Important Roommate Ground Rules to Set

Dorm rooms are small and you mostly likely have to share them with someone you don’t. It can be a tricky adjustment to make, but if you and your roomie have clear communication and expectations of each other, it can go smoothly.

During the first week of freshman year, an RA might visit your room and go over some rules to create a roommate agreement form. But just in case they don’t (or if there are additional rules/guidelines you want to have covered)

Here are some good roommate ground rules to set:

• Quiet / lights out hours
• Room temperature
• What is shared food and what isn’t
• When friends can come over / sleep over
• General cleanliness level of the room
• Who buys what general room supplies
• Room chores
• Acceptable noise level when studying
• Borrowing etiquette
• Personal space boundaries
• Establish communication protocol when there’s a problem
• Room security
• Privacy
• Sharing TV time
• Alarm clock settings
• Allergies
• Acceptable and unacceptable behavior

This is just a starting list, of course, and there are plenty of other living-arrangement rules that you can go over with your new roommate. The most important thing is to communicate often with your roomie, so everyone knows what is expected at all times.

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