Tere!

As previously mentioned in the an article about moving to the third flat in Estonia, I have two flatmates now: one Hong Kong guy and one Lithuanian girl. In my opinion we’ve been good.

So far I don’t have any complaints (except for the fact that the Hong Kong flatmate revealed what would happen to one of the main characters in “Supernatural”). Anyways, he made a welcome dinner and we talked about ourselves and the flat on my first weekend here.

How are they like?

Humanity and personalities are very crucial since lacks of these may cause issues but I rather wanted to know more about the flat rather than the people to be honest. After introducing ourselves, we talked about the rules in the flat but

Jesus here’s real Sheldon.

Do you know “The Big Bang Theory”?

It’s an American comedy show which lasts until the 11th season (though each episode takes only 20 minutes or so). One of the protagonists of this show is named Sheldon, who is a genius physicist and shares a flat with another protagonist Leonard who is also a physicist. Leonard has concluded a roommate agreement that consists of tens of pages made by Sheldon.

Alright, let’s get back to the topic: my Hong Kong flatmate. After the talk about ourselves, he opened the Word file with his laptop and showed “Flatmate Agreement” like the “Roommate Agreement” that Sheldon made for Leonard.

The differences between ours and Sheldon’s are the volume of the agreement and unnecessity of signature.

We agreed orally and he shared the file of the flatmate agreement with us.

For those who are currently fighting with your flatmates or who are planning to share a flat with someone unknown, you may use or refer to our flatmate agreement to spend a peaceful life. I uploaded it in PDF so please find and download the file at the end of this article.

So, in terms of the flatmate agreement, what exactly did we talk about and agree to? Basically these are rules/tips to keep our flat clean and socialisation among us.

1) Secrets to keep the flat clean

Bathroom

・Avoid SLAMMING the door/toilet cover after use
→ I guess this is because this Hong Kong flatmate’s room is just in front of the bathroom. lol The Lithuanian flatmate and I don’t mind that much but it doesn’t mean we were resistant to do this, so we don’t slam but just close the door.

・Use it (the bathroom) for maximum 30 mins
→ This one was made considering the “congestion” of the shower use but both the Hong Kong flatmate and Lithuanian flatmate take showers in the morning and I do before going to bed so it wasn’t problematic. (Besides the Hong Kong flatmate wakes up at 5.30 every morning and the Lithuanian flatmate does at 9 am. After that they seem to take showers so it’s also not problematic even for them.)

・Clean the toilet bowl THOROUGHLY after use every time
→ Actually this doesn’t happen that often. I just flush normally as long as there is no significant dirt. However, it is true that we can always keep the clean toilet if we deal with our own dirts right after the use.

・Take away personal items after use EVERY TIME (except towels) 
→ There are shelves in the bathroom so I keep mine such as a toothbrush there. Also there are towel hooks on the wall. That’s why this item says “except for towels” but I personally have one face wash headband that I bought in Disney Sea last October. My previous one was Elmo from USJ where my mam bought for me. I’d used it for a quite long time.

・Clean all the hairs of the tub after showering
→ This a common sense and yet there are the certain number of people who do not have the ability to do this. (Yeah, I experienced already. It happened in the first flat in Estonia, and everytime after the German or Italian girls used the showers their hair was literally everywhere. It was disgusting and shocking even though I’m a girl too.)

Kitchen

・Clean all areas (stove, sink, table) IMMEDIATELY after use except emergencies (flatmates must be alerted)
→ There is also no wonder but what I personally do is to put my stuff aside not to bother the flatmates’ cooking. 

・Never switch the stove to the maximum heat for a long time
→ This rule was made because they experienced to have a pot with too boiled stuff but I believe that it’s because the one who cooked was just not good at the kitchen management/cooking rather than the heating system was too strong… I agreed though, because still I can cook with lower heat.

・Store leftover properly with a cover 
→

Wait, if we store foods without any cover in the fridge, they would get super dry.

