There’s no doubt that when it comes to student house sharing this can be one of the best experiences of your life and there are ways to avoid conflict and enjoy a great time while at university.
Indeed, you may have opted to live with your friends and it’s also possible that you may have spent time recruiting others to share your home; the choice of housemate is crucial to avoid arguments and bad behavior.
For instance, while your course mate may be huge fun during the day, they may be distracting in a shared house by not doing their assignments and coming in at 3am every night, no one likes to be woken up by drunken noise.
Also, it’s important that when sharing a house that the bills and utilities, that is those issues that are not included in the rent, means you and your fellow housemates are responsible for paying them.
Electricity bills in a shared student house
These will include having to pay the electricity bills in a shared student house.
So, here are some useful tips for students before moving into a shared property:
- Ensure you take the gas and electricity meter readings
- Tell the new supplier what these readings are
- Ensure you aren’t paying the bill for previous tenants
Most students moving into a shared house will need to arrange for the utilities to be supplied and agree whose name will be placed on which bill.
However, because this can lead to disagreements, many students now opt to put all of the housemates’ names onto the bills to ensure they are equally responsible for them.
This also means that the students will need to budget effectively to ensure they can pay the utility bill when it arrives as non-payment of these bills could have an impact on their credit rating when they leave university.
However, an easy way to arrange for utilities in a shared house and have the bills taken care of every monthly is to utilise the expertise of the bill splitting service, Glide.
Enjoy great student broadband deals
Housemates should also strive to enjoy great student broadband deals that meet their requirements; they will need a good speed for downloading and big data allowances.
Again, the cost for the student broadband can be incorporated with the monthly Glide bill and they can also arrange for this to be installed as well.
It’s important to appreciate that should the housemates opt to find a separate supplier offering a cheap broadband deal that this runs for nine months and not 12 months and offers a fast connection.
Not having a fast connection means everybody using the internet in the house will be struggling with slow connection speeds and should someone be dominating the Internet by gaming or watching Netflix, for instance, could lead to arguments.
Moving into a shared house
So, what do students need when moving into a shared house?
It’s important that before you move in a rented property that you know what the landlord is providing such as pots and pans as well as cutlery and crockery.
Having to provide these will weigh you down but most landlords provide them so you will just need to supply bedding, including linen, pillows and a duvet and anything else to make you house look and feel homely.
Once you’ve moved into a property you need to stock up on things like:
- Cleaning equipment
- Rubbish bags
- Washing-up liquid and bleach
- Toilet paper.
If you are preparing to leave home to move into a shared house for the first time then the realisation that you will be spending the next year with strangers is probably causing some level of panic.
It helps that you may be sharing with good friends but the prospect can still be daunting.
At some point, the new housemates will also need to decide:
- A cleaning rota
- A kitty for everyday items (milk for tea!)
- Who will do the shopping
- Who will do the washing up
- Who will be cooking – a meal rota will help everyone bond.
From that list, one of the most important tasks will be the idea of cooking, who will cook? will you cook individually? or will you cook together? if the latter, it’s definitely a good idea to budget for food and to create a rota as to when each of you will be cooking for everyone.
The next most important task after a shared housemates’ meals is who will do the washing up, it’s the one that everyone tries to avoid.
Important rules for student house sharing
Even if you consider yourself to be a free spirit, we all need rules to make our everyday lives easier.
From arranging the utilities, to paying the bills, to having someone organise the buying of teabags and milk, we all need rules and boundaries.
This means there will be rules when it comes to sharing a student house because this will make life easier and everyone will know what they can and cannot do.
These issues will include:
- Be considerate of other housemates, for instance don’t play loud music late at night
- Understand that having friends and family to stay can be an issue particularly if they are helping themselves to communal food
- Establish a kitty early to spread the cost of the loo roll, coffee and teabags
- Don’t be afraid of raising problems with fellow housemates
- Establish ground rules over your personal tastes such as people wandering into your room, hogging the TV or eating your expensive muesli
- Create and then stick to the cleaning and washing up rota (this one really will save lots of arguments).
Essentially, those are the ground rules and tips for making a student house sharing experience work effectively and for those who need help and advice for providing utilities and great broadband then speak with the friendly team at Glide for more.