When you live with several roommates, it is common that each one will have different standards when it comes to cleaning, and that can cause a lot of conflict.

What would you do if one of your roommates almost never cleaned his assigned areas, and when you tried to get him to do it, he just got upset and acted like it was no big deal?

That is what the young woman in this story is dealing with, and she doesn’t know how to get him to keep the place clean.

Unfortunately, unless it is so bad that it is unhealthy, there is likely little that she can do. Read through the full story below and see if you have any suggestions.

How to deal with roommate who hates being kept accountable?

I (f24) have three roommates (m22, m25 called “X”, f24).

Why does he think that he doesn’t need to clean up after himself?

Since before I moved in, there have always been problems with X never cleaning his fair share. In the past, he even said that he doesn’t see himself responsible for cleaning at all.

I.e., since I moved in a year ago he has cleaned no more than three or four times total (not the wohle flat, just one area each).

What a jerk.

However, he expects us to accept him pregaming on a regular basis and then leaving the kitchen and living room trashed the whole next day.

When I confronted him about it, he said “Well, we’re just uni students.” He leaves trash out for days but, when asked about it, says “the way you talk to me about it makes me want to not clean up at all”.

They are trying to find ways to get him to pull his weight.

After several talks, we – once again – implemented a cleaning plan a couple of weeks ago. Of course, X did not clean some of the most important areas of his assigned room (which was completely filthy) at all but marked them “done” on the shared app.

First, I asked nicely in the group chat to please remember the cleaning plan as the turn to clean the rooms was up. No reaction.

To be fair, it doesn’t sound like he ever agreed to the cleaning schedule.

The next day, I wrote “Hey X, when will you finish cleaning? We all need to be reliable when it comes to cleaning. If the arrangement isn’t working, it is your responsibility to communicate that. But I am tired of you never cleaning and just hoping that noone will say anything.”

His response, “Yeah and it isn’t good for the atmosphere if you come on here exposing me every day. You can’t just expect me to cater to your needs from 0 to 60. Its no big deal if we just clean it less often”

Her needs are her needs, not his. You can’t force people to have the same standards.

I said, “‘My needs’ are the cleaning plan we talked about as a group. And ‘0 to 60’ means you doing your assigned tasks, nothing more.”

When we talked in person afterwards, he told me several times how I must communicate better or else he has no motivation to clean up. Also, I should just wait at least a day before asking him about cleaning up trash.

If the other roommates don’t care enough to say anything, how bad could it be?

FYI, me and the other roommates have no problems with each other at all and all of us do our share of the cleaning plan.

However, they have kind of checked out when it comes to telling him to clean up but tell me they share my opinion.

She is trying to be nice.

It has even gotten to the point where I ask my boyfriend whether my texts to X are okay to send as I feel like I’m walking on egg shells.

I don’t want to feel like I need to find the perfect emoji-to-friendly-sounding-text-ratio for him to act like an adult human being.

It is about cleaning to her standards and on her timeline.

It’s just about cleaning up after you’ve used shared spaces and doing your part of the cleaning plan.

How on earth do you deal with that?

Honestly, these two are simply not compatible. Yes, he should clean up and shouldn’t need to be treated like a child to get him to do it. She, however, seems to think that she can demand that everyone have the same cleaning standards as she does.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This commenter thinks he is gaslighting her.

Issuing a cleaning fee isn’t a bad idea.

This commenter thinks she is being too nice.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who finds his parking spot at a hocket game in jeopardy from a rude driver.

Here is someone who had a roommate just like this. It didn’t end well.

This is one option.

He needs to clean up his act, but that is unlikely, so they need to kick him out.