If you are like most college students, you need a roommate to share your housing expenses. There are many things to consider for your protection and everyone’s best interest. If you have never had a roommate before, or you are looking for a better roommate, here are some ways to help you find and choose the right college roommate to fit your lifestyle.

Porcelain Rockstar
Photo by: Zach Klein (Flickr Creative Commons)

Finding Qualified College Roommates

You may have some friends that would be willing to room with you. While it sounds great to live with a friend as opposed to living with a stranger, keep in mind that friends do not always make the best roommates.

Comedian Jimmy Fallon once joked about how having a good friend as a roommate is never a good idea.

“It doesn’t work out,” he said. “You will fight each other [because] they have too much dirt on you. They’ll crush you in an argument for no reason. Like, you’ll just say, ‘Hey, man, the dishes have been in the sink for, like, two weeks, and they’re your dishes. Are you gonna clean them or what?’ And they’ll say, ‘Yeah, remember when you had [an embarrassing disease] in the sixth grade?’”

Look at finding the right roommate as an opportunity to make a new friendship. Some of the pressure is off since you do not have to be especially chummy with them. Also, opening your mind (and apartment) to a new person gives you the chance to meet someone cool that you may otherwise never get to know.

Roommate listing services, college bulletins and personals Web sites have huge databases of people looking for roommates or seeking a room for rent. Some people are professionals who want to split expenses, and some are students. All these sites can be helpful in locating and matching you with a potential roommate. Some of these sites have comprehensive services, such as pre-screened applicants who have completed criminal background checks and credit reports. Others are just personal ads that leave the screening up to you.

Screening Potential Roommates

You will have to meet a few people in person once you find a match in the classifieds. Look at their general appearance and you’ll probably have an idea how they’ll keep an apartment. Also, if you can get a glimpse of their car, that is usually a good indication of how they live as well. Can you see the floor board, or do they have fast food wrappers and junk piled up on the floor and seats?

Have a list of questions handy. You don’t want to make it look like a formal interview, but there are some basics you need to know about the person that you will share your space with. Here are a few of them:

1. Are they smokers?
2. Do they party and stay up late listening to loud music every weekend? (More importantly, do they plan on hosting parties in your shared apartment?)
3. Do they have a boyfriend or girlfriend that will be visiting often? (And if so, does he or she have any good-looking friends, perhaps?)
4. Are they morning birds or night owls?
5. Do they have any annoying food preferences that would cramp your style? (If your roommate is a strict vegan and you hunt and cook your own meat every night, that may be a problem.)
6. Does the potential roommate have any social or moral beliefs that do not jive with your own?

During the meeting, it is important to be honest about your own personality and let the potential roommate know about any weird habits you may have yourself. You don’t need to get too personal, but fill them in to how you live and what they can expect from you as a roommate.

Once you get past the preliminary interview, you should consider it absolutely necessary to do background checks on potential roommates. Have the applicant fill out the required forms, and ask your apartment manager to do a criminal background check on your roommate-to-be before they sign the lease. For most residential apartment complexes, this is a necessary procedure to begin with. Your apartment complex will also probably want to run a credit report on the individual to make sure that they have a clean credit history. Any car repossessions, defaulted loans or broken leases will be a huge red flag.

If you rent a house and do not have access to a leasing office that provides these background services, it is in your best interest to pay for a service yourself. There are multiple sites that offer criminal background checks, and the potential roommate should be able to provide you with a credit report.

Protect Yourself in Writing

If your name is currently on the apartment lease, make sure that your roommate puts his or her signature on the lease as well. First, your landlord should know you are sharing an apartment with another person who is equally responsible for the property. You may want to include other details in a contract such as what bills will be split, when the rent check is due and agreements on social rules, pets, sharing food and the like. To get a better idea of the kinds of things you may want to include in a contract, visit lawdepot.com to get a free roommate contract template.

With a little investigative work and some forethought into choosing the most qualified roommate for your needs, you can enjoy living in harmony with anyone. However it’s important to be realistic. Keep in mind that no matter how cool you or your roommate is, it will never be perfect all the time. There are occasional problems that arise anytime you live with another person, but as long as each of you are respectful to each other and have an open communication, you should be able to work it out.

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