MetaChat - Roommate Crisis

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02 January 2007

Roommate Crisis So here's how it's shaping up:→[More:]

*V. used to live in the apartment, but moved out this summer. She's moving back into her old room this Saturday. Somehow, her name is still on the lease paperwork and her name is still on the cable and utilities paperwork. She had previously lived in the apartment for two years.

*A. found a new place with her boyfriend and if all things go well tonight, she'll be signing the new lease paperwork tonight for moving completely out by the end of the month.

*A. currently has the biggest room in the apartment.

*V. wants to move into A's room once she leaves. Her reasoning? She has a small home-based jewelry-making business and needs the workspace and she and her boyfriend don't have anywhere to be intimate together because he still lives with his parents in a two-bedroom apartment.

My questions are:

1) How much leverage do I have, if any?

2) Do I have the right to ask her to pay more rent if she's going to be using the apartment for her business and make-out pad?

post by: TrishaLynn at: 11:28 | 34 comments

1) What do you want, exactly? More money? The big room?

2)No. She should be paying more rent because the room is slightly bigger, but not because of how she uses it. Unless her boyfriend moves in, in which case that's a whole other matter.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 January | 11:30

2) Do I have the right to ask her to pay more rent if she's going to be using the apartment for her business and make-out pad?

Alternative idea: put a taxicab meter outside the makeout room and pull the flag down everytime the boyfriend comes over.

posted by jonmc 02 January | 11:33

In apartment situations, we generally split rent by: who's using the most resources? If someone has a bigger room, or her own private bathroom that isn't used by anyone else, she should pay a larger share of the rent.

posted by muddgirl 02 January | 11:34

TPS: I want the big room, and I think since she moved out, any roommate equity she had invested in the apartment is gone. Right?

posted by TrishaLynn 02 January | 11:36

Since you both want it, I think you should have a bidding war. Whoever is willing to pay more for it gets the room. That makes it fair.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 January | 11:41

I'm with TPS on this. Whoever can afford the bigger room should have it.

posted by Joe Famous 02 January | 11:56

And it doesn't have to include the 3rd roommmate- it can be between the two of you. Then the person who gets the small room gets cheaper rent. Yaaay!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 January | 11:57

Bidding war is the way to go.

posted by agropyron 02 January | 12:02

And, hi Trisha!

posted by agropyron 02 January | 12:03

I agree with the above, larger room = more rent. Boyfriend over all the damn time? Roommate pays all the rent.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 02 January | 12:08

I wish there were a way to charge more to people working from home- it's SO frustrating to never ever have the place to yourself. Plus, the electricity always goes up.

Most places I've lived have had some rule about guests, like, if they're there more than 3 or 4 nights a week they get to split the utilities.

posted by small_ruminant 02 January | 12:10

Update: A. says that while it was me, her and J., the rent was split evenly three ways. I have a feeling that when it was just A. and V., it was also split equally, but I'll ask her. A. said that "off the record" she thinks I should get the room but that it's between me and V. to handle and she doesn't want to get involved.

If I do make V. pay more for the larger room, how much more should I make her pay? The big room is perhaps twice as much space as one of the smaller rooms, but I'd have to estimate with a tape measure to be sure.

I'm still worried about the fact that my name isn't on any of the lease paperwork at all. Before V. moved back in, I was going to have A. change that with the landlord. I'm still going to do that, and I hope to have it done before V. moves in so she doesn't have that leverage to hold over me.

posted by TrishaLynn 02 January | 12:28

I think you should just do a bidding war- if you're each usually paying 600, tell her you'll pay more, like, I dunno, 650, and then she gets rent for 550. And if she wants the damn room she can pay more than that.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 January | 12:30

I think you have dibs on the room since you've been living there all along--and she wasn't paying for the space when she wasn't living there, was she?

posted by brujita 02 January | 12:33

The fairest way to apportion the cost would require first determining the monthly cost per square foot for the entire appartment, subtracting the value of each bedroom, dividing it three ways and adding the residual for each bedroom on a per sf basis to each individual's base payment for the commom space.

i.e., if there were, for simple math, 100 sf of common space, and it rented at $1/sf, everyone would pay $100, plus the size of the bedroom, so the person with the 200sf room would pay $300 and so forth.

posted by pieisexactlythree 02 January | 12:37

Update #2: A. says that when it was the both of them, it used to be split down the center, to the dollar.

posted by TrishaLynn 02 January | 12:43

I'm actually surprised that you paid equally for a smaller room. When I've shared apartments with unequal bedrooms, we've always split the cost based on square footage, as pie says above.

I also think that if you really want the bigger room, you should have dibs on it, as brujita says.

posted by agropyron 02 January | 12:59

Also, utility bills shouldn't necessarily be split evenly, either, although that can be a very tricky subject to broach.

posted by muddgirl 02 January | 13:02

My take is that the arrangement A had with V previous to you moving in is immaterial.

I'd split it down the middle (because I'm lazy and it just seems icky to me to bid) but give the person who's been their longest (IE: You) the first pick.

The problem with straight SF based rent is it doesn't handle intangables like which bedroom is closer to the bathroom or has the better view or is laid out better. One place I shared the tiny bedroom was the sought after one because it was the quietest. That may not be an issue in your apartment.

posted by Mitheral 02 January | 13:07

Maybe it's better to let her have the bigger room so she'll keep all her craft stuff in there instead of in the common living space. But if so, she should definitely pay a little more. That would be the way to put it to her... Okay, you can have the bigger room, but both A. and I (if A.'s on board) think you should pay such and such, for having more space. See what she says. Otherwise, if you really have your heart set on it, maybe flip a coin, since both you and she have what seem to be valid claims to it (she having lived there before and her name being on the lease and you having current occupancy). Peace, I think, though, is worth more than space or money; you will be living together afterall.

