three other girls in relationships.

At first it wasn’t such a big deal, but after welcome week ended and classes began, the boyfriends became frequent fixtures in the apartment. Or maybe I just started noticing then because I was no longer intoxicated… But I digress. Soon I started wondering how I’d deal with their constant presence for the rest of the year. Don’t get me wrong – roommate love abounds in our apartment. I look forward to Project Runway marathons and love notes via whiteboard. And we are proud to say that the rapidly expanding empty bottle collection atop the kitchen cabinets will no doubt qualify for the 8^th wonder of the world soon.

But it can get a little frustrating. I can no longer walk around half-dressed while getting ready. I’m not that self-conscious, but having your roommate’s boyfriend right there makes walking around in a towel a bit uncomfortable. And, while I’m definitely not the type of girl to get dolled up every time I’m around some guys, it gets tiresome to have to put on real clothes, brush my hair, and put in the contacts because the boyfs are around (because no matter his relationship status, chances are he has some cute, single friends, right?).

And if I’m playing music and dancing around (not in my underwear like the old days before the boyfriends moved in), I feel compelled to change up my musical selections when the guys arrive since “Party in the USA” apparently doesn’t appeal to the brethren… Who knew?

Being surrounded by couples is a dangerous position to be in. You never know when you’re going to walk in on something “in progress.” In fact, with the overwhelming amount of PDA happening in my living room/kitchen, it’s impossible not to. There is love and kisses and foot rubbing (ew, seriously?) happening everywhere I turn.

But ultimately, my one complaint and biggest pet peeve about my current sitch comes back to the ladies themselves. There is always the ever-present dilemma of who to hang out with: boyfriends, friends/roommates, or both? And somehow I always end up losing out. I distinctly remember being there for these girls while they were lonely and longing for a boy. I recall trying to decipher his ambiguous text messages when they first started dating. And I am now trying to cope with the fact that the next time we will spend real quality time (sans the men) together is when they’re blowing their noses into my shoulder while telling me what a good friend I am because I’m driving us on an emergency ice cream run at 2am the night they get dumped.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy that they’re happy. And I’m also quite happy in my current single-dom. And there are even some bright spots to all this: since my roommates are with their bfs pretty consistently, I can bring friends back to the apartment at wee hours of the morning without worrying about waking anyone up. And since my roommates are way past the dating scene, they always enjoy hearing my exciting, hilarious, or terrible dating escapades.

But I miss my single friends. I miss hearing their stories. I miss having spontaneous impromptu late-night parties with the new dudes we meet at a party. I miss the girls-only morning-after recaps.

The only thing I’m not really missing is my own boyfriend…

[Photo courtesy of moviecritic.com]

“I did my first beer bong in that one,” you tell yourself. “I can’t throw away the memories!” Well, you don’t have to. Here are a few ways to reuse your old shirts.

Throw pillows — Pick the t-shirts with logos you love, but never wear. Follow these easy instructions, and you have new room decor. The main cost is pillow forms, or cotton batting, but it’s a lot cheaper than going out and buying them from a decor store. Variation: make an actual t-shirt pillow.

T-shirt shopping bag — Go green when lugging your groceries home with a snazzy new shopping bag. You can save the planet by not using plastic bags, and have extra change for happy hour by not spending a cent on the reusable ones from the grocery store. Plus, you can turn that pre-party t-shirt into something actually useful!

T-shirt quilt — If you’re feeling ambitious, and have a ton of t-shirts, make a t-shirt quilt. You’ll have a unique new blanket, and still be able to look at your favorite tees. If you’re not feeling up to the challenge alone, and have a quilter in the family (such as a grandma or an aunt) why not ask them to help you out? You will get a less amateur looking product, and they will get some quality time with their favorite student.

Pillow cube — Makes a soft projectile to wake a roommate sleeping through her alarm if you share a bedroom.

Recon your t-shirt — If you really like the design on the shirt, but don’t like how it fits, why not reconstruct it so you’ll actually wear it. The book, Generation T: 101 Ways to Transform a T-shirt is a good step-by-step guide to help you out.

Have any more suggestions, let us know!

I was excited to be living with these girls because although we aren’t the best of friends, we spent the better half of our last year partying at each other’s respective houses and decided that in an effort to make it easier on all of us we’d just… live together. We eliminated the need to sleep on each other’s uncomfortable couches in dirty, beer-stained clothes and brave the BRUTUAL winters to walk home.

