Paying for having a roommate

My worst roommate experience was with a couple of Harvard grads I'd been introduced to. Broken leases. Multiple police calls. Drug sales. And they were both women, though a boyfriend was partly to blame.

Best was people I met in a bar two days before I needed roomates. A couple of coffees later, and we were off. Worked out very well.

Written agreements are nice. But one wouldn't have fixed my bad situation. And let's face it, what can you really do--take a roommate to small claims court for an unpaid utility bill? Sure, if you want to get a judgment two years later. And then it's up to you to collect.

Roommate squabbles are like tenant/landlord disputes. MA pretends to be protective of tenants. But there is effectively no forum to resolve disagreements quickly. So the status quo always favors the deadbeats and bad actors. Good tenants and good landlords and good roommates all get the short end of the stick.

Marcus, I disagree about there being no forum to resolve disputes quickly in MA between landlords/tenants. I was a tenant in an apartment, and when we vacated the premises, the landlord tried to stiff us on the security deposit. I filled out the paperwork to take him to court, which admittedly would have taken forever, but the amount was worth it to me. The court contacted both parties and arranged for us to go to court sponsored mediation - basically sitting us down in a room, going over things and seeing if we can come to an agreement. It was quick, productive, and I got my money.
As for roommate squabbles, I think writing out a contract and having a "chore list", as juvenile as it sounds, is the way to go. That way, your name is on a board telling you to do the dishes, take out the trash, mop, etc. There's no disputing that.
I would personally never pay a share of someone's rent without them signing something stating that I had paid said amount on said date, and that they would pay me back within x number of days. That way there's no confusion, and no gray area.

My wife had many apartment mates (all women) during the years before we were married (23 years +). She had just finished college and sharing an apartment (with as many as 3 or 4 others) allowed her to live in nice apartments and locations in Allston and Somerville for a reasonable cost. Food, cooking and other responsibilities were shared. Although not everyone got along all the time, she developed close friendships. We are still in touch with several of these people. It was a very nice time in her life.

Marcus: A written agreement won't solve all of the potential problems, but it will solve some of them. I'd rather have 3 problems than 5 problems. What we need is a web site that has templates and boilerplates, because no one can think of all the issues that need to be addressed. Making expectations explicit and negotiating them ahead of time does solve at least one significant class of problems.

Written agreements, chore lists, and any other framework for delineating how people SHOULD behave has no bearing on how they WILL. Let's face it, most people are far too Special to stoop to pulling their own weight. Even the nicest person in the world will bail on the simplest tasks if they know you're averse enough to squalor that you won't let it pile up and start to smell. It's very easy to make it cost more of your effort to get them to do their share than it would take to just do it for them, and slackers know that. That's why most roommate situations are a race to the bottom - "If I can put up with it, I don't have to deal with it." This is the USA, dammit. Effort is for poor folks, women, and fools.