How can we be randomly assigned to bedrooms?

June 22, 2007 9:53 AM

My future flatmates and I would like to be randomly assigned to the bedrooms in our apartment. There are three of us, but one of us is currently overseas until we move in.

The bedrooms in our future flat are not all created equal - two 10'x12' and a slightly larger master bedroom with slightly more closet space. Not enough of a difference to require adjusted division of rent, but enough to muddle up the decision process.

Is there an online tool that can emulate the pick-the-names-out-of-a-hat trick? You Draw Straws looks awesome, but would be more appropriate if we all had several ideas for a roadtrip, or something. I'd like it to be web-based so all parties have easy access to the results and can rest assured that the choice was made by a mindless, entirely objective string of code.

posted by dorothy humbird to computers & internet (24 comments total)

You could try this.
posted by rancidchickn at 9:58 AM on June 22, 2007

You could try an online dice roller that will email the results to each of you. Then just say highest roll gets room A, lowest room B, middle room C.
posted by jjb at 10:01 AM on June 22, 2007

Randomizer.org?
posted by ormondsacker at 10:06 AM on June 22, 2007

Lava Rnd ?
posted by zeoslap at 10:08 AM on June 22, 2007

You could try something like 'cow bingo', but maybe with a family dog and a live webcam. Throw in a few drink, and you get a room and entertainment.
posted by pupdog at 10:14 AM on June 22, 2007

dangit. Cow Bingo.
posted by pupdog at 10:15 AM on June 22, 2007

the last two digits (before the decimal point) of next friday's closing dow jones 30 industrials average will range between 00-99 and they're pretty random in the sense that it's hard to impossible to get a statistical edge on them a week in advance, particularly the last digit, and that average is published at frequent, known intervals without fail, so it's used frequently in generating cipher keys and would also be good for your application.
posted by bruce at 10:30 AM on June 22, 2007

This is a tough one. The problem with computers is that they have a hard time making random numbers unless they have a special random number generator attached. Lets say one of your roommates wants to game the system, he could run a script against one of those on-line dice-rollers and perhaps find out that even numbers or larger numbers have a higher chance of appearing. She could use this to her advantage.

bruce's idea above is pretty good. Use that or the state lottery. The person closest to guessing the last two digits (or the last single digit) wins.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:42 AM on June 22, 2007

"I'd like it to be web-based so all parties have easy access to the results and can rest assured that the choice was made by a mindless, entirely objective string of code."

Well, I'm not a piece of code, and I'm more absent-minded than mindless, but I have absolutely no idea who any of you people are. So if that's good enough for you:

You and the person who's overseas get the smaller bedrooms.

If not, though, then I highly suggest not using a computer in the decision process. Predicting the last digit of the closing price of the Dow Jones is good -- person who's the closest gets the big room. Or if you like the Price is Right, make it the one who's closest without going over :)
posted by CrayDrygu at 11:15 AM on June 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Why not adjust the division of rent? Bid on the larger bedroom. Start with $1 above the third of the rent.
posted by stereo at 11:26 AM on June 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

He/She who has the most clothes gets the biggest closet! And/or he/she that brings the most cool/useful kitchen gadgets and furniture.
posted by nursegracer at 11:46 AM on June 22, 2007

If the "better" room is a big enough improvement over the other two rooms that you feel the need to try to randomly assign it, it's a big enough improvement over the other two rooms to demand a higher rent.

Even if it's only $10 or $20 a month, you and your flatmates will be happier in the long run if the person who gets it is paying more. The alternative is the inevitable real-life flameout when someone gets pissed because they're paying just as much as the guy with the cool room and yet he has more room and more closet space and he only has it because he got lucky and that's totally not fair and ...
posted by tocts at 12:22 PM on June 22, 2007

How about this -- name the rooms and give us those names (e.g., "northeast, south, and west", or "grey carpet", "beige carpet", and "hardwood floor", or whatever you come up with that doesn't give away the size differences). Then, give us the initials for each person. And we'll decide, post the results, and you use them. Most of us don't know you, we won't know really ANYTHING about the rooms, so it ends up being random.
posted by delfuego at 1:31 PM on June 22, 2007

