What Makes a Good Roommate?

**Kusha Navadar** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show, I'm Kusha Navadar, filling in for Brian today here on WNYC. We'll end today's show with some tips and tricks for living harmoniously with roommates, whoever they may be.
You know, let's be real, New York City, there aren't a lot of us who have our homes all to ourselves. Most of us share a kitchen, a bathroom and one precious quiet corner with somebody. Maybe that somebody is a spouse, a roommate, a parent, maybe an adult kid who moved back in after college. Does anyone else ever time their whole morning around who gets the shower first? I know there are a lot of us out there.
Fact is, we are sharing more than ever. In a new piece for Vox, Allie Volpe reports that over half of American adults live with a spouse or partner. Multi-generational households have more than quadrupled over the last decade, and about a third of adults under 35 live with a parent. So she rounded up advice from therapists, from researchers, and friendship experts on how to live with the people we love, or at least the people we split the rent with. With me now is Allie Volpe, correspondent at Vox covering relationships, wellness, and home life. Allie, hey, welcome back to WNYC.

**Allie Volpe** (1:25)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Kusha Navadar** (1:27)
And listeners, who do you live with? And what's the one house rule that saved your living situation? Roommates, what agreements keeps the peace? Couples, how did you finally settle the war on chores? Parents with adult kids back home, or adults back home with your parents, how are you making it work? We'll also take one or two of your roommate horror stories. We'll see which ones bubble to the top. Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC.
That's 212-433-9692.
Okay, Allie, while those calls are coming in, let's start by your reporting. Living with other people is nothing new. So why does this feel so relevant right now?

**Allie Volpe** (2:10)
Yeah, I just think the way that we are orienting our living situations might have changed a little bit. Housing, like you mentioned, is super expensive. So it makes sense to sort of shack up with other people, whether that's a roommate, whether that's your parents, your grandparents.
It makes sense for older adults to maybe live with their adult children. If caretaking is an issue. So there's just a lot of different ways we are choosing to live our lives now. And also, it's lonely to kind of live by yourself. So it might be nice to have a friend that you room with. And obviously, there's the very traditional path of, you get married to someone, you're dating someone and you live together. So that is also a very common orientation.

**Kusha Navadar** (2:51)
Do you have a sense of what's changed over the past couple decades about who we live with and how? I mean, you had mentioned that there's this traditional path of marriage, but families and living situations look so different than they used to, right?

**Allie Volpe** (3:06)
Yeah, I think the recent stat that had been catching a lot of headlines of more adults under the age of 35 are still living with their parents, you know, I think that really resonates for people, these traditional milestones of you go to college, you graduate, you get a job that pays really well, and you buy a house. That's just not the reality for a lot of young people anymore. Things are really expensive. The job market is pretty precarious, and so it makes people feel a little itky if they can't hit those milestones. But I think the fact that we can talk about the fact that we can live with our parents, we can save some money, it just kind of normalizes the experience for people. And I don't think there should be any shame in that either.

**Kusha Navadar** (3:45)
We got a couple texts that have already come in, so I want to read some of them. The first one, put the toilet seat down. I'm pretty sure that's advice for how to live well with roommates. Another one says, when my adult kids live back at home, I just have the rule. They have to keep their door closed to their room. They could do whatever they want with it, but I don't want to see it.
There's another one that says work wheel for chores. That's pretty interesting. And another one that says the only way is to commit to way over communicating from day one. Otherwise, you lock yourself into an impossible cycle of not being able to talk things out. So there's already advice that folks have. We'd love to hear calls, more texts, keep those coming in. Allie, I'm wondering, before we get into the friction, just make the case works. You mentioned like, people don't want to be lonely. You cite research that people who live with others are actually happier. What are the benefits of sharing a home?