Untidy houses and housemates that don’t clean up after themselves are a common complaint amongst housesharers. If this sounds like your houseshare then try the plan below to get your housemates doing their fair share of keeping the property clean.
If you’re currently cleaning up after them, stop
They’re not going to be motivated to clean if they know you’ll come along and do it for them, so the first step is to stop cleaning up after them.
However, even if you do stop cleaning up after them, you still may be required to do some minimal cleaning. For example, if the landlord is currently advertising a vacant room then you want to keep the house in an acceptable state for viewings. Also you’ll want to clean up anything that may damage the property or encourage vermin, for instance cleaning up spills on carpets and wood floors and throwing away food waste that has been left out.
Sit them down and have an informal chat
Don’t resort to passive-aggressive post-it notes or faking loud phone conversations where you tell your ‘friend’ “urgh, this place is SO messy, my housemate just doesn’t clean up, how inconsiderate”. That’s likely to make the situation worse and will just paint you as ‘that’ housemate to the rest of the household.
Ask the housemate(s) if there’s a time you can all have an informal chat about keeping the house clean. Get some coffee, beers, wine, whatever you all like. You want this to be a relaxed conversation and not come across as you accusing them of not cleaning.
Rather than going into the discussion with “housemate X is not cleaning”, emphasise the need to keep the house in an acceptable state so that none of you get in trouble with the landlord or cause damage to the property, and that this is a joint responsibility.
Propose that it is easier and quicker to keep the house clean as people go about their everyday activities. For instance, doing the washing up right after a meal is prepared, or cleaning toothpaste off the sink straight after brushing your teeth. Also propose that the household adopts a cleaning rota if you don’t already have one.
Create a cleaning rota
Having a cleaning rota clearly spells out the responsibilities of each housemate regarding keeping the house clean.
The most important part of establishing a cleaning rota is that it must be built and agreed upon together. Don’t just go and make one yourself without consulting the other housemates and expect them to start following it when you leave a copy in the kitchen (they’ll ignore it).
Have another house meeting purely to create the cleaning rota. The cleaning rota can either be done by areas (e.g. kitchen, living room, bathroom) or by cleaning activities (e.g. hoovering, dusting). Ask people which they prefer, this may depend on the layout and style of the house. You could even try both over a few weeks and see which works best. The idea is to try and break the cleaning activities into individual tasks that each take less than 30 minutes for a single person to do weekly (preferably closer to 15 minutes if possible). You may also want to establish which day the cleaning takes place weekly so people don’t procrastinate doing their bit (e.g. set it to Saturday morning if the housemates’ schedules allow for it).
Learn and teach cleaning hacks
Some of your housemates might genuinely not know how to clean in a quick and effective manner, and therefore procrastinate doing it. If you know of some methods that will save your housemates time and effort (e.g. cleaning wipes for cleaning the kitchen surfaces) then you could attempt to make this known to them. But be careful on how and when you try to pass on this information, as it may be unwelcome and come across as you attempting to ‘micromanage’ you housemates, or could be seen as you criticising the quality of their cleaning attempts.
If all else fails…
If you’ve had a polite chat with them and established a mutually agreed upon cleaning rota but this hasn’t improved the situation after a few weeks, you may have to explore other options if the lack of cleaning is risking damage to the property or becoming a health hazard. If the houseshare was established by and is managed by the landlord (i.e. the landlord found the housemates individually and rents the rooms individually, rather than the housemates got together first then found a property and have a joint lease agreement) then you could ask them for advice. They might talk to the housemate concerned or propose that they (the landlord) send a cleaner to the property weekly (this would most likely increase you rent though).
