Graduate School Student Blog

By: Kelsey Danks
Social Studies of Gender, 2018 Cohort

Housework is hard and I am lazy. Often it’s not hard as in difficult or actually requiring heavy manual labour but when you’re a student or you work weird hours or you have a deadline or have essentially any excuse, it’s very very easy to say “I can do this later.” and later never happens.

This habit is exacerbated by communal living. It’s very easy to look around the kitchen and go “Well, that’s not my mess and that’s not my mess and ignore the pile of books you’ve left on the table or the rice that you haven’t yet thrown in the food waste. So I’ve started recording ways that I’ve gotten cleaning done in the flat and ways that I can get other people in my flat to also clean, some of them are obvious but some might be helpful for you to use.

Method: Just cleaning when things are dirty

If something needs doing, don’t wait for someone to give it to you as a job! Get stuck in and clean any and all messes. It will not hurt you to clean up someone else’s pan and if it’s clean it’s going to stop bothering you.

Effect on flatmates: Shamed into cleaning.
I thought that this method might lead to me accidentally delegating myself all the cleaning duties but what I found was that my flatmates started feeling really guilty that I was putting a lot of work in and then they started cleaning themselves. What helped was that I put a lot of cleaning efforts in early on so now the household tasks are fairly evenly delegated but they still think I’m the “Flat Mom^TM”.

Method: Spite cleaning

Everything is a mess. No one is pitching in. You have an assignment due. You do everything. They do nothing. Angst. Angst. Angst. Sometimes the world is against you and you have to take it upon yourself to clean everything. Even the things that don’t usually matter like hoovering under the sofas because well, no one else is going to do and I bet it hasn’t been done since you moved in. This is what I have dubbed “spite cleaning”. It’s surprisingly useful and effective for getting a lot done and honestly, you feel better afterwards.

Effect on flatmates: Leave you alone.
To the surprise of no one, when you are exuding an aura of hatred, people leave you alone to get on with it. This might be helpful, given that you can’t stand your flatmates at that precise moment in time because they’re making you do all the work. But it doesn’t really get them to pick up the slack in any way.

Method: Visible cleaning or Cleaning party

This is my preferred method for getting other people to clean. Put on some music, set a room goal (i.e. clean the hallway) and just start cleaning. Be noisy. Sing loudly. Ask people “Who’s shoes are these?”. Have fun with it.

Effect on flatmates: Migration to the party.
Flatmates will start to meander into the room you’re tidying, at first it’s to claim the pile you’ve been making of their things but then they’ll start cleaning. The party often doesn’t stop at one room, they’ll migrate to the living room and start moving their things in there as well. It’s amazing.

Additional Note: In writing this blog post, I mentioned the incident where I’d used this method to clean the hallway and one of my flatmates remarked “I just remember that I was sitting on the sofa and the next we were all having a good time tidying the hallway. I don’t remember how or why it started.”

Method: Cleaning sprint

Get everyone to agree that something needs doing. The whole flat, the kitchen, whatever is looking bad. Set a timer for one hour. Everyone tidies for one hour. Flat looks far far far more tidy after everyone cleans for one hour.

Effect on flatmates: Everyone feels like the problem has been tackled because you all agreed there was a problem. Everyone feels like they put about as much weight in as everyone else. This is a very fair method. The only problem arises when one person doesn’t join in or complains the whole time but then maybe they’re the problem, not the mess.

Method: Delegation method

Here’s the thing, if something is bothering you, there is a solid 50/50 chance that no one else has noticed it. Now, you could do it yourself, but if you’re busy you can also ask someone else to do it. Unsurprisingly, not everything has to be done by you but if you still expect the things to get done you often need to ask someone else instead of waiting for them to realise that the floor needs hoovering. If this makes you feel bad, remember, it’s a chore in itself to keep up with all of the chores which need doing and to be the one delegating those tasks (“the mental load”). There’s many ways to delegate: ask directly or drop it in a passing conversation, ask it as a favour of someone or quickly ask someone to do it on your way out of the door because you just ran out of time and you promise you’ll do the washing up instead when you get back. As long as you are fair about what you delegate and what you do, it often works.

Effect on flatmates: I’m not saying Milgram’s obedience study but…
There’s definitely studies which show that when you ask people to do favours for you it actually makes them like you more because they feel useful and wanted. There’s also studies which say that if you ask people to do things, they’ll often do it, even if it’s not in their best interest. Asking people nicely to do things around the house (rather than just expecting them to) is surprisingly effective. Just make sure that you return the favour as often as you ask!

Some methods will work better for your household than others, some methods won’t take hold at all. If a method means you’re still the only one tidying then maybe have a bigger discussion with everyone in the flat face to face and create a rota and a means to hold people accountable. But regardless, keep cleaning, even if only out of spite and at the end of it you can sit down and rest easy knowing at least some of the cleaning has been done!

By: Kelsey Danks
Social Studies of Gender, 2018 Cohort

To follow up on my previous post, I felt it would be good to create a post about how to set up a good environment for communal living, so here are my tips!

First of all, reflect on yourself.

