Living with housemates is overall and awesome experience, but it’s not always all fun and games. Learning to respect and accommodate others is one of the many responsibilities that come with living with other people. It’s a skill that takes a lot of time, and the process can be extremely frustrating (especially if one housemate keeps forgetting to do the dishes). Here are 11 struggles inevitable to happen when sharing a kitchen with housemates.
1. Having to Share Food
Just because you make seven dumplings doesn’t mean you get to eat seven dumplings. A lesson you learn is to always make extra for housemates. Just remember this simple rule: For every dumpling you make, it’s a dumpling for your housemates.
2. Having the Parents Visit
You know that you and your housemates live in a pigsty, but your parents don’t need to know this fact. The kitchen will have to be extensively cleaned the day before parents come in order to show them what clean, responsible college students you guys really are.
3. Taking Out the Trash
The day everyone looks least forward to is garbage day. Once a week, it takes a team effort to lug out all the trash. It’s heavy and stinky and the more housemates you have, the more garbage there is to take out.
4. The Cookie Jar Thief
So you’re about to prepare yourself breakfast when you realize you’re out of eggs. When living with housemates, food is bound to go missing. When a dumpling or a carrot disappears, you may be cool with it, after all, you don’t want to start a fight over a measly carrot. But when basic necessities vanish and you can’t make your breakfast, things start to get serious.
5. Overcrowded Space
The washroom isn’t the only space that gets crowded. The kitchen can only hold so many people comfortably, and you may end up having to wait your turn to cook.
6. Learning How to Trash Can Stack
The number one golden rule all housemates seem to know without even agreeing upon it: Whoever can’t stack any more trash has to take the garbage bag out, this isn’t Jenga people.
7. The Sink Stack Up
No one has the time to wash their dishes after every meal. Things start to stack up, and before you know it, there’s a huge pile of dirty dishes in the sink. If only dishes would wash themselves.
8. Seriously, Just Constant Stacking
There’s a constant stacking of trash, dishes, and food in the fridge. By the end of your four years at college, you could graduate with a degree in stacking and packing.
9. Having Different Definitions of Clean
Especially for the clean freaks out there, no one will ever amount to your definition of clean. So do your part, clean up after yourself, and help lessen the mess around the house. If you can’t lick the counter, then it’s not clean.
10. When Cooking Goes Wrong
Dear housemates, you are not Gordon Ramsey. Stop taking random ingredients and hoping it turns out great because it won’t. Lingering odors are not the move.
11. Running Out of Alcohol.
Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, and most importantly, hide yo alcohol. There will be nights when your vodka seems to be watered down ever so slightly or just downright disappear.
Living with others is hard, especially if you’re not used to it. But there are perks of living with housemates, like their undying friendship, support and ability to make you laugh about the 10 pizzas you “accidentally” had delivered at 3 am. (I bet you know who’d help you finish those pizzas, too). Just be courteous of others in the kitchen and all will be well between you and your housemates.