Ask Mike Kroll how many roommates he has, and give him a minute to count his fingers: ”Let`s see, seven, eight . . . nine of us all together,” says the Rogers Park musician.
Although his is an extreme case, renters in clusters of three or more who are willing to trade off a bit of privacy are able to beat the high price of solo rent by sharing expenses in mansions, houses, lofts and apartments.
For Kroll, the decision to live with a large number of roommates was driven equally by economics and aesthetics. As a member of Artistic Feet, a folk-rock band, he was looking for a place where his band mates could rehearse as well as live.
”When we started looking, we found there were not too many houses large enough for six people to all have their own rooms,” he says. But finally, a year ago, Kroll saw a newspaper ad describing a large house.
What he found was a rambling, three-story former fraternity house, just south of Loyola University, in dilapidated condition.
”We worked out a deal because it was in such terrible shape-there was no electricity or plumbing, for starters-where we got three months` free rent in exchange for fixing the place up,” Kroll says.
The six Artistic Feet members moved in last August, along with three other friends. Though the mismatched chartreuse- and rust-colored resale couches in the two ground-floor living rooms, the peach-trimmed kitchen windows and the forest-green wallpaper along the stairway reflect diverse tastes, the nine roommates have managed to unite in working out a system for coordinating cleaning chores and food arrangements.
A calendar on the kitchen wall lists the rotating assignments, while a message on the nearby blackboard exhorts roommates to be prompt with their cleaning.
”For the first month or so, it was just `clean up after yourself` (in the kitchen), so everything of course was disgustingly dirty,” Kroll says.
But now, anyone who doesn`t perform his or her assigned duties is
”basically subject to ridicule,” he says. ”If you`ve got eight people ticked off at you, they can beat you within an inch of your life,” Kroll jokes, ”or, even worse, wake you up from sleeping.”
As for food, Kroll says, ”we have teams, based on whose (eating) habits are most similar. My team is the Twinkie team. Each team has its own shelf. Then there`s the Wiggly People-they buy vegetables and fruits-and freelance, who just buy individually.”
Utilities and common household items come out of a monthly $85 fee, which, together with a $165-per-person rent share, allows these urban communers a view of the lake for a grand total of $250 a month.
Following the rules
Legally, the only requirement set by the City of Chicago`s Building Code for multiple renters is that there be 125 square feet of floor area per person for the first two occupants; 100 square feet per person for the next two; and 75 square feet for each additional person thereafter (children under 2 not included).
Evanston requires 70 square feet of sleeping space for the first tenant and 50 square feet for each subsequent roommate.
Some communities limit the number of non-related tenants who can share the same place. For example, Oak Park, which has the same square footage regulations as Evanston, allows ”no more than four” unrelated people per rental unit.
Getting together
Renters who can`t find such a shared living situation on their own sometimes turn to roommate ”matchmaking” services for help.
Roommate Connection, a Chicago placement service, does a fair amount of business with what owner Jan Keltner calls ”multiples”-apartmen ts accommodating three or more renters. ”They`re quite popular, especially with girls between 21 through 26 or so,” she says.
”Living alone in high-rises can get old after awhile,” Keltner says.
”I think that`s the main attraction-you get more of a home feeling, a little more open environment, when you`ve got several roommates.”
John D`Ambrogio, marketing director for the Apartment People, a North Side apartment search firm, says that several of his clients have pooled their resources to find large apartments and upgrade their lifestyles.
”Maybe one roommate has a car, one has a great stereo, another has a nice, big TV and the fourth has a couch,” D`Ambrogio says. ”By yourself, maybe you could only afford the stereo, but by pooling your possessions, you`re able to live more comfortably.”
More for her money
One group of Keltner`s clients occupies the second and third floors of a Lincoln Park brownstone. One of the six roommates, Pam Currie, who works for a computer firm in Deerfield, explains the appeal of her current home:
”Where I used to live, just a half-block away, I was paying $420, and the facilities weren`t half as nice. It was just basic boring, with no personality. Here, I have a beautiful bay window, a deck overlooking the porch, high ceilings, a sauna on the third floor, plus it`s a prime location.” When each of the six bedrooms is occupied, rent breaks down to $340 a month.
Living with so many people, Currie says, ”is like having a large family, or living in a sorority house, so there`s the added responsibility of dealing with five different personality types. You have to have a personality that is laid back.”
Each person in the apartment is responsible for his or her own food, which results in a ”refrigerator filled with labels-each person marks their own food,” she says.
The social aspect of a six-roommate household can be both an advantage and a drawback, Currie says. ”You always have someone to come home to, to do something with-and your social life definitely improves. On the other hand, there are so many distractions, since something is always going on, that it`s harder to be productive in your personal life. Instead of running that errand or reading the paper, you just wind up talking to one of your roommates.”
Longing to be alone
DeSann Moody, who shares a three-bedroom Lake View apartment with two others, enjoys the new circle of friends she has made through her roommates, but admits that ”every now and then, you like to have the apartment all to yourself. Maybe a night, or an afternoon where you can play the stereo as loud as you want.”
In the past, Moody has had problems with roommates over sharing a bathroom. Now she pays a slightly higher rent for the privilege of having a bathroom all to herself; her roommates share the second. ”You get in the biggest fights over that-who is going to clean up the bathroom, when do you get to use it?” she says.
The economic advantage of sharing a space is most dramatic in the trio`s utility bills. ”Obviously, splitting things three ways makes it more affordable,” Moody says. ”Utilities come out to practically nothing. Last summer, for example, we each paid about $2 a month on our gas bill.”
What could be an inconvenience for light sleepers is not a problem for her. ”I guess it`s kind of a drawback that one of our back entrances is right off my room-I have people traipsing through my bedroom to leave the apartment every morning,” she says. ”But to me, it`s not a big deal.”
Affordable alternative
For some, collective renting reflects a larger interest in alternative lifestyles. Mark Messing, a musician and multimedia artist, shares a Wicker Park loft with a sculptor, a freelance chef and a social worker, paying only $165 a month for his own room and access to a large performance/rehearsal space.
”It`s definitely a conscious way of dealing with the economy, and of being involved with a path that doesn`t pay enough to allow one to survive (in a more expensive living space). There`s this whole idea of an alternative lifestyle that is affordable, instead of one that keeps us all divided,” says Messing, who moved into the loft about four years ago.
”It started out with two us, just out of divorce, looking for a place to live,” says Messing. ”Of course, the money was part of it, and we also needed a live-work space.
”I`ve been lucky, very lucky with roomates,” Messing continues. ”That actually is a positive thing, to have people around. Especially if you work alone, like I do, it`s not so lonely. A lot of people like to live alone, but they probably work somewhere else where they mingle with people.”
Messing`s roommates have worked out a loose arrangement of shared household chores. ”At one point, the kitchen was a mess,” recalls Messing.
”Now, the idea is, if you see dirty dishes, just do them. Don`t worry about who left them.”
Though there`s only one bathroom for the foursome, ”everyone makes a conscious effort to stagger their routine to avoid conflict,” he says.
As for food, Messing says, ”at first we had completely separate food budgets. But it`s melting together now, especially since our chef roommate can buy food at bulk discounts, which he`ll maybe barter for (reduced)
utilities.”
Similarly, one of his original roommates who was handy with tools used to do carpentry work around the loft in exchange for a break on his share of the utilities.
”It`s kind of a community thing,” he concludes.
