h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I haven't seen this mentioned yet so here goes...
In my experience, single people in shared housing end up doing an amount of house work closely related to their ability to tolerate mess; despite any system of rules that may exist. I have shared in 2-4 person households and have had the lowest mess tolerance in some, and the highest in others. Where I had the lowest mess tolerance I fought feelings of frustration at needing to do more work to keep the place "habitable". Talking and cajoling was only a partial solution. Then when I ended up in a house where my mess tolerance was the highest, I tried not to take advantage of that too much.

Another point, where cleaning roles were not strictly rostered the I've noticed a tendancy for all householders to miss efforts that others made to maintian the place, and feel that they are doing a disproportionate amount of the chores. This was most marked for me in 2 person households.

Andrew Rasmussen