Corridor

・Both inner and outer doors must always be closed
→ Our house entrance has two doors and if we keep the inside door open, there’s no space for the Hong Kong flatmate when he leaves his room. So this is also irrelevant for my and the Lithuanian flatmate’s lives but keeping it close would not cause any annoys among us.

・Boots must be put on the upper side of the shoe rack
→

First of all, boots cannot be fitted in the lower case.

・Other shoes (e.g. slippers, sneakers etc.) must be placed on the lower side
→ We concluded this flatmate agreement quite recently, that is, in winter. We also agreed that it’d be better to keep the shoes on the rack depending on the season. Come to think of it, where did I put my other shoes…

・Always empty the corridor
→ My room slippers are not exceptional but it doesn’t mean that I have complaints about it. I just take them off in my room as I leave. That’s it.

Weekly cleaning

・Everyone takes turn per week
→ Someone has to be in charge of cleaning the flat once three weeks (obviously because we are three of us here). It may sound like something big since one tenant has to clean the whole flat but also it’s confusing and troublesome to manage the cleaning schedule if all of us clean the flat dividing into three parts, which may get more troublesome when someone cannot handle it for some reasons (as far as I experienced) so this is actually the best way.

・The person-in-charge has to buy all necessary detergents
→ Well, we have different time tables every day so it’s not always possible for someone in charge of cleaning the flat to buy necessary things. Therefore, actually someone who has time to go shopping buys and later on the rest of us pay back. I think this is the best way so that we can be financially equal.

2) Socialising

Active hours

・Be quiet before 7am & after 11pm
→ I don’t think this is our flat-specific rule. In Estonia (or in Europe? in Ireland where it may have been the same), there are active hours. (It might be 7 am to 10 pm in public like a supermarket.)
This is to avoid the neighbour issues. It didn’t surprise me but because of my work I once in a while have to make calls in the early morning to New Zealand which has a 10 or 11-hour time difference with Estonia. (I try to tell my flatmates beforehand but it’s not always possible so I apologise in my mind.)

・Family calls can be made not more than 30 mins agreed by other flatmates
→ Our Lithuanian flatmate often talks with her husband who is in Lithuania but I’ve never been bothered due to this so I really don’t mind. I can sleep anywhere and don’t talk with my family. If I talk with my friends in Japan, it takes at least one hour though.

Internal

・Everyone takes turn to cook for the rest twice a month to ensure sufficient internal communication on a regular basis
→ The aim is to communicate with three of us. (I would have disagreed if the flatmates had been like the tenants in my previous flat.) It may sound too much for some people but the frequency is low and is nearly once a month.
The other day was my turn and I was lazy to think of what to cook so I cooked onigiri (rice balls) and nikujaga (like a stew with meat and potatoes and vegetables). Then I swore to myself: I would never ever buy Rimi’s soy sauce again. It just made the food in black without enough taste of soy sauce. Rimi has Kikkoman’s soy sauce, which is a proper Japanese brand and not cheap but it ensures that we can have the proper taste of soy sauce.

External

・Individual guests must stay at the host’s own room without interrupting shared area
→ Common sense, isn’t it. However I do know that there are some number of people who do not, again, have any ability to do this. Can you guess how many times the Indian tenant’s guest in the previous flat took my food from the fridge and use my stuff even though I kept them separately or marked as mine?

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・The presence of individual guests of the opposite sex (of the host) must be informed in this flat prior to his/her arrival 
→ This item was made in case one of us brought their date or partner. lol However we actually let the others know when same-sex friends or someone will come to visit. It’s still better than nothing.

・The presence of groups (>1 person) should only be accepted when there is an unanimous agreement in the flat
→ Yeah it’s gonna be noisy when there are too many people in the small place… In the first flat in Estonia when there was a huge party which around 50 guests came, I was just shutting myself in my room, being annoyed.

…Okay, that’s it. Does it seem too much for you? Some items (or maybe all?) of this flatmate agreement have my comments but so far we have lived peacefully. It may be kind of sad for my flatmates because having my own time is really important to me but they may learn that the world has such a person.

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If you want to see or get our flatmate agreement, you can download below. 

Aitäh! 🙂