Messy roomates

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Anyone ever had any? I don't mean just kind of messy roomates, I mean more like complete slobs.

There are five people in my house, 4 are clean, 1 is not. The kitchen especially... we have a dishwasher, yet he refuses to use it and puts his dirty dishes in the sink for someone else to wash/put in the dishwasher. We put signs up all over the kitchen telling him (although not by name) to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, or if the dishwasher is full of clean stuff, to empty it out. But, then we'll just find more dirty stuff the next day. Its like he expects his mom to appear out of nowhere and clean it up for him... but it usually ends up being one of us. We'll even put the dirty dishes all over the stairs leading to his bedroom, but its like he doesn't even see them.

This is only the half of it though, basically he cleans up nothing after himself.

Does this story sound familiar? Anyone else have any messy roomate stories, and what did you do to solve it? This one has got us all stumped...

[Spiffor]

I haven't had a messy roommate, but I have friends who had one. Being a messy roommate is first and foremost a question of maturity.
If the guy lives far from his home for the first time, he'll have trouble understanding that yes, HE is the one who has to clean up his crap, and that no Mom nor maid will come and clean it in his stead.

My friends did the same as your clean mates first, they put signs, and they ended up doing their roommate's dishes. They even talked many times about it to her, with no effect. Then, they have found a better approach: whenever the messy roommate didn't do her dishes, they put the dirty dishes in front of her room's door. Whenever she did not get the trash out when it was her turn, they put the stinking trash in front of her door. Whenever she let a stinking full ashtray in the kitchen, they put it in front of her door.

That, and a clearly displayed hostility, ended up making her understand.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Anyone ever had any? I don't mean just kind of messy roomates, I mean more like complete slobs.

There are five people in my house, 4 are clean, 1 is not. The kitchen especially... we have a dishwasher, yet he refuses to use it and puts his dirty dishes in the sink for someone else to wash/put in the dishwasher. We put signs up all over the kitchen telling him (although not by name) to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, or if the dishwasher is full of clean stuff, to empty it out. But, then we'll just find more dirty stuff the next day. Its like he expects his mom to appear out of nowhere and clean it up for him... but it usually ends up being one of us. We'll even put the dirty dishes all over the stairs leading to his bedroom, but its like he doesn't even see them.

This is only the half of it though, basically he cleans up nothing after himself.

Does this story sound familiar? Anyone else have any messy roomate stories, and what did you do to solve it? This one has got us all stumped...

Tell him! Don't use hints, just tell the guy.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Richelieu
Tell him! Don't use hints, just tell the guy.

It's much b etter than hints already, but it may not be enough. But of course, telling him is a good start. Nope, telling him is the only possible way to start if you want him to change.

[Ramo]

I'm the messy roomate.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I haven't had a messy roommate, but I have friends who had one. Being a messy roommate is first and foremost a question of maturity.
If the guy lives far from his home for the first time, he'll have trouble understanding that yes, HE is the one who has to clean up his crap, and that no Mom nor maid will come and clean it in his stead.

My friends did the same as your clean mates first, they put signs, and they ended up doing their roommate's dishes. They even talked many times about it to her, with no effect. Then, they have found a better approach: whenever the messy roommate didn't do her dishes, they put the dirty dishes in front of her room's door. Whenever she did not get the trash out when it was her turn, they put the stinking trash in front of her door. Whenever she let a stinking full ashtray in the kitchen, they put it in front of her door.

That, and a clearly displayed hostility, ended up making her understand.

Yeah, man, sounds alot like my situation. Nothing gets through to this kid, no talking, no signs, nothing. But maybe you're right, we just started putting the dirty stuff in front of his door, maybe it will start to work. As we speak there are six dirty pots on his stairs.

Richelieu:

I know what you mean, but I would hardly call placing one dirty pot on each of the stairs leading to his bedroom along with signs saying "clean this **** up" a "hint". How much more direct can you be?

[Japher]

We'll even put the dirty dishes all over the stairs leading to his bedroom, but its like he doesn't even see them.

Why stop there? We use to put our messy roommates dishes IN his room, or even in his bed... Unfortunately, we ran out of dishes in about a week, as they were all under his bed.

Eventually, we sat him down and found "chores" that he wouldn't mind doing. Assigned one day a week to do this and had a "cleaning day"... This worked for about a month, but he saw what it was like to have a nice pad, and while he wouldn't do his stuff on THE DAY we would do ours it still got done.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Spiffor

It's much b etter than hints already, but it may not be enough. But of course, telling him is a good start. Nope, telling him is the only possible way to start if you want him to change.

We do tell him... when he's cooking, one of us will be like "Hey, J, you're going to clean that up when you're done, right?" And he'll say "oh yeah, sure sure", and sometimes he will but mostly he won't. Plus, we don't want to have to ask him every time, we want him to do it on his own.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Japher


Why stop there? We use to put our messy roommates dishes IN his room, or even in his bed... Unfortunately, we ran out of dishes in about a week, as they were all under his bed.

Eventually, we sat him down and found "chores" that he wouldn't mind doing. Assigned one day a week to do this and had a "cleaning day"... This worked for about a month, but he saw what it was like to have a nice pad, and while he wouldn't do his stuff on THE DAY we would do ours it still got done.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I'd hate to have to resort to cleaning schedules and stuff... we have sort of a liassez-faire kind of household where everyone cleans up their own mess after they make it. And it works great, just not for shithead.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


We do tell him... when he's cooking, one of us will be like "Hey, J, you're going to clean that up when you're done, right?" And he'll say "oh yeah, sure sure", and sometimes he will but mostly he won't. Plus, we don't want to have to ask him every time, we want him to do it on his own.

