What do you think the best number is for 2nd year house sharing ?

[AceKitten]

?

My dd has an army of friends, but she is also canny enough to realise that she doesn't necessarily want to live with all of them!

I did 4 and 5 in houses with one bathroom. Any more would have been horrendous. Both were a mix of men/women which most people I know who had done both said they preferred!

1 per bedroom preferably.

It's not the number it's the individuals and how they interact. And how much space there is in the house, and how tidy and easy to live with people are.
The key thing is not to end up with one bathroom between six. That was shite!

Absolutely this. I wanted a fairly calm domestic environment, so chose to live with three friends I thought would have similar ideas, and two of whom were heavily involved in clubs and socs and out a lot.

I also had significant numbers of party friends whose houses were generally in cheerful mayhem. It worked for them to be permanently hosting an open house and to often be eating breakfast with a bunch of strangers sleeping on the floor from a party the night before, but it wouldn’t have worked for me. That way, everyone got what they wanted.

We had 7! It was fun and still friends 30 years later. Was very messy though.

DS had 5 in a house last year. He hated the mess.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack My dd liked all sorts - just not a quiet person. So wanted a house with more going on.

Fair enough. But fwiw, my dd isn't a quiet person either. She is very extroverted and definitely recharges by being in and around big groups of people. But she also had a lot of friends in the years above her, and she observed that the bigger group houses seemed to have a lot more drama and falling out. She was keen to avoid that.

Dd wasn’t on anywhere with more then 6 and they didn’t have the space to host loads of things or have random people round. It isn’t one extreme to another. They got on, had different hobbies, were on different courses and had different personalities. They cooked for everyone 1 day a week in turns. DD didn’t know any chaotic types or chaotic houses. Bigger just meant there was usually someone around.

DS is with six others. Brilliant so far. 3 bathrooms between the 7 of them. He had a flat of 16 in halls - always wanted a big flat so he had more chance to gel with ppl (now sharing with 6 of them). His elder brother was in a halls flat of 5 - too small and intense so we learnt from that. I think 6-8 ideal for 2nd year house

4

I would say 4 or 5. DD had 7 in 2nd year and the mess was constant. Mess begets mess, so just a few housemates dirty dishes dominated the kitchen.

5 in year 3 but a placement year with a dishwasher and all of them keeping a 9-5 schedule, so a routine of cooking and cleaning up at the same time.

Year 4 back at university and in a house for 4. This seemed the best arrangement. It never got too messy, always someone around to chat to and intimate enough to stick to things like cleaning rotas. Easy for everyone to take.one bill to be responsible for.

I think 4 is about right. If there are more people than this then it’s very easy for people to develop the ‘someone else will do it’ mentality regarding cleaning, being tidy etc. There are also too many of you to sensibly share things such as taking it in turns to buy milk / laundry powder.
4 is a nice number to work together as a household.

Four girls, four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, an extra loo!

4 is working very well for my DD right now

I think it is impossible to generalize about ideal numbers except when it comes to adequate numbers of bathrooms. My DD has just agreed to live in a 6 person house (3M/3F) with 2 bathrooms. Boys get downstairs bedrooms, girls get upstairs bedrooms.

My DS on the other hand is fully committed to living solo and has arranged an en suite room in an independent but University approved hall of residence.

Mine have done 3 4s, an 8 and a 2 between them. All have worked fine and in fact the most mess has been my DD’s 2. DS loved his 8 (4 of each) as it was very sociable. Really depends on the individuals and the space.