Geeze, when jon and I had a roommate, we split the rent by person instead of rooms. We shared one bedroom and gave the other bedroom to our roommate, but we paid 2/3rds of the rent and utilities. She was also a friend, though, so we were fine with it. (Plus, rent was so cheap there... $550 a month for a big two bedroom on the third floor of a three family; I sure miss that.)

posted by Pips 02 January | 13:15

Yeah, I got to live with two women and didn't even have to pretend I was gay.

posted by jonmc 02 January | 13:35

My guideline for fair price is:

each person pays proportional to area of the bedroom + (common area / number of people)

Say your rent is 1000, you have a 40 sq ft bedroom, a 20 sq ft bedroom, and 40sq ft common area. big room pays proportional to 40 + 20, small room pays proportional to 20 + 20.

But that's because I'm a soulless engineer, so I make up formulas to cheat people.

Now... in practice? In my current apartment we used that formula as starting point, then went right to the bidding war. Except there was no war, because both bedrooms were "good enough", and I don't have much furniture, so I wasn't willing to pay much more for the big room.

Hint: If you want to pay cheap rent, get your roommate drunk and be agressive in your bids. Know when to back out. I did that in my last apartment in Brazil (3 rooms, 3 people), and the guy in the big room paid almost half the rent (the split was 650,400,350).

posted by qvantamon 02 January | 14:30

I think you have seniority, and since the status quo is equal rent, you should have the option of choosing the room you want.

If she wants largest room + working at home (using more utilities), she should pay more. If she needs more space to accommodate bf, you should recognize that he will be there A LOT. She needs to check w/ roomies to see if that's okay, and set guidelines. If he's there a lot, he should be buying supplies, food, and being extra helpful, or paying some rent.

posted by theora55 02 January | 14:40

I'd say give her the big bedroom, as Pips said, so she'll keep all her craft stuff in there. (And make sure it's understood that she'll keep all her stuff in that room). And if the boyfriend ends up staying the majority of the time, he needs to pay rent and utilities, too. Heck, he'll be using your water and electricity, so that would only be fair. Get it all in writing!!!! And please, make it a priority to get your name on the lease!

posted by redvixen 02 January | 15:06

I have to go with Pips and Redvixen on this... do you really want beads, pliers, bits of metal, and so forth all over the kitchen or living room, if she doesn't have space in her bedroom? Sure, she should pay more, that's only fair and I think any reasonable adult would think so.

But I'd be concerned about the boyfriend situation. Staying over on a Friday or Saturday is one thing, staying over just about every night is another all together, and if he lives with his folks that could be just what they had in mind. Not just for the practicalities of utilities and food and so on, but also for things like, say, adjoining bedroom walls and the, um, noise factor.

posted by kellydamnit 02 January | 15:34

With regard to getting your name on the lease, do you know if the apartment is rent stabilized? If you don't know, is it in a building that has six or more apartments? I ask because there are important rules governing the addition of new tenants to a lease that you might want to know about before you insist on adding your name to the lease.

posted by Lassie 02 January | 15:43

p.s. Note that simply having more than six apartments in a building doesn't guarantee that it's rent stabilized, but it's a pretty good indicator of the rent regulation status of the apartment.

posted by Lassie 02 January | 15:45

Do you even want her to move in? Is there a reason you couldn't say, "this isn't going to work out and I'm taking the bigger room anyway."

Either way, it's your room stand your ground. I hope it works out for you!

posted by freudianslipper 02 January | 17:07

freudianslipper: I wasn't given a choice on whether or not V. could move back in. I got a voice mail message saying, "Hey, V.'s going to move back in" and then a day later, V. herself called to talk about getting the big room and her moving in date.

posted by TrishaLynn 02 January | 17:18

Oh, and our "apartment" is the first floor of a two-family home.

posted by TrishaLynn 02 January | 17:19

This is why I cannot live with anyone but the boyfriend...

Boyfriend over all the damn time? Roommate pays all the rent.

Thank you LT! My thoughts exactly! Boyfriend tries to get in the shower with you by "mistake" one morning? Roommate pays all the rent, all the utilities and buys you something shiny. This is not how it worked with me... She apologized, he did not.

2nd Female roommate and I were friends to start and enemies when it was all over. She's been out of the house for a year and our relationship has equalized.

Moral of the story: I cannot live with women, so my advice in this department sucks. That is all.

posted by youngergirl44 02 January | 17:47

I've lived in a situation before in which the rent was divided equally among seven people, and we all had rooms of different sizes. So I know how that can be. Even though it's weird, once there's a precedent for it, the first person with a small room who suggests they should pay less looks like an asshole. But the reason he/she looks like an asshole, is because of the implication that if they'd just waited long enough, they'd have gotten the big room by seniority anyway, and that maybe that's what the people in the big rooms had already done. So, here's my recommended line of argument:

1) You have seniority. Ergo, you have the *right* to claim the big room. She probably will not argue with this in principle.
2) If you give up the large room, you have the right to ask for something in return, i.e. for her to pay more rent.
3) Mention that you too have things that you would like to do with the extra space in the large room. It's not as if your having it would be a waste.

posted by bingo 02 January | 21:33

I don't like living with women either, youngergirl44. (or working with them for that matter)

posted by By the Grace of God 03 January | 06:25

I would totally go qvantamon's way - cool, calm logical split based on the floorspace, and whichever one of you wants it more has to pay the extra. If the boyfriend is staying over all the time, he should pay a third of the common space.

I propose that we also get gvantamon to come up with a formula for utilities, because if indeed she doesn't have an outside job, they will definitely be higher.

posted by taz 03 January | 07:53

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