‘Let’s survive a pandemic together’: Roommates are struggling with realities of sharing space 24/7

By Kayleigh Barber

Escaping urban areas was a common lifestyle choice for many city dwellers at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March. It was done in an attempt to outrun the virus, as well as to give themselves more space in a new remote working world, trading cityscapes for the suburbs.

Initially, these plans were seen as two- to three-week long excursions, but for many, these trips home turned into months-long stays with their families.

“I was feeling claustrophobic in the city and went upstate for two weeks. That turned into five months,” said Austen Radcliff, who does corporate communications at Comscore.

But reality has sunk in that life must go on while still accounting for coronavirus lockdowns and safety protocols. People are moving back in with roommates and it’s forcing them to continue rewriting the rules for what living with someone truly means during a pandemic.

Many roommates are reshaping conversations, upending their living habits and enforcing house rules around coronavirus, according to 11 urbanites in shared living spaces who spoke to Digiday.

Once her three roommates left New York for five months, Sarah Hamilton, an office manager at professional advisory and education consultancy LRN, made her own rules for their Greenpoint, Brooklyn apartment. Working alone in the four-bedroom apartment felt like a luxury. “I thrived living alone. I liked having my own space especially in such an anxious time,” Hamilton recalls now.

But in August, her roommates started returning one by one and suddenly the classic New York City apartment that was built with the appeal of proximity over function began feeling a bit cramped.

“It was recalibrating how we were going to live together in a space and in an environment that we had never done before,” said Hamilton.

By October, the friend group in the apartment fell into a new routine, but with their lease ending in April, they’re now debating whether they should look for a new place that has more space for remote working or leave the city all together.

“With the new year, especially, we’ve been doing the same thing for a while and New York City is not really serving us right now. Do we stay in New York and hope that our 20s will be the fun we thought it would be or do we go and try to save money?” said Hamilton. “Everyone feels that indecision.”

One university lecturer and writer living in Brooklyn, who asked to remain anonymous, is dealing with a similar change to her living situation after her third roommate moved out of the apartment in October. The remaining roommate, whose name is on the lease, decided that she wanted to only have two people living in the three-bedroom apartment to accommodate for the realities of remote working.

In the months since transitioning to a remote working situation, there has been a lot of negotiating about sharing a workspace, including trading off who gets to work in the living room each day and who uses the vacant third bedroom.

“There is a certain self consciousness of doing this …read more

Source:: Digiday