washing the counter each day keeps the cockroaches away

May 29, 2009 12:27 PM

How do you structure your chore system? I live with 6-7 other folks in something resembling a relatively new housing co-op. Some chores get done, some don't. We have agreed that we're not interested in a punishment-based system, such as paying a fee if your assigned chores don't get done. What options are available to us for keeping a cleaner home?
posted by aniola to law & government (14 comments total)

Last year when I lived with two other roommates, there was a chart on a whiteboard with a column for each roommate and a row for each chore. There were no set chores assigned to people and no set timeframe, but whenever you did a chore, you would put a check next to your name. Then, when all three of us had done the chore once, you'd erase all the checks for that chore, and know you needed to take another turn soon.

Sometimes if I was slacking or really busy that week, two or three checks would accumulate next to my roommates names before I'd done it even once - so then my roommates would point to the chart and say "Hey, I've done the dishes twice and Karriane's done it three times - think you can do it next time?" And then I'd do it the next two or three times in a row in order to catch up, all the checks get erased, and now we're back to a clean slate.

Does that make any sense? It was sort of a loose system, but it worked well for us in that it wasn't overly rigid, but kept at least some kind of concrete tally system of who was take care of the place and who wasn't.
posted by Quidam at 12:43 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]

If you can afford it, splitting the cost to have a house cleaner come in once a week or every other is a good option. The cleaners would presumably only clean common areas ... kitchen, hallways, bathroom, dining / living room. Split six or seven ways it wouldn't be that much. At least then everything gets a reasonable cleaning regularly which makes people's slacking sometimes not as much of a problem.
posted by R343L at 12:55 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]

You could use the web-based Chorebuster to organize and delegate chores. They even have email reminders. I also asked my roommates to sign an agreement (my name is the only one on the lease so it protected me against financial loss) saying that we'd all make a good faith effort to do our chores and come to each other with problems.
posted by emilyd22222 at 1:21 PM on May 29

My wife and I use notecards with chores listed on them. Every Sunday, we draw chores from a bowl, taking one each until the bowl is empty. Tasks that need to be done every day have seven cards with a day designated (Upstairs Toilet - Monday). Biweekly tasks are split (Vacuum - MTW, Vacuum - RFS). When the chore is completed, you put the card back into the bowl.

It works for us because:
1. We get to put the task into the bowl when we finish it (which is strangely rewarding).
2. We can use the tasks for currency (trade, bribe, etc).
3. Every week our tasks are a bit different, which helps kill the sisyphean aspect of chores.
posted by amanzi at 2:11 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]

When I lived with six other people, we had house jobs. Some were more or less permanent (bookkeeper, gardener), while others rotated (floors, bathrooms, garbage and recycling, I forget what else). The person cooking that night's dinner was in charge of cleaning the kitchen.We weren't all that clean, but the basics got done. The only motivation was peer pressure and shame.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:11 PM on May 29

I lived briefly in a house with a woman that had a pretty good system set up. There were four of us and four chore assignments for the week, with a rotating name wheel. Kitchen, bathroom, garbage, floors, things like that. So every week you'd have your assigned chores, and some weeks had easier chores than others. With four chore sets and four people you ended up doing each set once per month. Sundays she'd rotate the name wheel. It was fair, everyone had their job for the week, and it meant that even the worst chores (kitchen) you only had to do one week per month. The chart and wheel was kept in the kitchen so it was always easy to know what the weekly jobs were.

I know it sounds pretty tedious and anal. The only reason it worked was because the woman had been in the house years with a constant flux of roommates, so she'd figured out a good system. And she was very much the queen bee of the house and wouldn't hesitate to keep you on your toes ("6550, I noticed you didn't take out the trash yet. Please make sure to take it out before you go to bed.").

So the system needs to be easy, fair, and clear, which the chore wheel accomplished handily. And, very important, someone needs to be the house boss to do the reminding and nagging. While other aspects of living there drove me nuts, this seemed to be about as good as it gets for effectively managing shared chores with a large(r) group of people. I'd also specifically recommend the weekly rotation and also not have any special assigned chores to select people because that way breeds resentment, unless the special chores are something extra a person volunteered for (like Jamie wants to take care of the flower garden, but she's still on the wheel and has to clean the horrid kitchen every seven weeks).

Oh, the wheel was also good because it was easy to change names whenever someone moved in or out. Thinking further, I think it should be set up so that there are easier weeks but no free weeks to encourage complete slacking off. Might be more difficult with seven people since there are really only so many chores a house does need.

Yes, I'm not a fan of cleaning the kitchen.
posted by 6550 at 3:29 PM on May 29

I live in a house with five people and we use a rotating chore system, in which each task is expected to be completed weekly and the person doing it changes every week. This is kept track of on a prominent whiteboard with check marks. Chores often won't get done, in which case, like Quidam, the rest of the house is made aware and will often lead to that person getting asked explicitly to take up slack in later cases where things need to be done. Motivation to do a task is greatly enhanced by everyone else in the house explicitly asking you do to so.

