Moving Into a New Place with A Roommate or Significant Other

Ayla PR Representative with Moving Made Smooth, Inc.

There are a lot of decisions involved when you decide to move in with another person; whether you're newlyweds, dating, or just roomies. The task of merging your stuff can be tedious and even frustrating at times. Coordinating the move itself can be tricky. Setting ground rules is also an extremely important task. You should also make a financial plan for bills and rent.

Deciding to Move in Together
The decision to move in with a friend or significant other is a very important life decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. This will be a person that you spend a lot of time with and you will have to deal directly with this person and their habits for an indefinite amount of time. Think about your personalities and what you both do in your spare time. Are they compatible or are you able to be flexible? If you're considering moving in with someone who has a party every Friday night and you work early in the morning every Saturday you may want to reconsider the arrangement. Are you frequently in conflict with them or in an 'on-again, off-again' relationship? Maybe you are allergic to their favorite pet. Sometimes there are circumstances that cause people to be incompatible under the same roof even though you are the best of friends or devoted partners and that's okay. It's a whole lot easier to prevent the arrangement than to organize moving out and breaking a lease in the back end.

Merging Your Possessions
It can be difficult to decide on who's furniture will end up put into your new place together. Maybe you have a favorite chair that you are absolutely unable to part with. Assert yourself about your 'must-haves,' but remember to be flexible. They may be just as attached to some of their belongings as you are to yours. Give them room in your new home, but don't forget about yourself. Balance is key. If you have a lot of left over furniture, consider selling, donating, or storing it. Keep in mind that long-term storage can get costly.

Coordinating the Move
When two people are moving into a new place together it can make a move harder to coordinate simply because you have two homes and a lot more stuff to keep track of. Keeping organized is very important (you can check out some of our other blogs for tips & hacks). Even more important is proper planning. We recently had a customer schedule her move (in my opinion, ideally) for a move in with a significant other. They had a storage unit and a house that both needed to be moved onto moving trucks and unloaded at their new home together. So they hired four of our men and rented two trucks. Two of our men were able to load one truck at the storage unit and the other two went to the house to load the other truck. Both trucks then arrivedat the new house and the four men unloaded the two trucks in record time. Whatever you decide to do for your particular situation, remember to take it easy on yourself. The last thing you need is an argument on moving day.

Setting Your Ground Rules
When moving in together, it can be mutually beneficial if you lay out all of your pet peeves to the other person. If it bugs you, let them know. It is NEVER a good idea to let a continual annoyance fester into resentment. If your boyfriend leaves the toilet seat up and that little voice in your head flies into a tirade, you should let him know that. Be aware though that it may be destructive to your relationship to start off the discussion if you are annoyed or angry. Bring it up, let them know that a change in their behavior is important to you and beneficial to them (because it grows your relationship), but don't bite their head off! Treat your new roommate or significant other with the same respect you would want to receive from them. Be understanding. Remember, they are adjusting to you just as much as you are adjusting to
them. If they forget about the toilet seat a few times before it becomes a routine it's completely normal.

Financial Planning
Financing is also very important to have worked out in advance. Decide if you are going to split the rent and bills or if you are designating certain bills to be a particular person's responsibility. Be sure to make your roommate or significant other aware if there is any reason that they unexpectedly cannot afford a bill and make it clear that you expect the same from them. You never want to have them angry at you because the power got shut off and you didn't tell them about it or vice versa.