The guy is ready for an "intervention" i believe. The four of you need to sit him down and make him understand. Not a casual thing: a major conversation. This is the only topic you discuss and you don't stop until he's understood and promised to change.
The first time he fails to do so: trash his room.

[Japher]

Our messy roommate was an out doorsy type, and spent most of his time on the back porch where we had a couch, coffee table, radio, fridge, and lamps set up. Since he was always out there I asked him to keep that area clean (sweep, hose it down once and a while, keep garbage off the lawn, etc.). In return I did his dishes... No problems after that.

[SpencerH]

Its like training a dog. You've got to think of positive and negative reinforcements.


when he does something right use positive reinforcements:

compliment him
give him a cookie as a treat

when he does something wrong use negative reinforcements:

all of you should sneak into his room and beat the crap outa him with the dirty pots
toss his crap outside and change the locks

[loinburger]

For the most part I'm the messy roommate. The only exception is a chick that I roomed with once who'd leave her dishes in the sink for weeks -- drove me and my other roommate up the wall. Finally I just started putting the dishes in the basement if they were in the sink for too long (we all ate straight from the dish we'd used to prepare our meal, and we all used different cooking dishes, so it didn't affect me or the anal retentive roommate at all when the slobby roommate's dishes would disappear). She eventually started doing her dishes, since it was such a pain to have to trek down to the basement every time she wanted to cook something.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Its like training a dog. You've got to think of positive and negative reinforcements.


when he does something right use positive reinforcements:

compliment him
give him a cookie as a treat

when he does something wrong use negative reinforcements:

all of you should sneak into his room and beat the crap outa him with the dirty pots
toss his crap outside and change the locks

Yeah, it really is like raising a child. Only thing is I don't want to be his mommy.

[Jon Miller]

me and another guy in the house are the messy roomates

well, and there is probably another guy who is messy, but he doesn't use the kitchen and rarely uses the living room

but I am not that bad (I think)

we don't have a dishwasher, and I am always a bit late on cleaning my dishes (once a week usually, I don't eat at home that often)

but I usually clean others too, so I don't see how I am that bad

jon Miler

[MrFun]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Anyone ever had any? I don't mean just kind of messy roomates, I mean more like complete slobs.

There are five people in my house, 4 are clean, 1 is not. The kitchen especially... we have a dishwasher, yet he refuses to use it and puts his dirty dishes in the sink for someone else to wash/put in the dishwasher. We put signs up all over the kitchen telling him (although not by name) to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, or if the dishwasher is full of clean stuff, to empty it out. But, then we'll just find more dirty stuff the next day. Its like he expects his mom to appear out of nowhere and clean it up for him... but it usually ends up being one of us. We'll even put the dirty dishes all over the stairs leading to his bedroom, but its like he doesn't even see them.

This is only the half of it though, basically he cleans up nothing after himself.

Does this story sound familiar? Anyone else have any messy roomate stories, and what did you do to solve it? This one has got us all stumped...

Kick him out, and get a better roommate.


I am grateful that when I was in undergraduate school, I never had a roommate to share my dorm with.

And up to this point, I still never have any problems because I have never had a roommate.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
me and another guy in the house are the messy roomates

well, and there is probably another guy who is messy, but he doesn't use the kitchen and rarely uses the living room

but I am not that bad (I think)

I am always a bit late on cleaning my dishes (once a week usually, I don't eat at home that often)

but I usually clean others too, so I don't see how I am that bad

jon Miler

Haha, exactly what my roomate is thinking right now.

[Jon Shafer]

All my roommmates but one have been messy.

[MrFun]

Just kick the bastard out and then you have nothing to whine about.

[chequita guevara]

You can do things the easy way, the very easy way, the moderate hard way, or the annoying way.

The very easy way: kick his ass out

The easy way: trade chores, and make sure they're equivalents.

The moderately hard way: train him to do the dishes

The annoying way: just be his mommy and do the dishes for him.


BTW, have you considered calling his mother?

[Shi Huangdi]

Perfect Way: Become a messy slob yourself, get red banners, organize with all messy people, stage resolution, overthrow tyranny of the neat freaks.

*is happy he has a single room*

[Tingkai]

The messiest roommates that I've had were all women, but they were all good looking so I didn't care.

[Arrian]

I was pretty messy myself... and at one point so were the guys living with me (in the upstairs of our fraternity house).

It got bad.

One major problem was that the house had been accumulating dishware for years and had enough that you could eat for weeks or even months without having to wash a dish to find a clean one to eat off of. One of the primary reasons for washing a dish is that you need to use it. Removing that motivation left only the "avoiding filth" reason, which we mostly ignored.

I'm much better now, particularly because I've got a good "I cook, she cleans" division of labor with my girlfriend.

-Arrian

[Pekka]

Jimmy, Just apply appropriate pressure to his neck and leave him there. Problem solved.

[Jac de Molay]

Cleanliness is overrated anyway..:rolleye: You clean...gets messy..clean...get messy again. It's like a wheel of suffering

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Yeah, we actually just scheduled a house meeting for friday. The last time it got really bad we scheduled a house meeting and he cleaned it all up before the meeting, so we just postponed the next one indefinately so we could just use them as threats. Maybe it will actually work again...

It shouldn't have come to this though, we were making progress. We put up voluntary checklists around the kitchen so if you emptied the trash or the dishes, you put a check in your column so it would be glaringly obvious who was contributing to the workload. It worked in that he emptied the garbage once (100% increase from before) but not in the longterm. Oh well.


Edit: by the way, this is a 4 bedroom townhouse from this huge cheap housing conglomerate in Canada.

[Gatekeeper]

Communal living is so GLORIOUS!

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Communal living is so GLORIOUS!

cheap too

[Main_Brain]

I should do my Dishes too ..
*sigh*

2tired.
Tomorrow perhaps.