In our Affordable Housing Barren Wasteland, unless you are very rich or very lucky, you will probably live with roommates longer than most grownups do in other less desirable (and therefore cheaper) American cities. Roommates are great for a lot of reasons—they make your rent cheaper, for one thing, they sometimes replace the toilet paper before you run out of it, and they listen to all your sad boy stories when you come home from a date and cry on your couch.

But roommates also leave their dishes in the sink, and let their boyfriends sleep over every night for a thousand years, and send you passive aggressive text messages about taking out the trash. I have had a lot of roommates over the years—some bad, some good, some great—and I have even been the Very, Very Bad Roommate in at least one apartment, because some of us were selfish assholes at 22. Sorry, ex-roommate :(

Anyway, here are some rules for being a good roommate. I have been guilty of violating a number of these rules, and you probably have too, because we are all humans and humans should all live in studio apartments.

How do I keep from killing my roommate(s) when he/she is in the bathroom when I need to use it? The roommate bathroom struggle is quite real, and to this day I dream about my 3-bed, 3-bath college apartment. There are several ways to deal with the Bathroom Issue.

  • If you all have roughly the same work schedule, it's a good idea to discuss early on what time everyone's getting up, their morning routines, etc.
  • If one of you is a morning shower user, either plan to be up earlier than the teeth-brusher(s), or the teeth-brusher(s) can get up ten minutes before the morning shower psychopath.
  • If two or more individuals are morning shower fiends who prefer to go to bed coated in a day's worth of NYC soot and filth, it might behoove you to work out a staggered schedule in the mornings.
  • As for night shower sophisticates, who choose not to soil their pristine bed linens with city stank, it's a good idea to alert your fellow roommates before getting into the bathroom, in case someone needs to brush their teeth/wash their face/pee before you descend into blissful sudsdom.

There will, of course, be times in which the bathroom is occupied when you REALLY REALLY NEED IT, and sometimes, there's just nothing you can do except suck it up and hope your small intestine won't explode. And once you've used the bathroom: replace toilet paper, wipe the seat, wipe the sink, spray/light a match if necessary.

Notice a common thread in those bullet points above? COMMUNICATION. It's everything when it comes to a healthy roommate relationship. (That, and saving your silent judgments about their morning shower lifestyle for your public blog posts.)

Who cleans? You all clean. Duh. Come up with a chore schedule or just pick up a mop when stuff starts looking dingy. Inevitably things will still pile up over time, so it's not a terrible idea to invest in a cleaning service once every, say, six months so you can all start from square one at some point.

As for dishes, I am a strong believer in the "everyone does their own dishes" deal, except if your roommate cooks you dinner, in which case you should be the one cleaning up. Of course, if you've got pots and pans in the sink and your roommate left one spoon there, don't be a dick. Wash the spoon. Also, don't leave your dishes overnight, or for longer than one meal cycle.

How many nights can my significant other stay over? I once had a roommate whose boyfriend lived two blocks from us, yet insisted on staying over every goddamn night. Every night is too much, and I wish my roommates and I had reached some sort of written consensus re: sleepovers before we gained a fourth person in our home. You can work out your own schedule in your roommate contract, but here's my two cents: three nights at your place, three nights at your S/O's, and if you must wrap yourselves in each other's arms every night, switch that seventh day off every week.

What about relatives/guests? This really does vary from roommate to roommate and from apartment to apartment, and if you're having someone over for more than a night or two, it's probably best to check with everyone first, especially if someone's crashing on the couch. If a visitor is staying for more than a long weekend, you should ABSOLUTELY check with all relevant parties, and having someone stay for more than a week is a little much.

If the guests in question are your parents, DOUBLE TRIPLE CHECK with your roommates. Hotels and Airbnbs are definitely expensive and it's understandable if you want to put your parents up, but not everyone wants someone else's parents up in their biz.

My roommates are ruining my expensive cookware! What do I do? For the most part, it is an unspoken rule that cooking utensils, much like couches and common-room televisions, are shared commodities. This is just common sense in an NYC kitchen, where it seems unfathomable you'd have room for more than one set of that stuff. That being said, if you agree to share the pots and pans, you must also agree to keep them clean, refrain from using forks to scrape out non-stick pans, and replace anything you burn too badly.

