Whether you’re a boarding schooler or an adult living on a budget, navigating the boundaries of roommate relationships is always a tricky task—and one that can get infinitely more complicated when one of you is annoying the other. “Most of the things we do that bother roommates,” says Eric J. Anderson, a life coach, “are those in which we have no consideration for them.”
It’s even trickier if you’re the annoying a roommate and you don’t even know it. So if you’re feeling the relationship with your roommate starting to suffer, you can start to improve matters by putting yourself “[in their] shoes” and “paying attention to what [they] feel,” says Anderson. But equally as important: read through the below checklist and make sure that you’re not guilty of any of these roommate sins. Otherwise, you may just come home one day to find the locks changed and your belongings piled on the sidewalk! And for more ways you may be unknowingly irritating those around you, check out these 50 Annoying Things Everyone Does.
1 Not Recognizing Your Own Smell.
“Man,” Dostoevsky once wrote, “is a creature that can get accustomed to anything.” Nowhere does this ring truer than when it comes to your own scent. Walking around it with everywhere you go, the rankness of your own pits can often be forgotten. The same isn’t true, however, for your roommate, who is sure to notice the smell of body odor, or your unwashed dog, or that pile of rapidly-molding dishes in the sink, as it kicks them in the nostrils each time they enter the apartment.
So before your roommate orders a pack of industrial-size Febreze and leaves you the bill, it’s time to clean up your act—literally. And for ways to make sure you’re not disturbing others with your scent, check out The 6 Best Foods for Smelling (and Tasting) Like a Million Bucks.
2 Engaging in Odd Nighttime Habits.
Just because staying up all night or getting up at the crack of dawn works for you doesn’t mean the same will be true of your roommates. If you’ve adopted an abnormal circadian rhythm—say, going to bed at 6:00 p.m. and demanding quiet, or staying up until 5:00 a.m. to work on your violin fingerings—just know that it’s likely to irk your fellow housemates. And if you’re only doing so because you’re employed as one of the museum’s night watchmen, that’s something you should mention before moving in.