What kind of person are you? What are your motivations for doing communal living? Are you doing it for financial reasons? Do you want to be able to talk to people at any time of day? Are you able to handle close conflict? Are you able to take criticism? Do you know when to put your foot down and how to communicate boundaries? ​Do you know how to take care of yourself?​This might seem a little patronising but I don’t recommend communal living for people who have just moved out from their childhood home. Those who have moved out for the first time often don’t think about how much effort goes into the maintenance of a household. It’s a very good option available for people who have lived by themselves for a year, learnt to wash up often, clean the bathroom every time it gets dirty, hoover on a weekly basis etc.

Okay, so you think you’re ready to live communally?

The next thing (if you are able to) would be to choose who to live with. Previously, I’ve stated that we often end up not living with friends because we don’t want to ruin our friendships and that I think this stems from our negative stigma towards communal living. Thus, it could be seen that I am advocating to move in with your friends. ​Not exactly. ​Some of your friends (though they are lovely, I’m sure) are going to be the worst people for you to live with. They might be interesting and fun but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be what you want from a living arrangement.

My best advice would be to “​Live with people that you want to be like.”​ This is a simple concept that I think more people should adopt. Our behaviours affect those around us, and in such close quarters it can either influence, inspire or annoy. There is nothing wrong with wanting to experience student life through socialising and going out to parties but if that is what you want, live with people who are living that life, don’t move in with introverts who want to go to bed at 23:00 every night! Conversely, if you’re ready to act like “a real adultTM”, move in with the people who are already working a 9-5 or seem to have their lives in order; you’ll only get increasingly frustrated by moving in with people who sleep until 12:00 and complain that they’re doing their essay at the last minute. Friction will occur when a social butterfly is hosting yet another get together in a household full of quiet wallflowers but that same social butterfly will thrive in a household of fellow extroverts.

Alright, you’ve gathered your small group of like-minded individuals.

Next comes the “expectations conversation”. This is important to have but also take it with a grain of salt. Everyone will be downplaying their expectations and needs and everyone will be subtly selling themselves as a tolerable person to live with. This happens for several reasons. One, no one wants to be seen as ‘high maintenance’ (unless you all are), this often leads to the famous “I don’t mind clutter, but I don’t like dirty.” line people use when they talk about cleaning. (The person who says this is also usually the first person to complain that there’s too many bags on the sofa while the floor of the bathroom is covered in grime). Two, the rental market in Lund is FIERCE and no one wants to risk their chance at reasonable accommodation because they are bad at remembering to pick up their laundry.

Is this conversation useless? No, but discuss your expectations as specifically as you can. What chores do you hate? What chores don’t you mind? Do you want to put food shopping money into a fund, who would you like to use that fund? Are you happy to just buy groceries as needed and trust that people won’t abuse that system? Is your sleep schedule liable to move about? Is keeping a strict schedule important to you? Do you want to live communally (i.e. share dinner together, share resources) or do you just want to share living spaces (i.e. want to use the kitchen at separate times and have more individual responsibility). Be as upfront as you can about these things and discuss in as much detail as possible but also be flexible on what the final outcome will be.

Moved in with everyone?

Now for the real fun! Always someone around to watch a film with, people around for you to share your signature dish with (or to try theirs), and when they’re out you can appreciate peace and quiet in a whole new way! Remember to be invested in other people “How was your day?” “Did the interview go well?” and remember to thank people “Thank you for washing up.” “Thank you for grabbing the rubbish the other day.” It goes a long way in making sure that people in the house feel like their efforts are visible and appreciated even if they shrug the praise off.

But alas, there’s even trouble in paradise.

There will come a time when the rent is late or the milk wasn’t replaced or towels have been left all over the bathroom. How is the best way to handle conflict? I would assert that the worst way is the commonly adopted passive aggressive note. The note does not solve the issue but instead frames the issue of the mouldy cup into one of moral superiority and surveillance, it shames the person in a way that is not effective as there is no real accountability to a post stick note. This tends to become an option for people who want to avoid direct conflict but in not confronting the issue it oftentimes creates more conflict.

What is the solution? Be BLUNT and UPFRONT. “Please don’t leave your cup to get dirty.” Said out loud, to the offender. No need to add “I noticed the other day that-” or “It’s really annoying to have to clean up when you-” or anything which almost inevitably leads into shaming the other person. If you state the simple fact of what is annoying you, it will mortify the individual into doing the correct thing. If you are very conflict avoidant, bring it up in a funny way, like in an ultra whiny voice or laugh your way through the sentence, let the person defend themselves (which they will often try to do) and say “no problem, but next time.” Some people are concerned that being this blunt can antagonise themselves to other people but I have found the opposite to be true. If you are always honest about when something is wrong and able to adequately explain what is upsetting you, it puts the rest of the household at ease because they know your boundaries and know that you’re not harbouring any resentment.