If you feel VERY STRONGLY about sparing your copper cookware the wrath of your roommate's lentil soup, keep it in your room. Yes, it is a weird thing to do, but such is the price you pay for perfect pots and pans.

Should we split groceries, or buy our own stuff? For the most part, it's best if everyone buys their own groceries, so there's never any squabbling over who ate the last Rice Krispie treat and everyone gets to pick their own preferred brand of peanut butter. It's fine to share certain perishables, like bread, milk, and coffee, and nearly mandatory to pitch in for toilet paper and paper toweling, lest you expect each roommate to carry around their own toiler paper rolls.

It's a good idea to keep track of these expenses in a Google Doc or on a dry erase board—at the end of the month, each roommate should pay the others the difference in what is owed. Cleaning supplies, utilities and other shared expenses can also be tracked this way.

Is it a good or bad idea to get a television? Who gets to pick what's on? And what about noise control? A television is a great way to bring roommates together—my roommates and I are currently binge re-watching The O.C., and it is LIFECHANGING—but it can also spark the odd fight over late-night noise, remote control control, etc.

I generally believe roommates should instate a first come, first serve policy with the television, as in, if you come home and your roommate is in the midst of a Keeping Up With The Kardashians marathon, you either retreat to your room and watch Netflix in peace, or join him/her in experiencing whatever drama in which Khloe, Kourtney, Kim, Kendall, Kylie & Kris are engulfed (this, by the way, is how a KUWTK addict is born). That being said, if you are the one who commandeered the television, it's also nice to offer your roommate the remote if you aren't passionately engrossed in whatever you're watching, and/or have been parked in front of the TV for several hours.

As for noise control, you and your roommates should agree upon a "Quiet Hours" period late at night and in the early morning, so you're not forced to listen to House Of Cards on full blast at 2 a.m. Another solid solution: wireless headphones.

Will my roommate be angry if I smoke weed in the apartment? Before you move into any apartment, it's a good idea to have an open conversation about weed-smoking and cigarette-smoking, both of which, while very different habits, can stink up a space pretty quickly. Roommates will usually specify whether or not they're cool with living with a regular smoker, but in my opinion, no one should ever smoke a cigarette inside a New York City apartment, for the space will forever smell like the outside of the Charleston.

Talk to your roommates about weed, which stinks up a place far less than tobacco but can still do some damage, as my across-the-hall neighbors have thus far proven. If everyone's cool, blow your smoke out a window and offer all your roommates a hit or two like a good person.

How do I tell my roommate(s) I want a pet, and what do we do about it once it lives inside our home? First and foremost, all parties must agree to a pet, even if one roommate claims it as his/her responsibility. If your roommates do not want a dog, cat, hedgehog, or carrier pigeon, even if you assure them you will assume full responsibility for cleaning up their bowel movements, you either can't get a pet or have to find new people to live with.

This sensibility holds true even if you already have a pet in the apartment. Two animals are not the same as one animal, and it's not fun to be the roommate who gets the "Oh, hey, I adopted another cat, hope you don't mind!" text. Once you have all agreed on having a pet, you will have to address who takes care of it, who takes it with them/home on vacations, and who will keep it in case one of you moves out. Put all this in writing. If you are the one who wants the pet and pledges to care for it, then it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Do not go on vacation and leave your pet behind with your unwitting roommates.

Note that the best pet situation you can find yourself in is one in which your roommate cares for it exclusively, both physically and financially, and the only thing you have to do is pet it and keep it from eating your burrito.

What do you do when your home burns down?: This and other home-related disasters probably won't happen to you, but it's always a good idea to be prepared just in case. The best thing to do is to make sure each roommate has his or her own renters insurance policy—typically these policies only cover individuals if you aren't related to one another, and if you're all covered you don't have to worry about trying to pass off your roommates' personal belongings as shared expenses.

Other things you can do to prepare for unpleasantness like fires, break-ins, floods, and bedbugs is to make sure each roommate has a copy (or multiple copies) of the lease so everyone knows what the liabilities are, that every roommate keeps doors locked and space heaters unplugged, that no one lets in any strangers, and that you all wash and dry thrift store clothing on high heat. DO NOT let a roommate bring in any wood or soft furniture found on the street, lest you all suffer.

That's all, folks! Up next: How To Tell A Roommate To Leave.