How much is your flatmate's partner really costing you?
Hogging the couch, grazing the fridge and hitting the shower, a flatties's partner can add to the already high cost of living - perhaps a "petty tax" is in order?
It can be a sticky situation when a flatmate's partner goes from only staying a night or two to becoming - unofficially - a regular fixture. They aren’t paying rent, but they’re often using the shower or grazing the fridge.
Law student Sasha reckons it’s one of the biggest sources of conflict when you choose to live with other people.
It could happen to her next year, as her flatmates have boyfriends on the go. She says things have gone “swimmingly” so far, but she also won’t hesitate to communicate any concerns.
"I would say you know so-and-so is around a lot and like they shower too much here and stuff and it's not really fair.”
The 22-year-old has moved from Dunedin to Wellington and lives in a flat with three other women, one of whom is her best friend.
They split bills equally and mostly cook for themselves, so she isn’t too worried about extra cost, saying it's all swings and roundabouts.
"If they're spending the same amount of time at theirs that the boyfriend is spending at ours, then it's fine. Like showering and power-wise, you don't pay more," she says.
She says her flatties’ partners are nice enough, but she enjoys her own space.
"Sometimes you get home and there's a guy in your lounge and that's unfortunate."
The too regular plus-one has happened to Wellington student Zoe, who says one of her flatmates had a casual visitor – a “situationship” - over all the time. It started costing the flat money.
They liked the partner and gave them free access to the house, but Zoe oversees the power bill and noticed the cost creeping higher.
“They were spending a lot of time in the house, both in the common space and in that person's room,” she says.
"We'd be spending like $40 more, probably, per month in utilities," she says.
They also ate communal meals, so they often fed the extra person, and Zoe noticed the amount of lentils needed to feed them on the rise.
In the end, she didn’t need to awkwardly raise the issue as the couple split, which resolved any extra costs.
To combat problems just like this, Opes Partners economist Ed McKnight came up with the Flat-Guest Cost-o-meter, which allows unhappy flatties to calculate the cost of the ‘romantic invasion’.
When McKnight was about 22, he lived in a flat where a plus-one was always hanging around. It inspired him to create a calculator that adds up exactly how much a flatmate's love life is costing and create an invoice for them.
"The truth of the matter is love may be free, but hot water certainly isn't," he told RNZ's Nights.
“So, I thought, you know what, this is what the nation needs, we'll build a calculator so people can create a quick bill for their flatmate.”
McKnight’s calculator factors in lots of ways a flatmate's love life can be a burden, from big costs like power and hot water through to the nitty gritty like using ingredients from the pantry and toilet paper.
He says the calculator is meant to be used as a conversation starter more than Xero for flatmates.
How to calculate the "petty tax" rate with the Flat-Guest Cost-o-meter.
Supplied
The online operation starts with hard-hitting questions, asking users to quantify how regularly the flatmate’s partner is in attendance. That’s followed by an assessment of how often they use utilities like the shower and washing machine.
At the end, flatmates can add a "petty tax" percentage of up to 50 percent.
“The reason I put that in there, rather than did it the other way with the rebate, is New Zealanders are wonderfully polite,” says McKnight.
Ed McKnight, who has himself felt like the "victim" of flatmates' freeloading friends, created the Flat-Guest Cost-o-meter mostly as a conversation-starter.
Supplied / Ed McKnight
“I don't think anyone seriously is coming in here and creating an invoice and expecting it to be paid, but what I wanted to do was create a conversation starter, and so that's why it's got things like a petty tax,” he says.
For instance: A partner staying twice a week over a 20-week period and showering once a day, with a room rate of $250 a week, equates to $1,483. But if you slap on a 50 percent petty tax that jumps to $2,225.
What are the rules around having a partner in the flat?
Propertyscouts Auckland business owner Tony Mitchell says there are no written rules around how often a partner can be sitting around, but he recommends having a flat korero to nut out what you consider reasonable. He reckons a flatmate agreement can create some clear guidelines.
"It absolutely happens that all of a sudden, girlfriends, boyfriends, start staying in a bit longer than what they should. They eat the food, they might be using other things in the property, and it can get on flatmates’ nerves a bit," Mitchell says.
"That's where I think that the head tenant needs to be able [to] call a flat meeting and have a discussion. And it might also be that they have a quiet word to the person as well.”
Mitchell says if the person is almost living there, you could consider increasing that flatmate’s share of the rent and food to accommodate the extra body.
"It's a bit open, but that's where you need some sort of structure set up within the flat and someone as the head tenant to be able to help steer the ship."
Mitchell expects, in most situations, the issue won’t go beyond the head tenant, but if an extra person did end up moving in that needs to be agreed to by the landlord or property manager.
"There will be the number of tenants stated [in the tenancy agreement] that can live in the property, and if you've got a situation where the named tenants and number of tenants is exceeding that which has been agreed in the tenancy agreement, then the property manager or landlord can ask for that situation to be rectified."
