5 college guys renting a house--need suggestions on resolving conflict

[RitaZ.]

My DD went through this 2 years ago in college with her being one of 5 girls in a house. They decided, on their own, to give a financial incentive to the smaller/least desirable room. When I suggested rotating rooms, she emphatically said "no way!"

Well, there it is. Young adults are totally capable of working it out by themselves.

OP, did your son really ask you for assistance with this?

 

[MrsPete]

I was in a situation like this about a hundred years ago when I rented a house with a bunch of college friends. Here's how we resolved it: The five bedrooms were VERY disproportional in size, so it wasn't going to be fair for everyone to pay the same amount of rent -- not when one person was getting a master bedroom that equalled about 40% of the upstairs floor while another person had what was essentially a tiny nursery and the other three had medium-sized rooms. We measured the bedrooms and came up with three different amounts that'd be contributed towards the rent. The person who had the master bedroom paid more, the person who had the tiny room paid the least, and the three with medium rooms all paid the same. Fortunately, in our case we all agreed easily: One person WANTED more space and was willing to pay for it. Another person NEEDED to pay as little as possible and was willing to forego the space for the savings.

I think rotating would be the worst possible idea. Who wants to move everything every month or so? Too much effort.

(As a note, I do agree that they should be working this out for themselves.)

 

[disney1990]

Let them work it out by themselves.

My daughter is in this exact same situation and I wouldn't dare get involved in it. They have worked out who gets which bedroom, how to handle the electric bill, and how to handle the internet/cable bill.

 

[NHdisneylover]

We currently rent a four bedroom. The tenants split the rent/utilities equally. The one who arranged everything gets the master bedroom with its own bath. This is partly because he did arrange things. BUT he is also (in exchange for the much better room) totally in charge of lawn care (big lawn to mow and rake) and snow shoveling (long driveway in New Hampshire) as well as minor maitnance (light bulb replacements, etc.) and draining, cleaning and refilling the hottub. So basically he is "paying" for the room by doing a lot more work around the house. Of the three remaining rooms one is much smaller than the other two. That one is currently vacant--but when there were four the fourth (who had the little room) did not have to take a turn cleaning the bathroom shared by the three non master bedrooms nor did he have to take a turn cleaning the bathroom downstairs. I thought the divvying up of chores based on who had the better rooms was a pretty smart idea.
That said--I agree with others that your son and his roomies need to figure this out on their own.

 

[mrspaha]

OP here. Thanks for all the comments, especially for reminding me to stay out of it. He did ask me what I thought was fair, and I wasn't really sure. I think what really got to me was the kid that decided to move in early and grab the room he wanted.

The issue isn't really the size of the rooms -- it's just the fact that the 2 bedrooms on the first floor are right off the living room, which means less privacy if someone else is having people over and you want to sleep, or if there's a party, etc. Plus the bathroom on the first floor is most likely to get messed up by others.

I will pass on some of the suggestions though, which I thought were really good and let him mention them to the others. But you folks are right that they have to work it out themselves.

 

[Serena]

Other than the guy that moved in ahead of everyone getting to chose last, that gets to me for some reason. Let the guys decide. They are in college, they should be able to figure this out.

 

[monkey68]

I think the rotating idea is good. My other suggestions would be drawing names or straws.

I think rotating is a horrible idea. Moving once is hard enough, but to do it every semester or every quarter? Just seems like too much work. I would just let them decide what they want to do, they're adults, let them work it out.