Regardless of how fun and exciting this whole idea was, though, I was still scared sh*tless to share my life/belongings/food/drinks with four estrogen-filled, sometimes catty, often-drunk females. We’ve all heard roommate horror stories and let’s face it – with five girls occupying such a small space, I figured The Hills-esque drama was inevitable.

BUT, not to jump the gun (it’s only been about three weeks since we moved in!), things have been great. FABULOUS. I’d even go as far to say that I actually thoroughly ENJOY living with girls – and that having roommates (especially four of them) really has its perks:

1. You can swap clothes. This means you can borrow your new roomie’s one-of-a-kind vintage dress and send her off in one of your faves as well – with something endearing like, “If you spill red wine on my white dress, I know where you live, bitch!”

2. MUCH cheaper bills. After sharing a tiny-ass, extremely overpriced apartment with one girl last year, I have found that splitting the bill five ways enables us to spend less on cable and more on Carlo.

3. Impromptu parties/dance parties. Bored on a Friday night and there’s no drink specials at the bars? When you live with lots of people, just hanging out with the roomies feels like one helluva party. Invite over a few close friends and you’ve practically got a rager right in your living room.

4. Girls have guy friends…who can also become your guy friends…or boyfriends. Or just end up naked in your bed. I can’t tell you how many new dudes I have met in the last three weeks. Why oh why were these girls keeping hot boys a secret?

5. Discounts! Two of my roommates work at Ruby Tuesdays, so I am able to enjoy the Quiche of the Day whenever I please… at half the price.

6. Roommate dinners. While going out to eat is nice, staying at home and enjoying a home-cooked meal is nicer. Especially if one of your roommates is totally Top Chef material.

7. Someone is ALWAYS around. We all like a little privacy, sure, but college can often be a lonely place. With four other chicks running around this house, I’m hardly ever lonely. There’s always someone to go with me to WalMart (or the liquor store), watch old episodes of Gossip Girl on DVD or lounge on the couch with me as I nurse my hangover with a beer.

8. Even if we get annoyed with each other, we ALWAYS have each other’s backs. It’s kind of like this unspoken rule between roommates. When we go out and someone messes with one of the others, even if we aren’t the best of friends, we know the in’s and out’s of each other’s lives and that is reason enough to defend each other in the face of danger (or an extremely drunk, angry girl with an oversized cocktail ring).

What do you think are some perks of roommates?

[Photo courtesy of albright.edu]

For the first time since graduation, my college roommates and I made a return trip to Ann Arbor for a weekend reunion full of drinking, Michigan football and a general return to the life of college students. I can’t even tell you how excited I was to get back to campus and run amok around the town; visit our old house, drink at our favorite bars and, of course, visit our favorite late night eateries.

And for all intents and purposes, the weekend far exceeded the fun-factor I was anticipating. I got my Long Island Iced Teas and ate my New York style White Pizza. I watched the Wolverines win (even if it was a crappy team) and finally picked up my Michigan Alumni t-shirt.

It was perfect.

But this weekend also made me realize some very key post-graduation truths:

1. I can’t drink like I used to: In the old days I could down a couple (10) cocktails and dance the night away only to wake up the next morning, hit the gym and get to class. Not anymore, my friends. After getting good and drunk on Saturday night, I am still experiencing a hangover. And it is Tuesday. On the plus side: I still got my boozey-moves on the dance floor…and the videos to prove it.

2. College bars are cheap: I always used to hate those grads who came back to campus and screamed about how cheap the drinks were. Now that I am a grad, I have to scream it: drinks are so cheap! Nowhere else can a group of girls get 8 pitchers, a round of shots and 3 orders of cheese fries for $95 including tip! I may have even taken a picture of the bill.

3. Though we are far apart, my girls are exactly the same: I was a little scared for the way everyone would act after having been living on opposite coasts and building new lives over the past year. We were as close as anyone could be when we graduated, but who knows what the dynamic would be like now? One minute in the car together and I realized I had nothing to worry about. The friendships we built (and you are building now) are strong and will survive just about anything. Especially when a drunken dance party is involved.

4. Going back is totally bitter sweet: Being back in Ann Arbor made me so happy and sad at the same time. I love that town and everything that happened to me while I was there, but I also realized – as I walked around campus and didn’t know anyone – that it will never be that way again. College is a one time deal, so make sure to savor every moment while you have it.

Ahhh. So many lessons. And all along I thought this weekend was going to be about beer and selfies. Which, I also learned, create quite the lethal combo.