- Where is the line?
- Let’s say that you live with a roommate who has a new girlfriend. At first, the girlfriend spends the night just a couple of times a month. You see her in the mornings, but it’s hardly a bother. After a while, she starts hanging around nearly every night, eating on the couch, watching TV, and taking showers in the morning. It’s almost like you have a new roommate! She’s not paying for your bills or rent, and she says she has her own place too. You don’t want to make her pay for everything twice. But is it fair that she uses your air conditioning, your kitchen, and your living room without contributing a dime?
Most of us don’t really want to pry into our roommate’s private lives, so we usually don’t discuss how often romantic guests stay over when we split the bills. On the flip-side, long-term boyfriends and girlfriends may use nearly as many resources and spend as much time in common areas as a full roommate. In order to respect both privacy and fairness, there needs to be some dividing line between when a romantic guest is none-of-your-business and some kind of partial roommate. But where is the line? To find out, I asked over 100 users of my bill-sharing site Splitwise.com what they thought, and analyzed the results.
When to start charging a romantic guest
A strong majority of my survey respondents think it’s none of their business if a significant other is staying over a few (2-3) nights a week. The majority also thinks that if they are staying nearly every night of the week (more than 5), they should be chipping in something. The tipping point is at 5 nights a week, where our survey respondents are roughly split 50/50. Here are the raw results:
If you have a significant other staying more than five nights a week, my judgment would be that you should err on the side of being polite and ask your roommates if you should chip in a little extra. Your roommates don’t get a say if you are dating someone they don’t like, and acknowledging the little inconveniences caused by your partner in a share of the bills will help everything go more smoothly.
How much to contribute
But how much extra should you or your girlfriend or boyfriend contribute? We tested this for two cases: a romantic guest who stays once every other night, and one staying essentially every night. The difference between these cases is quite striking and should give you a good idea of what to do if you are in this situation.
In the case of a romantic partner who essentially lives in the apartment, the simplest thing to do is ask them to contribute to utilities. These are most of what they are using while they are there, and they are not using much electricity, water, or internet back in their home apartment. But since they are presumably paying two sets of bills, most respondents stopped short of asking them to chip in for rent on top of utility bills.
So bottom line: if a roommate’s significant other stays about half the time or less and has their own place, they shouldn’t be expected to systematically contribute to bills or rent (but might want to bring a few host gifts out of politeness). If they have their own place but are staying five times a week or more, there is less consensus on what they should do. The median answer is that they should probably count themselves as a “half-person” (at least) towards bills, but not rent. They should, however, be prepared to count themselves as a full person if the roommates ask, depending on the specifics of the situation. If the roommates don’t ask at all, the significant other should at least try to be very polite and contribute a nice gift.
Some points of clarification: If a girlfriend or boyfriend lives in an apartment full-time (i.e., isn’t renting another place of their own), they should pay a full share of bills and rent. Most people have different expectations for living with couples than for living with roommates who have significant others. Live-in significant others come with their own set of space demands, social baggage, and expectations for how common space is used. (My first project, the SplitTheRent calculator, advises you on how to split rent between couples living with roommates.)
There is also an important trust/honesty issue here. Good roommates need to be up front with each other if a girlfriend or boyfriend starts living in full-time, and concealing this or simply not saying this is an abuse of the roommate relationship.
Lastly, this discussion ignores any non-bill items, like shared groceries, that the partner might consume. Of course, either the roommate or their partner should make sure that they are paying two shares instead of one on any item like groceries.
Sample information
We analyzed 104 respondents who clicked on a survey link from within the interface of Splitwise.com. Ninety percent of my respondents were between ages 18-30, and 71% came from the US, 14% from Australia, and 15% from other countries. The average personal rent (not total apartment rent) was $588/month. Fifty-seven percent of respondents split their rent equally per person, while 43% did not. The data was collected over about six weeks spanning some of June, July, and August. The original survey can be viewed here.
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I am having this problem right now. My boyfriend has been staying over in the 5 day region of the week. My one roommate that doesn’t talk to any of us is the only one that has a problem with this. Her boyfriend lives down the street so he doesn’t have to stay over while mine lives across town. I’m not going to ask him to leave at 11pm, we live in Philadelphia and I’m not cool with that. He has been very concious and doesn’t use the lights unless I am there. He usually wakes up and my room is very bright. If he doesn’t take showers at my house or use the common areas which none of my roommates use should he have to pay anything? If he is literally just sleeping in my room which I don’t share and eating food that I prepare, and using the toilet occasionally, should he need to chip in?
