Almost everyone has a story about an impossible flatmate. The one who never washed up, the one who brought people home at three in the morning, the one who left owing two months. And almost every one of those flats seemed like a good decision at the time: fair price, convenient area, bright room.
The problem is that we assess the property in great detail and the people barely at all. This guide tries to correct that imbalance.
Why price and location are poor criteria
Not because they don't matter, but because they're easy to compare, and that makes them dominate the decision. Fifty euros of difference shows up in a spreadsheet. The fact that the person you'll share a bathroom with works nights doesn't.
There's another asymmetry worth keeping in mind: the room can be changed and the flatmates, in practice, can't. Moving mid-contract is awkward but doable. Changing who you live with without moving is close to impossible.
The five clashes that ruin a flatshare
In practice almost every flatshare conflict falls into five categories. None of them are about anyone being a good or bad person: they're about different expectations that nobody put on the table.
1. Cleaning
By far the most common, and the hardest to renegotiate later. The conflict is rarely between a clean person and a messy one: it's between two people with different thresholds for when something counts as dirty. For one, the dishes can wait until the evening. For the other, one plate in the sink already reads as mess.
What to ask: not “are you tidy?” — everyone says yes — but “how long can dishes sit in the sink before it bothers you?”. That answer is specific and hard to dress up.
2. Noise and schedules
Two people can both be quiet and still clash, simply because one lives their life at seven in the morning and the other at one. The question isn't how much noise each makes, but when.
3. Guests and partners
The topic people avoid most and the one that escalates fastest. A partner who stays three nights a week is, in practice, an extra flatmate who doesn't pay rent. That can be completely fine, but it needs discussing beforehand rather than being discovered in March.
4. Money
Not just the rent: shared costs, who buys the toilet paper, what happens if someone leaves early, how the deposit gets split. Almost no flatshare discusses it and almost all of them end up with a problem about it.
5. Social life at home
Some people want flatmates and some want friends. Neither is better, but mixed together they produce frustration: one feels invaded and the other feels rejected.
What to look for at the viewing
A viewing lasts twenty minutes and everyone is on their best behaviour. There are still signals, if you know where to look.
- The state of the kitchen and bathroom on an ordinary day says more than any answer about cleaning.
- If several people live there, notice whether they talk to each other or each answers separately.
- Ask why the person you'd be replacing is leaving. An awkward silence there is information.
- See whether any house rules are written down. Having them isn't a bad sign — it means they've talked about this.
How to stay safe while looking for a room
What to ask, and how
General questions produce general answers. “Are you quiet?” is useless: everyone thinks they are. Useful questions describe a concrete situation and let the other person tell you what they'd do. Two to get you started; the full list is in the guide to the 30 questions.
- 1.What happened the last time there was a problem in this house?
- 2.How often does someone from outside come over?
30 questions to ask before sharing a flat
The part a viewing can't show you
All of the above helps, but it has a limit: twenty minutes of conversation with strangers who want you to like them doesn't reveal much. That's why we built Roomealo. Instead of trying to deduce what someone is like from a viewing, we compare how you both live using real situations, and tell you where you align and where friction is likely before you even meet.
Take the living compatibility test
If you already live with someone incompatible
First, check whether it's incompatibility or simply an unhad conversation. A huge number of flatshare conflicts have gone months without being mentioned once, because nobody wants to be the difficult one. Raising it once, calmly and without accusation, resolves more than you'd expect.
If you've raised it twice and nothing changes, then it is incompatibility. And in that case, the sooner you accept it, the fewer bad months you accumulate.