How to talk to your floormates about keeping the bathroom clean

One of the biggest transitions to college for many students is having to share a bathroom with others, but we’re able to get used to the idea of shower caddies, bare skin exposure, and lack of privacy surprisingly quickly. For those of us with semi-private bathrooms freshman year (MoChamp/EmWool), this transition is made even easier. There is a trade-off, however: the semis get cleaned less often, so you have to rely on cleanliness from your bathroom-mates, and sadly, some people simply do not clean up after themselves. After about a month of seeing hairs in the sink and pee on the toilet seat every morning, I spent many long nights contemplating how to approach this sticky situation and eventually came up with this list of ways of asking people to be less gross.

• Start Out Vague: Something along the lines of “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the bathroom’s been a little gross recently, so…” Make sure you add the “so…” at the end as a maximum effort to make it seem like your hint is not entirely just about this one person. This method probably doesn’t make a huge difference, but it’s a good way to get it off your chest, and you don’t have to risk losing a new friend (or getting beat up if the guy you’re talking to is a 7-foot-tall athlete).

• Share the Responsibility: The key to this option is making the clean-up seem like a unified effort that everyone can help work toward. Use phrases such as “We could all do a better job” and “Let’s just set some ground rules.” This may be a bit more difficult, as it requires careful word choice. You don't want your message to be so direct that someone feels targeted, but you do need to be somewhat direct, because if you aren't, your floor-mate may assume that you’re referring to other people and will continue on with their messy ways.

• Form an Army: There’s nothing like strength in numbers. Grab your friends, start a GroupMe chat about how disgusting this one person is, and confront that person as a team. Your floor-mate will probably (correctly) feel like they're being attacked, and you two definitely won't be great friends anymore, but hey, at least the bathroom will be cleaner.

• Make a Sign: An anonymous note reminding your floor-mates to clean up might be the best move mentioned thus far. You avoid a direct attack on one person, while also being straightforward enough to make everyone more conscious about the state of the bathrooms. If you’re sharing a semi-private, however, it may be tricky to preserve your anonymity, so take caution.

• Clean the Bathroom Yourself: The strongest among you will choose this method. Pull out your rubber gloves, apron, squeaky bath slippers, box of disinfectant wipes, and chem safety goggles. Make sure to be as obvious as possible by leaving the door open while you work, and hope that everyone who sees you picks up on the hint. As with all of the above methods, this has the potential to backfire, but not matter what, the feeling of using a bathroom that you scrubbed down on your own is truly rewarding.

• Do Nothing: For those who are too scared to try any of the above options, or even just too lazy, the best move might be to focus on yourself and avoid the mess as much as you can. Check the seat before you sit down, wear shoes when taking a shower, carry a nose plug at all times to be safe, and try to use other bathrooms as much as possible. This way, you get to maintain the neutral relationship you’ve established with your floor-mates and nobody will think of you as a passive-aggressive (or just aggressive-aggressive) neat freak.

I guess there really is no best method to tell someone they’re disgusting. Many risks come into play: be too vague and you’ve accomplished nothing except for a weird vibe, be too direct and you could hurt someone’s feelings. I’ll leave it up to you to choose the route you want to take. Full disclosure, though: none of the above has been tested with any conclusive results.

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