We've tried to build in several incentive schemes that don't involve explicit punishment, but rather the shielding of one person's slacking from the rest of the house. For instance, used dishes, if not cleaned immediately after a meal, aren't allowed to remain in the kitchen sink. They have to be kept in the person's room. That way, they're not paying for not doing the dishes or anything, but they aren't imposing the effects of their choice onto everybody else.
posted by invitapriore at 3:35 PM on May 29

Instead of a punishment, why not have an incentive? People who get their chores done get some sort of 'prize.' Whether it would be something like getting to choose the pizza toppings or getting a small trophy for the month for being the cleanest...

It doesn't have to be big or anything. I had a pack of Gold Star stickers where I used to work, and I started handing them out as a joke when someone was telling me about some great accomplishment they'd managed. Pretty soon I had people BEGGING for the silly things. ('Hey! I found the root cause to that problem, where's my sticker??' 'You're the Quality Manager, you're supposed to find the root cause' 'But it was really hard! I deserve a star!')

And when I need to motivate myself to do something I try and give myself an incentive, or a competition. I'm currently competing with a coworker to see who can bring our lunch the most often in a month. Winner gets....a bottle of pop. No big deal, but it doesn't stop us from being very competitive about it.

You could try something like Chore Wars. I've heard good things, but never tried it myself.

Another method would be to arrange for a cleaning time of day or week, where everyone drops what they're doing and spends 30 minutes cleaning. With enforced cheerfulness. This was my mom's method.
posted by Caravantea at 3:53 PM on May 29

I lived in a house with 3 other people. There were 3 major cleaning areas - the kitchen, the bathroom, and the hall/foyer/living room. We set up a chore wheel so that each week, 3 of us got a specific area to clean, and 1 of us got a week off. Every Sunday night, we would rotate the chore wheel a quarter turn, so that the chores and the week off got redistributed.

This worked fairly well for a while, partly because the principal tenant was good at nagging everyone to do the chores, and partly because we all really wanted the house to be clean.

It eventually broke down when one roommate started spending most of her time with her significant other, and another went to house sit at a friend's place for a month. Then we lost track of whose turn it was.

Later, I lived in a house with a rotating cast of 6-8 people who were not interested in cleaning the place, so we took up a collection and hired an outside cleaner.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:07 PM on May 29

I recommend MyChores - lets you set up teams with chores assigned to specific people, or rotating through team members. And you can do things like e-mail reminders, "nudging" other team members, printable checklists and charts, etc.
posted by LolaGeek at 7:37 PM on May 29

Thanks for the input, folks! I'll be suggesting the "best answers" to my household as potential starting points for alternatives to our current system.
posted by aniola at 9:47 AM on May 30

As long as people are basically willing to keep their agreements, a chores list can work (if they aren't, find new housemates or hire a cleaner). Six is enough people that most job likes and dislikes will mesh pretty well, and a self-signup list lets people mostly do jobs they mostly don't dislike, and gives them flexibility to work around upcoming outside responsibilities, stresses or plans to be away. Choosing a job feels better than being assigned one and encourages people to take responsibility for what they chose.
This worked well -- meaning it didn't need much management -- in a four person household. Signups opened Sunday night for the coming week (so one person couldn't pre-snag their favorite chore for every week in the foreseeable future). People's likes and dislikes really did tend to cover the job set, and they appreciated being able to take a shorter job when their lives were busy and willing to take on more at other times or to help someone who needed a shorter job that week.
posted by TruncatedTiller at 11:26 AM on May 30

Ask the people who aren't doing their chores what system they think might work. They can tell you what motivates them and what rules they need. For example, I'd never take out the trash "as needed," I'd leave it till overflowing. But If my orders were to take the trash out daily, even if there was very little, I'd do it. It makes no sense, I know.

Or give those people the tasks they mind the least, if they think they'd be more faithful about doing them.

You might give them the stuff that makes a noticeable difference, like picking up magazines and other crap around the common areas. They can put individual roomates' things into boxes designated for them. The place will look tidy in about ten minutes... instant reward. Someone who's reluctant to clean isn't going to like vacuuming or dusting, because they probably won't appreciate the "after" vs. the "before."

How about if the kitchen sink needs to be empty and clean every night. It's way easier and less disgusting than leaving things for a couple of days.

The bathroom can be the easiest room to clean if it's not far gone and if you have the right tools on hand. A few times a week can be a breeze, or wait three weeks and anyone will loathe that job. The bathoorm is also a place that looks very good when it's clean.

Ask your slackers; the above are just suggestions from one such slacker.
posted by wryly at 4:01 PM on May 31

Update: I've left as "best answers" the ones that my housemates got excited about.
posted by aniola at 10:58 AM on June 4