Living with another person is never easy. You cannot avoid getting in each other’s way or fighting over little things like whose turn it is to vacuum or why there are clothes all over the floor. If living with another person is hard, try living with two other people. Yes, if you are a current or past triple resident you understand what I mean when I say that the triple life can be rough. You are confined to a small room, originally designed for two people, but somehow you manage to squeeze three in there.
When I first heard I was going to be living in a triple, I was nervous. I was already worried about having to life with one stranger, but hearing I had to live with two—now that was scary. However, over the past five months, I have come to love my triple.
If you are someone who barely survived first semester in a triple, or someone who loves their triple, but doesn’t know if you’ll make it through another semester as smoothly as the first, here are a few tips to help you make the next four months of triple life a little more peaceful:
1. Designate a cleaning day
While being in a triple or a double, it is important to keep your room clean and tidy; however, with such a limited amount of room in a triple, it is necessary to keep your space clean. My roommates and I dedicated Sunday nights to be our cleaning nights. We vacuum, dust and clean up our areas in order to make sure our room is nice and tidy. It is amazing how much bigger the room looks when stuff is put away and things are picked up.
2. Rearrange the furniture
The way the furniture is arranged can make or break a triple. My roommates and I ended up rearranging some of the furniture during the first month of school to open up more space and make our room seem bigger. We have the bunk beds against the wall across from the closets along with one desk, the lofted bed against the wall by the door with the desk underneath, and the other desk by the window in order to create an “L” shape around the room. This set-up makes the room seem bigger, but at the same time, makes it feel inclusive because we can all see each other.
3. Don’t leave one person out
One fear that I had upon hearing I was going to be in a triple is that my two roommates would become best friends, and I would be the one left out. Luckily, this did not happen because we were able to make our own groups of friends, in addition to being friends with each other. Also, if two of us are going to hang out, we always make sure that we extend the invitation to the third roommate and do not take it personally if they decline. Triples can get hostile quickly, so it is important to keep an inclusive and friendly environment.
4. No Offense Policy
At the beginning of our freshman year, my roommate Ella came up with the idea of a no offense policy. The idea behind it was that if we had something to say regarding our living situation, we would be able to say it without the other person being offended. This is not an opportunity to be passive aggressive, but is a way for us to genuinely accept and understand when another person needs change. This idea was really helpful during the first few months of living together because it is important to be mindful of people’s feelings, but, at the same time, you should feel free to talk to your roommates about things that are bothering you in a rational manner.
As challenging as the triple life can be at times, I would not change it for the world. Living with three people brings a whole new fun and exciting dynamic to the room. Our three personalities compliment each other perfectly, and I couldn’t imagine going through my freshman year without both of my roommates by my side.