This year is my first year living in a suite, before this I lived in an on campus house (Langlow). One of the main differences is that my suitemates and I have to clean the inside of our suite ourselves. In Langlow, we had maintenance come once a week. This was nice. It meant that we didn’t have to clear all the toothpaste out of the sink ourselves. However, since moving into Trimble, I have been learning to take care of household chores on my own. Or, failing that, to at least thank my suitemates for taking care of them. Some chores you can get away with not doing for a while. For example, I haven’t swept or vacuumed my room since I moved in. Others you need to do regularly. Anything involving the bathroom needs to be done regularly. Below, I have written out a tip list for cleaning a suite. It’s fairly simple but I hope it will help.

1) Create a chore schedule. Otherwise everyone assumes someone else will take care of it and no one does anything. Either that, or the person with the least tolerance for filth does everything, becomes resentful, and begins plotting ways to kill their suitemates.

2) Get all your hair out of the shower when you leave. This applies even if you are not living in a suite. No one wants to see someone else’s hair in the shower.

3) Don’t let the trash pile get too high. If you see that it is higher than the actual trash can, remove it. You don’t want it to turn into a trash mountain.

4) Don’t feel bad about reminding your suitemates to do their assigned chores if it has been awhile. If it’s a choice between silence and a clean shower, go with the clean shower. A hot shower is one of the best parts of the day. You don’t want to feel like you should be wearing a hazmat suit.

5) When you ask a suitemate to clean up, ask nicely first. A casual reminder is usually all that’s needed.

6) If there is something malfunctioning in your suite, ask your RA for a work order sooner rather than later. Our drain malfunctioned and we let it get to the point where it didn’t matter if it was in or out. We removed the drain and the water still wouldn’t go down the pipe. It wasn’t pretty.

Cleaning is like any other part of suitemate leaving, as long as everyone is reasonably courteous it will go fine. If not, there is likely to be the kind of drama that makes you wonder if you are in college or middle school. But that is a story for another blog.