MyNewPlace Blog

Usually, an apartment requires a thorough cleaning about once a week, depending on how many roommates you have. This is, however, not exactly everyone's favorite activity. The hardest task is typically not the cleaning itself, but mobilizing yourself and your roommates to partake.

I have found that musical motivation is the best method to get everyone to pitch in and do their share. The proper auditory accompaniment can transform a reluctant bunch of roommates into Del Fontaine and the Cleaning Fontones. Perhaps that's a bit exaggerated, but I've found that certain songs just bring people together and make cleaning the apartment less of a chore and a bit closer to being a therapeutic exercise.

photo courtesty of Mia Mabanta

Now, it is difficult to find a single album that truly encapsulates and drives an apartment cleaning. Thus, I have taken the liberty to recommend some songs that match up particularly well with some of the more common chores.

Your first task will be to get everyone up and ready. If it is Saturday morning, you'll have to get everyone off the couch or out of their rooms. Put on I've Got a Feeling by the Beatles. The version from Anthology 3 is the best, but the Let it Be version will suffice. This song is perfect for opening up the windows, letting in some fresh air and dance-walk-gliding over to the cleaning cabinet under the sink. You'll be so excited that you will take out every product available, thus ensuring the thorough use of each.

Other choices that also build initiative for joint cleaning ventures are Thank You by Barry and the Remains or Can You Get to That by Funkadelic.

Most cleaning starts in the kitchen; as the center of food preparation, it is advisable to keep this room as hygienic as possible, and since it is a communal area it is likely to be the messiest. When doing the dishes, you are going to need a song to which you can sing and subtly groove, since dancing is constrained when you are washing the pots and pans. Put on Oh Yoko by John Lennon or Roberta Flack's Reverend Lee.

Once you start mopping the kitchen you can really let loose. I've personally found that a mop makes a great dance partner, especially to such gems as Take your Mama Out by the Scissor Sisters, The Bar-Kays' Too Hot to Stop, or if you are really into mopping, Midnight Voyage by Ghostland Observatory. Be careful with this song, as it may result in the destruction, rather than the cleaning of your kitchen. This song has a notorious and well documented history of engendering spontaneous parties and rerouting good intentions.

There are absolutely no songs that are good for cleaning the bathroom. This should not be taken as an excuse to avoid cleaning the bathroom.

During vacuuming, listen to Close to Me by the Cure or This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) by the Talking Heads. Vacuuming, in some inchoate and vague way, reminds me of the eighties and these tracks represent the best of that decade's musical output.

With this list of songs at your disposal, you'll be able to transform yourself and your roommates from complacent couch potatoes into a whirlwind of melodic cleaning activity.

Do you have suggestions for the list? Get back to us with what tunes you listen to while you do your chores. Also, your feedback on the above list is appreciated. For more tips on cleaning your apartment, especially before you landlord does a walk through, check out the MyNewPlace apartment guide!

Remember when you were young and you came down with flu? It was not all that bad when someone in your family would selflessly try to nurture you back to health by serving you chicken noodle soup while you watched The Price is Right. You could annex the couch from the rest of the family by staking it out as a recuperation territory with all of your pillows and blankets.

The reception you receive from your roommates, however, is less ‘chicken noodles and pillows' and more ‘gas masks and complaints'. When one roommate gets the flu, it is almost certain that at least one of the other members of the apartment will eventually come down with the same symptoms. This is bad for roommate morale; for about a month, each roommate basically waits to see if they too will get sick.

So, how does one avoid spreading disease and contempt among roommates? It is very unlikely that you will be able to find an apartment with separate wings, that you could use to quarantine your sick roommate.

This is definitely not an easy task. It certainly requires the sick roommate to spend some pro-active time trying to disinfect the apartment and keep it as clean as possible.

Here are some tips on how a sick roommate can keep their roommates healthy.

In your living room, wash the couch by lightly spraying Lysol Disinfectant or by washing pillow covers in the laundry in a gentle cycle. This is probably the most communal spot in the house and should be cleaned a few times while you are sick, especially if that is where you plan to spend the bulk of your recovery.

In your own bedroom, increasing the frequency with which you wash your sheets, pillow cases, towels as well as keeping the room ventilated can prevent you from keeping yourself sick.

In your bathroom, disinfect your shower, sink and toilet and keep your toiletries far away from your roommates' items.

In your kitchen, be sure to wash the glasses, pots, pans and dishes a few times, wipe down your countertops and mop the floor. Shared dishware can easily lead to the spread of germs and this is another room that is used by everyone.

Make sure to air out your apartment as much as you can. Keeping your apartment sufficiently ventilated will mitigate the spread of airborne germs and bacteria.

