Why the little things can cause the biggest conflicts between roommates
Written by Nicole Elsasser

At first she thought it would be kind of nice to have her roommate’s cat in the house, but quickly, Pam Martin, a fourth-year arts and science student at the University of Guelph, discovered that this just wasn’t the case. According to Martin, the cat itself was very nice but her roommate just didn’t bother to clean up after it.
“There was fur all over the furniture, and it would stick to my clothes when I sat on our couches and it would accumulate into balls on the floor which just looked dirty,” said Martin. “Its owner also wouldn’t clean the litter box which was in a bathroom shared by five other people. The litter pebbles would get flung onto the floor and spread around the house. The stench was just horrible.”

Then, Martin explained, there was this roommate’s apparent inability to do dishes.

“Dishes are shared. People expect to be able to use a plate or fork or whatever whenever they need it,” said Martin. “When somebody in the house isn’t washing the dishes and they use and just leave them on the counter, it gets really frustrating. It clutters the kitchen, can attract flies and other vermin but mostly I think it creates tension.”
It’s this tension that seems to amount to the largest conflicts between people sharing a common living space. According to Karl Hennig, a psychology professor at the University of Guelph, just like “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” these minute annoyances occurring between roommates, are called “small stressors” and when they accumulate, they can take the same toll on a relationship that a larger stressor can.

“If it happens once, or twice [that’s] forgivable but when it is repeated, and especially if you have told the other person to stop [or] change this behavior then it becomes personal. The little thing has become a personal,” said Hennig, in an email interview. “[It becomes] an attack on one’s very being. The little thing becomes, ‘You just are inconsiderate. You don’t care about me, my feelings, or what would make me happy. You are intentionally trying to make me crazy.’”

According to Kyle Gillespie, a fourth-year marine biology student at the University of Guelph, the little things in a roommate relationship can, at times, be more difficult to deal with than the bigger issues.

“The day-to-day things really grind you down. When something big happens, you can usually talk it through and resolve things,” said Gillespie. “The little things [like] leaving dirty dishes in the sink for days on end…the not buying toilet paper when it’s their turn, it’s those small things that they don’t think about that add so many annoyances to your day. They add up.”

Hennig explained that it’s important to communicate and clarify what the issues are because often the smaller annoyances can become “the tip of the iceberg” in relationships.

“Every word and gesture is saturated with more meaning than the word or gesture itself,” said Hennig. “Like an iceberg, most of the volume is underneath the water’s surface…people get frustrated not knowing how to express what the issue is, not knowing how to clarify or seek clarification. Frustration leads, of course, to anger and harsh words being said.”

Martin echoed this idea when she explained that by communicating about the smaller things that create tension, a shared home can be a harmonious place.

“I think being able to talk about the little things that bother you about the people you live with is very important,” said Martin. “It might not be that they are specifically trying to annoy you but that they just aren’t aware.”

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