If you don't adjust the rent for the larger room now (I like Stereo's idea), you are going to have issues if you decide to extend the lease past the first year. Either you'll have to randomly re-assign rooms and shuffle around, or someone will get bitchy. If you don't adjust the rent, get an agreement in writing (or email) from all three roommates about how long they expect the 'winner' of the big room to get to stay in there.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:09 PM on June 22, 2007

When we had a similar situation in college, but were all poor, we came up with what I consider to be a good idea: The better your room, the more chores you had to do. So, because I ended up with the shitty room, I never had to do the dishes. All of us came out happy.
posted by JZig at 2:46 PM on June 22, 2007

Yeah, definitely adjust the rent. Measure all the rooms, closet space included, and get the square footage. Say the two smaller rooms are 125 square feet each (I'm making up a number for closet space) and the larger room is 140 square feet (let's say it's 10x13 instead of 10x12, and the closet's 2x5 instead of 1x5). That's 390 square feet total.

That would mean that the person with the large room pays 140/390 of the rent and the other two people pay 125/390 of the rent each. So if the rent's $390, they're paying an extra $15; if it's $780, an extra $30, whatever. It's strictly fair (You could assign the closet space a different value, if you wanted to, as long as everyone agrees on it).

However! This is only the starting price. If only one person wants it and is willing to pay that amount extra for it, cool. They get it.

If nobody wants it at that price, lower it by small increments (big room goes down $1, small rooms go up $.50 each) until someone's willing to pay. Or, if more than one person wants it at that price, raise it by increments until only one person is left. You can email the overseas roommate with the current prices.

That way, if anyone's unhappy about it later, you can point out that they had a chance to get that room, and that the other person's paying more for it than they were willing to. Repeat the process when you renew the lease, if you do--so if someone's unhappy, they have another chance at the bigger room.

And if nobody's willing to pay even a little bit more for it--if it goes all the way down to the price of the other two rooms--then it's time to bring out the random process. Even if it does go to that, you can still point out to anyone who's unhappy with their smaller room that they had a chance at the larger one.
posted by Many bubbles at 4:32 PM on June 22, 2007

The closing price of a stock index is a good idea, but a better idea is to use the two digits after the decimal point so that it's more fair.
posted by cameldrv at 5:07 PM on June 22, 2007

...Or just do a simple bidding for the larger room, like stereo said.

But don't let anyone retract their bid once they've placed it and someone else has bid above it*--you don't want somebody artificially raising the price to lower their own rent, and you don't want anybody accusing someone of that later. If someone has to retract their bid for some reason, restart the process.

*"and someone else has bid above it" because if, say, you do this through email and someone accidently types 540 instead of 450 or something, they should get a chance to correct it.
posted by Many bubbles at 5:07 PM on June 22, 2007

The "pick whomever gets closest to a random number" idea isn't really random, because the person who chooses first gets a big disadvantage (eg, you choose 50, I choose 51, and roommate 3 chooses 49). I agree that adjusting the price of all three rooms is likely to promote longer-term harmony.
posted by whir at 7:39 PM on June 22, 2007

Divide the lease period into thirds and switch rooms. Dead serious.
posted by devilsbrigade at 10:10 PM on June 22, 2007

Divide the lease period into thirds and switch rooms. Dead serious.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. It only takes a day or so to get all the stuff from one room packed up, and you're only moving it next door so you don't even have to bother with most of the packing stuff--just dump stuff in boxes/whatever and slide it on over.
posted by Many bubbles at 10:45 PM on June 22, 2007

Random assignment certainly isn't the only fair method of assigning these rooms. "Fair division" is a sophisticated mathematical specialty. The last time someone asked this question on AskMe an answerer suggested an online tool that could assign rooms according to various criteria. A cursory search hasn't turned it up. The first two google results for "room fair division" both seem very promising. If you're willing to do a little homework, that is.
posted by stuart_s at 12:53 PM on June 23, 2007

Searching for "online dispute resolution" turns up a lot of serious (expensive) services and also NetRuling. To use Netruling you have to formulate your problem as a choice or series of choices between only two options.
posted by stuart_s at 1:14 PM on June 23, 2007

I appreciate everyone's remarks about rental adjustment, but I've marked the best answer as such because it actually answered my question.

However... I'll seriously consider a proposal to pay more for the master bedroom. I ended up getting it, by the way. Using the first poster's suggestion (thanks, rancidchickn!) -- not rigging it, either.
posted by dorothy humbird at 1:53 PM on June 25, 2007