Hi dorey,
As you can see in the survey data , ~5 days a week is sort of the borderline case between contributing to the bills and being within the freeloading zone (see graph 1). Under normal circumstances, I would recommend that your boyfriend contribute some small gifts (an extra twelve-pack of beer, cook a meal) periodically or volunteer to do some extra chores to justify their presence as a boon to the apartment. I should hope your angry roommate should be mollified by this, and you can tell her that’s what Splitwise would recommend you do among friends. At most, you might offer that he contribute a half-share of the utility bills, but if your boyfriend is very conscientious (and it really is 5 days a week) I don’t think that you should feel you should have to do this.
I hate to suggest this, but if you want to avoid a confrontation, you might also want to consider sleeping at your boyfriend’s place a night or two more per week, in which case she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. But I don’t know how practical this is, and it never feels good to give into people who are being mean.
It sounds like the bigger problem is your relationship with the silent roommate, whom you see as a hypocrite. I would try and mend fences, and/or find a new roommate situation as soon as you can!
Today my roommate told me that she didn’t feel that it was fair for her to pay 50% of the rent if my boyfriend is staying at our apartment every night. While I can see her point, I don’t agree with the “rent” part. We both pay 50% of the rent because we’re paying for 50% of the living space. After reading this, I wouldn’t mind chipping in a little extra for utilities because he does stay every night and shower at our place, but we shower at the same time to conserve water. I would stay at his place, but I have a dog and he lives in a dorm where his roommate lives literally in the same room, so this isn’t a very convenient option. I enjoy him being there every night and it makes me feel safer, as my sister and her husband’s apartment was broken into in December and a part of that is sticking in my head. My roommate and I are on almost completely different schedules so we hardly ever run into one another. We had to schedule coffee just to talk about this. I told her I would speak with my boyfriend and he thinks that it is ridiculous. I am really really bad with confrontation and conflict so this has almost given me an anxiety attack. I just want everyone to get along and not have to worry about who’s paying for anything. In my mind, he is my guest and my roommate is more than welcome to have her guests come over, use the shower, use our internet, whatever. I wouldn’t ask her friends to pay to spend the night just because they might use some of our utilities, even though the one time she has had someone spend the night he slept on the couch with his shirt off. I understand where she’s coming from, but because he lives in a dorm, he has already overpaid for all utilities where he lives. Also, he doesn’t have a car, so I can’t just kiss him and tell him to have a good night. We are both pre-med with very similar schedules and it just works well for him to stay at my house because we hardly get to see each other during the week when we’re either in classes, in research, volunteering, working, or participating in other social activities that don’t involve each other. Some days, the only time we see each other is when he comes over to sleep. I just don’t see why he should pay anything when his housing is already (over)paid for and he is not sleeping in our shared space. He stays in my room. His things stay in my room and my bathroom. That is the square footage that I pay for and I feel that i can do what I wish with it. I’d love to hear your opinion on the subject and any advice you may have for how to deal with the situation.
Megan
If your boyfriend is staying almost every night, regardless of his other utility or rent payments, he should really kick in some part of the utilities, at least. It is difficult to monetize, but you must consider the unease experienced by your roommate who may, for instance, be unable to enjoy unfettered use of the public space while you are away because your boyfriend is still there showering and will walk through the living room on the way out of the apartment. Maybe she was doing yoga or painting or some other private activity in this space with the reasonable expectation of privacy that has now been limited in some way. She may also have to endure the routine noisemaking caused by your amorous activities. The acknowledgment of this inconvenience or potential inconvenience by a small financial consideration in the form of his chipping in for some of the utilities (20% if he is to be considered a “half-person”…) will go a LONG way toward making your roommate feel considered. Were I in your roommate’s shoes, even if I totally didn’t mind your boyfriend, I would still feel there’s something unfair about the arrangement, an unease that would probably be ameliorated by an extra $20-50 in my pocket each month (and the acknowledgment that I am due the consideration). If the MANY advantages of having your boyfriend over so frequently and doing away with the anxiety of your roommate’s dissatisfaction are not worth this small consideration, you should probably look at getting an apartment of your own (which is probably a much more costly alternative), or with your boyfriend.
Reblogged this on polygrrl and commented:
How would this change for a poly couple? Thoughts?