As part of our Love Where You Live campaign, student Bethan Ryder shares her top tips on how to build good relationships with the people you live with.
Whilst living with complete strangers can feel daunting, many people find that their flatmates become good friends at university. Fostering positive relationships with your flatmates is important to ensure that everyone feels comfortable in communal areas. Here is my advice to help you love your first year flat!
Decorate!
It’s nice to make your flat feel like home and the university’s Residence Life Team often offer free events where you can craft or pick up seasonal decorations. Check out their Instagram as well as your Residence Reception to see what’s on offer. Putting up decorations with your flatmates can help to bring you closer together.
Clean!
Don’t be afraid to talk about cleaning. Whilst approaching the subject of kitchen cleanliness can be uncomfortable, it’s important to discuss issues like bin rotas and dishes early on if there are any issues. Having respectful conversations about kitchen cleanliness can ensure that you enjoy your time in halls. Remember to clean up after you cook and be respectful about how your actions may affect your other flatmates, for example filling up the sink with dishes will make it difficult for other people to use it.
If there are persistent issues in your accommodation don’t hesitate to contact the Contracts and Residential Experience team, who can help to discuss and mediate a situation. Click here for the concerns form. It’s important to be respectful of communal areas in the flat as it will make everyone’s experience nicer and most importantly you will avoid being fined for mess or damage!
Cook!
Finally, cooking together is a really nice way to foster relationships with your flatmates and save on money and food waste. Keep an eye out for the Students’ Guild Feed your Flat event on Instagram. Feed your flat offers bags of food that contain the ingredients to make a pasta bake for your whole flat. Alternatively, you can try recipes that are easy to make in bulk such as fajitas, lasagne or carbonara. BBC food and Good Food are some of the best websites for free recipes.
I had a pizza night in my flat last year. If you’re a confident cook you can make the dough from scratch but if not you can buy pre-made pizza dough. A pizza night is a great way to use up your leftover meat and vegetables and can easily cater to everyone’s preferences or dietary requirements. Food is definitely the key to people’s hearts and I often baked and shared with my flatmates which is a nice way to bond with people.
Getting to know your flatmates better doesn’t have to be expensive or costly and activities like having a picnic outside or just playing cards together can help to bring people closer together. Things won’t be perfect all the time but having respect for each other and learning to compromise is the most important thing.