Prepare for the inevitable. It is very likely that your roommates will indeed come down with a cold or flu. So, when you are buying cold medicine, orange juice, chicken noodle soup or whatever other home remedies you have concocted, (I personally rely on large portions of huevos rancheros early in the morning and Vietnamese soup called pho for supper to get over a cold) you should have enough for your roommates.

If/when they get sick, they may blame you, but they will be appreciative of the efforts and thought you have taken to help all the members of your apartment.

What have your experiences been with sick roommates? Do you have any tips or is it just an inevitable one of life's valleys?

Last week our article “Loving Living with Roommates" about renting an apartment with roommates that discussed the benefits as well as certain possible issues of contention of which you should be aware. We plan on revisiting this topic frequently because living with roommates is a large part of the renting experience.

Finding an apartment is just one part of the equation, if you have opted to live with someone else, your apartment search should include finding a roommate that will complement your lifestyle and acquiesce to your needs and expectations. Having a nice little family to come home to at night is great, but it does take some preparatory legwork to make it happen.

picture courtesy of mia mabanta

When a room becomes available in my apartment, my roommates and I advertise and open house. Renters looking for an apartment will come to check out the apartment, meet the roommates and determine if they would be interested in the room for rent. Open houses allow for the current tenants to meet possible roommates and vice versa.

Sometimes a first impression is not enough, however. Open houses are usually crammed in to people's busy schedules and it is hard to get a sense of how someone will be as a roommate from such a brief meeting. Social network websites such as Facebook and MySpace, which are extremely popular, especially among recent graduates and college students, provides a great resource for you to take a closer look at what life may be like with your new roommate.

A quick browse of a potential roommate's photos and comments can give you more of a 360 degree view. Of course, it is not very common to have pictures of yourself cleaning an apartment or cooking dinner, or contrarily, abusing the possessions of others and not doing the dishes, as it were, but having a quick glimpse at someone's profile when considering that person as a roommate will probably either make you smile or cringe.

Someone who goes out most nights, would probably not be a good fit for a nice, tidy retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city just as a reserved person may not want to move into a more socially dynamic apartment that tends to have lots of guests.

Typically, when you are looking for a roommate, they will be in the same ‘network' (facebook categorical term most often denoting geographical area but may also refer to common bond amongst a large group of people such as an employer or university) as you, which allows you to look at that person's profile. If that person is not in your network, you can change your network affiliation and then change it back.

Your Facebook or MySpace profile can be a very informative vehicle for people to get to know you. One should be wary of the information that is posted on the internet. Even employers are beginning to employ this tool to inform their hiring decisions.

I have known individuals to delete or censor their accounts when applying for jobs with the government or running for public office. It is not so mysterious when a friend's profile becomes noticeably void of previous content in correlation with a FBI application or a run for public office.

Recently, we saw this Gawker article, which exhibits how Facebook accounts can really give you a pretty good idea about what to expect from a potential roommate and whether you would want to share an apartment with said person for an extended period of time. (The linked article shows facebook photos of some of the younger superdelegates who will be serving an influential role in deciding the presidential nominee)

Have you ever used Facebook to inform a decision, whether for roommate or employee purposes? Do you wish that you had? Have you ever gotten into trouble over your posted photos?

Personally, I have always preferred to live with friends. When I rented an apartment in Washington, D.C., we had 4 people living in a 3 bedroom place, and I currently rent in San Francisco with 3 others.

I have only lived alone once, and it wasn't long before I began having intense discussions with my household appliances, inventing food-preparation challenges and “camping out" in a tent in the other bedroom.

As a semi-recent graduate, I find that not only does this cut down on costs, but it also preserves that communal and spontaneous atmosphere that I cherished while still in college. There is something very nice about coming home to an apartment that is warmed and lit by the conviviality of it's occupants.

photo courtesy of mia mabanta
Of course, when living with others, there are more potential issues that can arise; living together can be great, but it can also be challenging.

One of the issues that I have found leads to tensions among roommates is the ownership of communal and usually expensive items, such as couches, TVs, kitchenware and other furniture.

In a perfect situation, it would be best to be able to head to IKEA, Best Buy and Costco before moving in, decide democratically on what items are necessary and then split the bill. This is, however, a rare occurrence, as all the roommates would need to move into a new apartment together and lack some or all of those major items.

More often, the situation is such that roommates move in at different times and bring all sorts of these items with them. Also, sometimes a roommate can move into an apartment that is already completely furnished, which can lead to a discrepancy in the amount that that roommate is invested.

Is it fair to have one or two people own most of the communal items in an apartment? Of course those people are the owners and can take them wherever they go or sell them, but certainly the roommates' usage, especially with furniture, contributes to depreciation.

What is the best way to handle this situation? Has anyone had experiences with this and devised an agreeable solution?

On Friday, the bloggers at MyNewPlace will get back with our own creative solutions as we continue to explore the peaks and valleys of living with roommates and help you foresee potential issues.