This leads into my favourite aphorism: Hanlon’s Razor. “​Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. I’ve seen a lot of living arrangements (and even professional relationships) break down once one person starts to suspect another of acting in spite or hostility when oftentimes, the offending person has no knowledge of the problem, no knowledge of how to solve the problem or forgot the problem existed. I’d been told off for putting milk cartons into the plastic bin (because that’s where it goes in the UK) instead of the cardboard bin (as apparently it goes in Sweden), but this was not corrected until the Swedes sat me down and showed me exactly where on the carton that it stated it was for the cardboard recycling (I had been skeptical). But it had turned out that my ignorance had infuriated them for a while because they thought I wasn’t doing the recycling on purpose. Nope, I’m just stupid. But luckily we can often fix stupid.

Lastly, I think it is important to frame your living situation as permanent.

Six months is a significant amount of time to spend with the same people and if you or they are all passing it off as ​only ​six months to have to tolerate living communally, you’re going to have a bad time! Don’t treat it as if it’s temporary, even if it is. Act as though you’re going to all live together forever and then put in the effort required to make that work. If you go into it wanting to make it work, it will work!

By: Kelsey Danks
Social Studies of Gender, 2018 Cohort

Context

Single person households with no children are the most common type of household within Sweden. Living by oneself is seen as the marker of independence and thriving in that state is a show that you have truly made it and are succeeding as an adult. So why is it that after two years of living by myself and a year of living with my partner am I returning to the idea of communal living?

Communal living is often looked back on with horror, something for young people to endure as the interim between living with their parents and becoming an independent single person household. It is usually filled with memories of hiding in rooms, waiting for someone to leave the kitchen so you can go in to make your own meal as quickly as possible, dirty dishes, loud parties which either keep you awake or put you in the disdain of those with a rigid sleep schedule and passive aggressive notes indicating in a not-at-all-subtle way that people should clean up after themselves immediately.

Why communal living fails

Communal living often fails because it is treated like a group project. That is, you are thrown together with people you hardly know and expected to work in harmony. Learning conflict resolution and compromising are part of the process and it will ultimately prepare you for ‘the real world’ where you might encounter people that you might not like. Except, of course, anyone who has participated in a group project would tell you that it doesn’t really work like that. More often it involves interacting the least amount possible with your group in order to get the work done and/or pushing the heavier load onto whichever person is the most desperate to get a good grade (or a clean flat). Given the higher stakes involved in a living situation, it is a huge gamble to put people who aren’t familiar with each other into a living situation and expect them to thrive in it.

Due to these initial experiences, we often start perpetuating this idea (if you are ‘forced’ to carry on with communal living) that you shouldn’t move in with your friends because you won’t be friends by the end of the experience. As a result, we often plunge ourselves into households with people we tolerate as opposed to people we like. Often resulting in continued isolation and continued subpar living standards. We continue to treat communal living as this “in between state” that we have to endure before we can be real adults. We feel ashamed for being in a financial or social situation which requires we live communally as opposed to independently. We envy our friends who have their own space and spend time there instead of our corridors with poorly chosen or assigned ‘friends’.

My case(study) for communal living

My partner and I moved in during August 2019 with two close friends whom I’d met through Lund’s Student Theatre. All of us weren’t high enough on the housing lists to find anything so we decided that a collective effort of finding accommodation might be more fruitful than each of us searching individually. We (very fortunately) ended up finding a flat in klostergården and settled quickly into our new accommodation. We had all been slightly apprehensive about the move, especially my partner who (as an introverted and tech minded individual) had his reservations about moving in with three loud musical theatre nerds.

However, since moving in we have found multiple benefits with the arrangement. Firstly and most pragmatically, we are all saving a considerable amount of money, the rent and bills are cheaper, the cost of bulk foods works out better over time, there’s also a decreased need to go out to socialise (which can be very costly in Sweden in the evening!). We quickly fell into a routine which left us with a very manageable workload, I cook and take pride in it, it’s not something which feels like a chore to me, I manage the kitchen and do the food shopping. My partner manages the electronics and fixes or automates things to make our lives easier, the other two have relatively divided up cleaning chores in a way that means they get to do the things which are less stressful or boring for them.

The ‘shame’ aspect of not being the clean one is also surprisingly useful! But aside from these practical aspects, we also found that we were more generally more responsible both for ourselves and each other. We would notice when someone had forgotten to eat or hadn’t been sleeping properly, we would make greater efforts to keep our own mental health in check knowing how easily it can spill over and affect those around us. During a stressful week in December (since dubbed “hell week”), we took turns to emotionally and mentally break down after experiencing personal and shared traumatic incidents and there was always someone put-together enough in the moment to help us get through. We find ourselves going to different people for different things: tough love, a pep talk, a hug, practical advice, a sounding board; which I found drastically improved my romantic relationship as I was no longer putting pressure on my partner to provide all of these things. Going into this knowing that we all want it to work long-term, unsurprisingly, has made it work.

The need for de-stigmatisation

The health detriments of living alone are numerous and well documented. If we continue to view communal living as a shameful situation which connotes not being an adult, independent or financially capable, we will continue to make people vulnerable to the isolation and health risks of a single person household. For those of us who can not have or do not want to have our own nuclear family units, there is a lack of socially acceptable options for living which will not disproportionately affect our wellbeing over time. Communal living certainly needs to be rethought.