10 Things You Should Consider Before Moving In With A Stranger

Moving in with a stranger is a very common part of entering the rental market, and likely something you'll do at least once in your life. While it can seem daunting to share so much of your life and personal space with someone you've never met, these arrangements often develop into lifelong friendships.

Before you can think about building that kind of relationship, though, it's important to find the right person and set your ground rules for happy cohabitation.

Here are the 10 most important things to consider before moving in with a stranger.

The quickest way to determine whether a stranger is a good potential housemate is to meet them in person and have a face-to-face conversation. The rest of this guide covers the factors and questions to work through, but nothing beats the immediacy of an in-person meeting to gauge whether there's good chemistry or uncomfortable tension.

If meeting up in person isn't possible due to schedules or distance, a video call can do the job instead. What matters most is having a genuine chat, getting a sense of who they are, and noticing whether conversation with them feels easy or like hard work.

For your own safety, it's worth meeting for the first time somewhere public, like a cafe, rather than at either of your homes, and letting a friend or family member know where you'll be and roughly when you expect to finish up. This is a sensible precaution any time you're meeting someone you don't know well, and it costs nothing to take.

Some potential questions to ask during your meeting can include asking if they're more of a night owl or an early bird, why they're leaving their current living arrangement, how long they plan to stay, and if they're happy sharing fridge and pantry space. These questions should help gauge what kind of person they are, and set some expectations before any big decisions.

Reaching out to a reference they've supplied is a good way to find out how they behave towards other people, what their strengths are, and what their network of friends is like. You'll naturally hear the best version of them from their reference, but the quality of their friends still tells you plenty.

If the person representing them comes across as unhinged or unfriendly, there's a good chance they are too. If they seem kind to their friends and socialise with good-natured people, that bodes well for how they're likely to treat you.

Some potential questions to ask their reference include:

• Are they a responsible and tidy person?
• Do they have lots of disagreements or conflict situations?
• Was living with them a good experience overall?
• Were they ever late on payments?

A quick look through a potential housemate's social media accounts can give you a fast snapshot of their personality. We wouldn't recommend gauging compatibility on social media alone, but it can surface easy red flags, from vastly different interests to heated online arguments over trivial things. Social media can also work in the opposite direction, helping you spot shared interests and genuine points of compatibility.

Whether it's from reading their application, speaking to them in person, or checking out their social media, trust your gut reaction. Our instincts often pick up on unconscious cues before we can consciously explain why something feels off. This matters especially when deciding who to live with, since feeling safe and comfortable in your own home is non-negotiable.

If something about this person puts you on edge, it's best not to find out exactly what that something is after you've already signed a 12-month lease. Give yourself the chance to get to know them a little first, then trust the feeling you're left with.

Just as you'd want a future housemate to be honest about themselves, it's important to give an accurate picture of yourself too. There's no point pretending you're an extrovert if you really need time alone, or acting like a perfectionist if you actually lean towards disorder.

Presenting the person you'd like to be might feel optimistic in the moment, but your true habits will surface eventually and can cause tension with the person you pretended to be. Being self-aware enough to show both your strengths and your weaknesses is the best path to finding someone who'll accept you as you actually are.

If either of you has a pet, or might want one down the track, make sure you're both aligned on the idea of having pets in the home. That doesn't mean cat people and dog people can't live together, but any fundamental disagreements are worth ironing out before they become a genuine problem. It's also worth discussing allergies, medical requirements around pets, or any animal-related phobias.

Cleanliness is next to godliness for some, and others prefer to revel in a bit of disorder. Neither approach is inherently right or wrong, but your level of cleanliness needs to be tolerable for whoever you're living with. Generally, you want to agree on a minimum acceptable standard of clean and tidy, then build from there toward your ideal living conditions.

If neither of you is especially fussed about cleanliness either way, setting up a cleaning roster is a good safety net to stop the house from becoming a disaster zone.

The simple question here is: do you like to party? If you do, make sure your future housemate will be tolerant of a social lifestyle and relaxed about hosting the occasional gathering.

If you don't, make sure your potential housemate isn't planning to throw huge parties every weekend. As with cleanliness and pets, you don't need identical priorities, just a reasonable tolerance for each other's interests.

If you've made it through the previous points and still feel good about moving in with this person, it's time to get into the specifics of your living arrangement. Drawing up a list of house rules gives you something to return to if things start to go sideways. Start by considering what you genuinely couldn't tolerate at home, whether that's messiness, mid-week parties, pets, or kitchen etiquette. Discuss it openly and make sure you're aligned.

Then establish the actual rules: a time when noise needs to come down, how chores get shared, or a date by which rent needs to be paid. The earlier you sort this out and the more clearly you communicate your needs, the better your living arrangement will be long-term.

Financial issues are the single most common source of household tension. Whether it's paying rent late or using more than a fair share of the utilities, having ground rules to fall back on matters. Paying bills on time is the bare minimum for a good housemate, if they can't manage that, they're probably not worth living with. Beyond that, agreeing on how utility costs get split matters too, since not everyone uses the same amount of electricity and water, and not everyone earns the same amount. A 50-50 split is the general default, but it's worth discussing a different arrangement if you have drastically different needs and habits around showers, electricity, or even wifi usage.

A combination of an in-person meeting, checking a reference, and a quick look at their social media presence gives you a reasonably well-rounded picture. Beyond that, trust your gut, if something feels off, it's worth taking seriously.

Cover the practical basics, cleanliness, socialising habits, pets, and how bills will be split, along with a few personality questions like their daily routine and how long they plan to stay.

It can be, provided you take sensible precautions, meeting in a public place first, checking references, and trusting your instincts throughout the process.