Roommates as Citizens

I must be a crazy liberal or something. I constantly feel that individual citizens deserve privacy and respect inside their homes. I do, however, feel that a well regulated public sphere is needed out in the world where people interact with each other everyday.

I feel this way because I live with roommates.

For the better part of the last few years I have shared living spaces with people who I am in no way related or barely know. For the most part these sorts of situations are not too bad. There is always some common ground for us to connect on, and because we all have been students, we really don't have to interact with each other that much.

When I am not interacting with my roommates, it is because they are usually in their bedrooms with the doors shut. I do not go in their rooms unless I am trying to be friendly or inform them of something going on outside that is of relevance to them. This is because I do not care what they are doing in there, from watching TV to any number of unspeakable things. As long as they are being fairly quiet and not causing any kind of hindrance or annoyance to me or anyone else they can turn their rooms into altars to Cthulhu for all I care.

The problems between roommates come in then when dealing with the idea of common spaces: the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room. Each of these we all use in close to equal amounts, or at least in amounts that are too close to really be able to measure. But we cannot treat these places like we treat our rooms. If I leave a dirty dish in the sink I am not the only one who has to deal with that dish. The time cost to me of cleaning it after I dirty it might be more than if I waited until the next morning to clean it, but this ignores extrenalities. The cost of waiting to clean a dish is also shared by the rest of the roommates, who likely get less than zero benefits from it being dirty. This less than zero comes from having to clean another's mess or worse yet (in extreme cases) not feeling as if the kitchen is at all usable to them.

This creates a benefit deficit for the entire apartment!

In a political system, to solve this problem individuals and companies are denied by law to take the option that creates the most cost to the public. This is why littering has a fine. This changes the decision to litter from one of little cost to the bug to one of a much higher cost than finding a trash can.

To solve this in an apartment, the person who makes a dirty dish must not be allowed to deviate from a reasonable amount of time between making a mess and cleaning it us. This means that it is understandable that the a meal should be enjoyed warm or that the stove must cool down before being cleaned, but beyond the time of these mostly practical things cleaning should be done.

Sure there are roommate contracts and personal agreements that can be made, but who is going to follow these things? The problem here in an apartment is what is lacking from a political system, enforcement. The trick to regulating room mates is something that has yet to really be mastered by anyone without getting too far over the top in terms of the costs of the enforcement apparatus. There are no cops, no fines, and no good punishments for causing problems in the public sphere. Instead individuals must become vigilantes, reminding everyone to do their part in keeping the public spaces clean. No one likes this role though. It makes you annoying and it shouldn't fall to you to tell a roommate that what they are doing is a bad thing.

So this is where I am. Looking for some kind of legal enforcer for my apartment. It must be cheap, and not be the responsibility of just one person. By this I mean that it must also enforce its own enforcements by making sure people not only stay within the system but also help to maintain the system.

I will let you know when I have the answer.