Most roommate fights aren't about the dishes. They're about the fact that nobody ever agreed on the dishes.
A roommate agreement isn't a legal document and it isn't about trust. It's a 20-minute conversation that prevents the six most predictable fights of shared living — cleaning, noise, guests, money, food, and the thermostat — by deciding the rules before anyone is angry.
Below is a complete template you can copy into a doc, fill in together, and pin somewhere you'll both see it. Every section includes a default rule that works for most apartments, so if you can't agree, you have a reasonable starting point.
Why most roommate agreements fail (and how to write one that doesn't)
Three reasons roommate agreements end up ignored in a drawer:
- They're written by one person. If you write it alone and present it, it's not an agreement — it's a list of demands. Fill it in together, in the same room, ideally in the first two weeks of living together.
- They're vague. "Keep the apartment reasonably clean" means something different to each of you. That's how the fight starts. Good agreements use numbers: dishes done within 24 hours, quiet after 11 PM on weeknights, guests max 3 nights per week.
- They have no process for new issues. No template predicts everything. The most important section is the last one — how we'll raise the things this document didn't cover. Most agreements skip it, which is why they go stale the first time something unexpected comes up.
One more thing before the template: this works for friends, strangers from the internet, and couples-plus-a-third alike. If anything, friends need it more — they're the ones who assume "we're cool, we don't need rules" right up until they aren't cool anymore.
The complete roommate agreement template
Copy everything below. Replace the bracketed parts. Delete what doesn't apply.
Roommate Agreement — [Address]
Between: [Name], [Name], [Name]
Date: [Date] · Review date: [3 months from now]
1. Cleaning and chores
- Personal dishes are washed (or in the dishwasher) within [24] hours of use.
- Shared spaces (kitchen, bathroom, living room) are cleaned on a rotation: [Name] has [kitchen] this month, [Name] has [bathroom], swapping on the 1st.
- "Clean" means: counters wiped, floor clear, trash out when full. (Define it — this is the sentence that prevents the most fights.)
- Trash and recycling: whoever fills it takes it out. If it's overflowing, it's full.
- Deep clean (fridge, oven, behind things): together, once every [3 months], date in shared calendar.
Default if you can't agree: a weekly rotation with a checklist beats "everyone cleans up after themselves." The second one sounds fair and fails every time, because everyone's definition of "after themselves" is different.
2. Quiet hours
- Weeknights: quiet after [11 PM]. Weekends: quiet after [1 AM].
- "Quiet" means: no music or TV audible through a closed door, calls in your own room, headphones after hours.
- Early risers / shift workers: [note any unusual schedules here so they're a known fact, not a surprise].
- Heads-up rule: if you'll be loud outside these hours (party, late call, moving furniture), tell the group [that morning] at the latest.
3. Guests and overnight visitors
- Overnight guests: max [3] nights per week without checking in with roommates first.
- More than [3 consecutive nights] = ask first. More than [10 nights/month] = we talk about them contributing to utilities.
- Heads-up for any overnight guest: a text before they arrive, not after.
- Guests follow house rules. The host is responsible for their guest's mess and noise.
- Parties or more than [4] people over: ask everyone first, at least [2 days] ahead.
The significant-other clause matters most. A partner who is "basically living here" is the single most common roommate blowup, and it's almost never addressed until someone is furious. Set the number now, while it's hypothetical.
4. Rent, bills, and shared expenses
- Rent: [split evenly / by room size: list amounts]. Due to [whoever pays the landlord] by the [28th].
- Utilities (electric, gas, internet, water): split [evenly], paid via [Venmo/Zelle] within [3 days] of the request.
- Shared household supplies (toilet paper, dish soap, trash bags, sponges): [rotate buying / shared fund of $[15]/person/month].
- Furniture bought together: write down who paid what, and who keeps it (or how it's bought out) when someone moves.
- Late twice in a row = we talk about it directly, not in the group chat.
5. Food and groceries
- Default: food is [separate / shared].
- If separate: labeled or in-your-zone food is off-limits. Condiments, spices, oil: [shared].
- The "ask first" rule: borrowing food is fine if you ask first and replace it. Eating someone's leftovers without asking is not borrowing.
- Fridge/freezer/pantry zones: [sketch or list who gets which shelf].
- Expired or abandoned food: anyone can toss it after a [1-week] warning text.
6. Temperature and utilities
- Thermostat range: [68–72°F] in winter, [72–76°F] in summer. Inside the range, whoever's cold/hot adjusts; outside the range, ask.
- AC/heat when nobody's home: [off / eco mode].
- One person consistently wants it outside the range: space heater or fan in their own room before the shared thermostat moves.
This section sounds trivial. It is not. Thermostat conflicts are recurring, daily, and invisible until someone snaps — exactly the kind of low-grade issue that's easier to settle with a number than a negotiation.
7. How we'll handle new issues
- If something's bothering you, raise it within [a week] — directly, not through notes, hints, or the group chat.
- The person raising it describes the specific behavior and what they want changed — not a character summary of the other person.
- The person hearing it gets to respond when they've had time to think. Not every issue needs an on-the-spot answer.
- If we're stuck after one honest conversation, we revisit this agreement and change the rule that's failing.
- We review this whole agreement every [3 months] or whenever someone moves in or out.
This is the section that keeps the rest alive. Agreements don't fail because the rules were wrong — they fail because nobody had a sanctioned way to say "this rule isn't working." If you want a structure for that, this is exactly what Gripely is for: each issue gets raised as a clear, specific issue, everyone responds when they've had time to think, and the resolution gets written down. See how Gripely works for roommates.
How to actually bring this up with your roommate
If you're moving in together, it's easy: "Hey, before we're unpacked, can we spend 20 minutes agreeing on house stuff so we never have to fight about it?" Nobody refuses that.
If you've already been living together — especially if things are tense — frame it around the future, not the past: "I don't want to relitigate anything. I just want us to agree on rules going forward so neither of us has to be the apartment cop." Don't present a filled-in template; present a blank one and fill it in together. For worked dialogue on how these conversations go, see our roommate conversation examples.
If the tension is specifically about cleaning, have that conversation first — we have word-for-word scripts for the cleaning conversation — then formalize the outcome in section 1.
And if your apartment's current communication channel is sticky notes on the fridge, read what to write instead of passive-aggressive notes before you draft anything. The agreement will only hold if the way you talk to each other changes with it.
When to update the agreement
Review it on a schedule (quarterly works), and immediately when any of these happen:
- Someone new moves in, or someone moves out
- A partner starts staying over more than the agreed nights
- Schedules change significantly (new job, night shifts, remote work)
- The same rule gets broken three times — that's not a discipline problem, it's a broken rule. Change it.
A roommate agreement is a living document. The version you write on day one will be wrong about something. That's fine — the point isn't to predict everything, it's to make renegotiating normal instead of explosive.