Self Improvement Association Inspire. Educate. Empower.

As a former Police Officer, I can’t even remember how many household domestic issues I’ve dealt with concerning housemates and roommates and I know that it’s a sticky issue to deal with. A friend of mine came to me for some advice on how to handle a difficult roommate of hers and I figured that this was a common enough problem to warrant an article on, so I’ve listed some basic strategies on smoothing out relationships with a difficult roommate or housemate. These strategies come from my book Street Negotiation: How To Resolve Any Conflict Anytime.

Get Everything in Writing

Every business, agency, bureaucracy, and organization has policies and procedures on how to handle certain things. You should be the same way when it comes to the people that you live with. No one likes rules, but depending on who you live with, rules might actually preserve and save your relationships with them. All leases need to be signed by everyone in the residence. Rules needs to be written up on responsibilities and expectations. I know it sounds rather boring and like a lot of work, but a simple thing on paper that is signed by the people that you live with can be the most valuable tool that you have to prevent a conflict with a difficult roommate in the future.

Establish Boundaries Early On

Everyone has different and varying boundaries regarding personal space and using personal items. This can be a source of conflict with your roommate if your boundaries are widely different than their boundaries. The only way to avoid a conflict of this nature is to specifically communicate where your personal boundaries lay very early on in the situation. Tell them what is strictly off limits and what is fair game. Let them tell you the same so that you know how to repect their boundaries as well.

Don’t Let Pet Peeves Linger

The fact that we all have different values when it comes to the cleanliness of our living environment is the primary cause of ticked off roommates. Timing is very crucial when it comes to issues of cleanliness. Allowing a dirty dish to remain in the sink will only lead to twenty or more dirty dishes filling the sink later on. Don’t wait to address the concern. Rather handle it immediately and establish ground rules about leaving things around the community areas of the house.

Have a Sit-Down Talk

Sometimes those subtle suggestions, hints, and innuendos won’t work on your roommate and they won’t get the picture, and hence, they won’t change their behavior. In that case, you will need to sit down with them and outline your annoyances with them in a tactful manner. Remember that they also pay rent and they are entitled to a comfortable living environment just as you are, so don’t sound authoritative. Instead, adopt the coaching model and ask how both of you can avoid further problems in the future.

What Happens If My Roommate Won’t Cooperate?

If your roommate is so unreasonable that they can’t work with you on reaching a mutually satisfying solution, then you are going to have to think of your solutions. Is it really worth dealing with your housemate’s uncooperative behavior, or is it just easier to move? Weighing your options should be the first course of action prior to engaging your housemate with negotiations.

Have a Back-Up Plan in Place for the Worst Case Scenario

In any conflict negotiation that you get into, your main power is having a back-up plan in place at the very beginning. This has also been coined the term, BATNA, or a Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. Your back-up plan is basically the best alternative that you have should negotiations fail with your roommate. The thing that you must ask yourself is this: “What is the worst case scenario that could happen with this roommate and if that happens, what will I then do?” What is your course of action if the worst comes to pass?

“I’ll Sue Them” is Not a Viable Back-Up Plan

The problem that most people make when they design their back-up plan is that they don’t think it out as well as they should. Simply saying that you’ll sue them is not a viable back-up plan. Do you know how to sue them? Do you have money to fight them legally? Do you know the paper work involved in suing? Do you know how long it takes to resolve an issue using the court system? Remember that a back-up plan that is not instantly and immediately usable is NO good at all.

An example I use frequently is a hostage negotiation. The hostage negotiator doesn’t know if they will be able to talk a hostage taker down. They hope that they will be able to accomplish this peacefully, but they are also realistic and know that things can turn south at any moment in the negotiation. That’s why there is a separate team on stand-bye should things go bad with the negotiations. That’s the SWAT team. Now the SWAT team knows that hostage negotiations typically have a very good success rate and chances are that they won’t have to go and breech the building, but that doesn’t excuse them from not having a sound plan of action themselves, married with the ability to carry it out in a heartbeat should things go terribly wrong. You’re back-up plan is like having your own SWAT team by your side.

Curb Those Emotions

For every problem that exists, there is a best solution. It’s like a broken computer. There is a most efficient way to fix that computer. In a personal conflict, however, it’s the emotions that makes the problem very difficult to resolve, so the emotions in the conflict must first be removed prior to dealing with the situation.

Now the other person in the conflict wants you to get angry because in doing so, you begin to play their game and on their field because anger is such an easy emotion to elicit. That’s the tactic that 95% of people use in a conflict to make you act in a way that’s very easy to predict. So losing your temper will just force you to play their game and when that happens, you lose and they win automatically because it’s like trying to win an uphill battle.

When handling a conflict negotiation, you need to be thinking with your rational brain and not your emotional brain. You need to respond rather than react to your roommate. This is often the most difficult part to handle in a conflict because when they wound you with their toxic words, it’s so tempting to wound them back, but in doing you, you start to move farther and farther away from the problem at hand.

Strip Down the “Wants” Until You Discover the “Needs”

There are things that we all want in life, be it a new car, more clothes, a house by the beach, etc. Then there are things that we need, such as eating enough to stay healthy, a means of transportation to get to school and back, enough money to buy books and school essentials, etc. In a conflict situation, we have to be careful not to mix up what we need with what we want because that can make the solution more difficult to see.

Behind every want that your housemate states to you, there is an underlying need that they are trying to express. By uncovering those “needs,” you can effectively target the real issues at hand—the things that the other person MUST have. It’s also good to identify your needs as well. It could be the case where both of you have competing WANTS, but exactly the same needs.

Focus on Solutions to the Problem

One of the best tools for conflict resolution is to use non-evaluative solution finding. This works best with an objective third party mediator to facilitate it, but it can be done between you and your housemate if need be. To do this, bring out a large piece of paper and write, “solutions” at the top. Then each of you take turns listing as many solutions as you can think of that might solve that particular problem that you both share. The key to this brainstorming exercise is to make the rule that no one is to criticize or evaluate the merit of those solutions. The goal is just to list as many possible solutions to this problem as possible. Not only is this an effective exercise to generate the most solutions as possible, but it also facilitates a sense of teamwork.

Hire a Mediator

A mediator is an objective and neutral third-party who helps facilitate a meeting between both opposing parties and works to form a mutually-satisfying agreement between both of them. This mediator may or may not be formally trained in law, but really, law doesn’t really matter in a conflict mediation to the extent it does in court because the mediator works outside the realm of law to facilitate an agreement between both parties. One of the benefits of mediation is that a mediator can handle a situation much more quickly and efficiently than through the legal system and also with much less emotional and financial pain for all parties involved. If direct negotiations with your housemate fail, then mediation should be the next logical route to take.

About the Author

Tristan Loo is the founder of the Self Improvement Association (SIA) and a leading authority on human potential and personal effectiveness. As a life coach, author and presenter, Tristan has inspired thousands of people all over the world with his passionate message of overcoming adversity and creating the ultimate life that they desire. His vision is a world where everyone is able to achieve their dreams in life. His life is dedicated towards facilitating that dream.