Australian Property News

Cleaning the number one source of conflict in share house arrangements

Posted on Friday, October 08 2010 at 9:22 AM

Conflicts in Australian share houses are increasingly being resolved with fair and rational conversation, according to EasyRoommate Australia’s August survey.

The majority of survey respondents (66.1 per cent) said household conflict was rationally resolved, while only 6.1 per cent said that conflicts were usually resolved with an argument.

The old traditions of house meetings and notes left for flatmates are also alive and well, coming in second and third place behind fair and rational conversation, said EasyRoommate Australia director Radek Dobrolecki.

Cleaning responsibilities ranked as the number one source of conflict, followed by bills and house party arrangements.

“Although food sharing arrangements rated low on the conflict scale, 78.1 per cent of respondents still said they felt annoyed when a flatmate took food without asking,” said Dobrolecki.

“The majority of respondents indicated that food is routinely shared only sometimes (52.9 per cent).”

Almost half of the respondents (47.2 per cent) said an item of their food mysteriously disappears only once a month or less.