Moving into your first student flat?

Moving into your first shared flat this summer? Living in a shared flat can be a great experience whilst you are a student, especially in a fantastic, vibrant city such as Edinburgh.

After living in student accommodation, many of you will be excited to live with your friends. However, some of you might be worried about living with people you socialise with, or living with more people than you’re used to. Want to be the perfect flatmate? We’ve come up with some handy tips for you to make sure your home is a happy one!

• Bills: This might be the first time you’ve had to pay electricity and gas bills, and it’s often a cause of tension in shared flats. Do you get cold easily? Instead of switching the heating on, put a jumper on. Also, don’t resort to electric heaters. As well as being a major fire hazard, they also have extremely high running costs!
• Allocating rooms: Is there one bedroom everyone wants? If everyone in the flat is paying the same amount of rent and there are varying bedroom sizes, deciding on who gets which room can sometimes cause arguments. Why not draw straws or allocate a number to a room and pull numbers out of a hat?
• Cleaning: Why not create a cleaning rota so everyone knows when it’s their time to take the rubbish bins out or clean the floors? This helps share the load in flats where some people tend to do more of the household chores than others. Also, make sure you tidy up after yourself and clean dishes after you eat.
• Shopping: There’s always that one person who never buys bread, toothpaste or toilet roll! Why not develop a system where you each take it in turns to buy the shared household items? Or, try and find a time where you can all go shopping together for these items and each person can contribute to the cost.
• Be respectful: Is your flatmate revising for an exam? Do they need to get up early for work? Be respectful of your flatmates, especially when it comes to having friends over late at night.
• Personal space: Remember everyone is different – it can sometimes be difficult living in a flat with many different personalities and whereas some people enjoy being around others all day long, some people need their own space.

(Image courtesy of nenetus at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)