Moving advice!!! First of all congratulations on your big step towards independence! Second of all, a lot of advice you might get is quite personal, but I'll try to make things as broad as possible. If you know your own mind well enough, it becomes a lot easier to gauge if something will work for you. That being said! Here are my top tips. Apologies for potentially wierd formatting, I'm on mobile ;;
#1 - communal living. Depending on your situation, you may be sharing a kitchen or a bathroom with any number of people. To avoid irritating clutter, or the chance of accidental (or purposeful) theft, keep visible bathroom and kitchen stuff to a minimum, and watch sentimentally valuable things like a hawk. Keep those things in your room if you can. You might trust your housemates implicitly, but things get broken by accident all the time, and you can't guarantee the conduct of guests, wardens, landlords, tradies etc.
#2 - if you're in a dorm, get a doormat and a shoe rack for your room. Doesn't have to be big or flashy, but it creates a sense of zoning and helps to avoid the dreaded Shoe Pile making everything cluttered/dirty/shoe-smelling. It'll be a nice experience for your guests too.
#3 - storage storage storage!!! Underbed boxes, shelves, hanging baskets and nets, rolling carts, shelf baskets, drawer boxes, you name it. This is a great way to prioritise exactly what you want, and provides easy ways to transport things between accommodations if / when you decide to move.
#4 - prioritise being a clean housemate. Even if you don't get along perfectly with your roommates or dormmates, being a neat + tidy person can only help things. Don't leave the drainer full of stuff, clean out old food in the fridge, hoover/sweep/dust if you can, take the bins out etc. Obviously this depends a lot on your mobility and circumstances, but whatever you can do towards this goal, the better. For the bathroom specifically, the quicker you get on top of cleaning all the nooks and crannies like around the taps, corners of the shower etc, the higher chance you have that nothing will get gross and oxidise-y, and save a lot of effort during inspections.
#5 - sometimes useful knicknacks will be your best friend. Get flipflops to use in the bathroom + shower; get two or three bottle openers because they will get stolen; get scented powder for your bathroom bin; buy an air freshener/candle/reed or oil diffuser; get rubber gloves and a handled sponge; get a squeegee for the shower door; get antibacterial wipes for surfaces as well as a cloth + sponge.
#6 - if this is possible for you, make sure that you ventilate your space well. Mould is one of the number one things that a landlord will crack your head about because it is so difficult to get rid of. Black mould especially can be v dangerous. So if you have wet or damp things in your room like laundry or towels, keep airflow as high as possible.
OK this is incredibly long but I think this is everything I wish I'd known. I have been living in shared housing for about 8 or 9 years now and have had some very shocking housemates, and honestly especially in the early days I have *been* a very shocking housemate. So these things are learned through big trials and big errors lmao;; when I moved, my mum immediately went to a different fucking continent, so I don't have the option to change things round easily, or store large stuff with her. If that's your situation too, I'm very sorry - but if it isn't, use that to your advantage. You don't have to pack everything but the kitchen sink. You will amass things like bedding, crockery, decorative knicknacks etc as you move through life - make sure you have room for them!
Once again all the best with your move. I hope its exciting and you get everything you want from it! All the best :>
thank you so much for taking the time to write this all out!! this is all such helpful info I truly appreciate it! its going to be interesting living with potentially 3 other people that I have never met before in my entire life so I will be taking a lot of these points into consideration.
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