Help with moving in with roommates for the first time?

Question

We are moving into an apartment where one room is larger than the rest with a huge closet, one is medium sized with a medium closet and the last is a small room with no closet. I've tasked myself with coming up with the most fair way of figuring out how to decide who gets each room. I don't think a straight luck solution, like drawing straws, is a good choice at all and the obvious 'pay more each month for the larger room' solution doesn't work either because when that was put on the table everyone was after the middle sized room.

So really I'm just interested in hearing stories of how others have solved similar problems and maybe some creative solutions to my specific problem! Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I still think the drawing straws/lottery answer is the best answer to this situation.    No point in asking someone to pay more or worrying over the closet because you all should have known the dimensions before you signed the lease.  

If you all sign another lease at the end of this one, you can opt to have another lottery, although once that person gets the biggest room, they are probably going to be an *** at that point and not agree to the lottery.  Plus, who wants to move their stuff around?  You'd have to get the lottery agreement in writing.  Another problem - If someone moves out at the end of the lease without enough warning, a new person could get the medium or large room.  If you all plan to stay there more than one year, get EVERYTHING in writing.

In college, I moved into an on-campus college apartment where one bedroom was twice as big as the other.  My roommate and I ended up in a bedroom that should have only been for 1 person, while the other 2 girls got to spread out.  The reason they got to have the bigger room was because we used the one girl's lottery number (from residence life) to get that apartment.  That was probably the 2nd to worse year of college (last year was the worst - all my roommates turned on me because I didn't like the one girl bringing random guys into our apartment to sleep with), but I knew what I was doing when I got into it.

Answer 2

u can go by age, weight or height.  put all 3 choices in a hat or whatever and pick one and go from that..  i think it sounds like fun :):)  maybe u should try this drunk 2 lol

Answer 3

Do rock, scissors, paper one time - winner gets first pick.  Then do it with the two left, with that winner getting second pick.

I lived in this situation, and we did adjust the rent a bit on the rooms.  It's wasn't a huge difference, but it seemed more fair than the one with the big room and bath paying the same as the one with the smallest room.

Answer 4

Since no one's interested in dong a lottery or prorating the rent, it looks like some closet sharing is in order. Maybe the person with the large room can share half of his or her closet with the person with no closet.

Then, if you extend the lease for another year, consider having the persons with the largest and smallest rooms trade.