Contributions, Chores

These are things such as cleaning bathrooms, living rooms, halls, cooking, food shopping, pay utilities, put out garbage, etc.

These are opportunities to contribute to your housemates lives. How long will you want to live in a house, if these were not done ?

Some reasons for conflict around chores:

----- People are talking in terms of judgment, instead of observations.

An example is Sally and Peter are talking abut the bathroom being messy. Sally is referring to tissue paper left around the sink. Peter is talking about hair in the sink drain. As long as they are talking about different things, Sally about tissue paper, Peter about hair, they are unlikely to come up solutions that work for both. Therefore the conversation will go on and on with both sides getting more and more frustrated.

Mess is an interpretation of tissue paper left around sink

Mess is an interpretation of hair in the drain.

The way to get out of this is to talk about specifics, observations. What does a camera or photo see ?

With the example, they could say what they based their interpretation of messy on. For Sally that is tissue paper. For Peter that is hair.

----- There is no clarity around expectations and measurements. Measurements is answering this question, “how we know the chores is getting done ?”.

An example of this is Charles expects the bathroom mopped once a week. Sally expects the bathroom mopped once a month. Until they clarify how often the bathroom is to be mopped, I doubt anything can be solved. Likely, one person will claim you are not getting the chore done. Likely, one will claim the other is not dictator or is being ridiculous.

Ways to reduce Conflict around chores:

--- agree on the expectations/measurement

--- agree on what the area looks like when chore is done, maybe use a couple of photo graphs or drawings to clarify. This may sound ridiculous. And, you may be surprised at the variety of ways people see what a completed chore looks like. The more differently people see what the completed chore looks like, the more likely conflict will happens. Unless, there is clear agreement on the expectations/measurement.

--- agree who checks, is it random or is a person assigned that role

--- agree on when completed, especially for cleaning chores. It is not possible to keep a clean completely tidy or clean, 100% of the time. As people use a space, the dirt and clutter accumulate, covering up the cleaning the chore person did. One answer is have the chore person say when he/she/they cleaned. Then people can take a look, before regular use starts covering up the cleaning the chore person did do.

Ways to organize handling chores:

----- creating the expectations/measurements

The house could have written up expectations/measurements from the previous person doing the chore that the new person can adopt.

The new person can create new expectations/measurements.

A person/team can be given the role of helping a person write up the expectations/measurements for chore.

----- deciding on what the expectations/measurements are

House meeting could decide to accept or not accept expectations/measurements.

A committee could be given the authority to accept or not accept the expectations/measurements.

----- How does the house know the chore is getting as stated in expectations/measurements ?

A role is created. A name for this role could be Choreographer. The Choreographer checks if completed chore matches expectations/measurement. If Choreographer has any concerns, he/she/they will talk with person doing the chore. If others in house have concerns, they have option to let Choreographer know about their concern.

A committee is assigned to check if competed chore matches expectations/measurement and talk with person doing chore, if have any concerns.

Everyone is assigned to check if competed chore matches expectations/measurement and talk with person doing chore, if have any concerns.

I hope this clarity will help prevent long drawn out power struggles:

The house has the power to decide whether to give or not give credit for a chore and set consequences for doing or not doing a chore. But, it does not have the power to make people do the chores. The house can’t control people’s decisions and physical movements.

The individual has the power to decide whether to do or not do the chore. He/she/they does not have the unilateral power to decide if he/she/they gets credit for doing the chore. Also, he/she/they do not have the unilateral power to decide what are consequences the house will give for doing or not doing a chore.

Worst case scenario:

But what if after seeking to work things out, the person refuses to do the chore and or pay fine or accept consequences ? The house can live with the situation or end his/her/their membership, evict the person.

Worst case scenario:

But what if after seeking to work things out, the house will not give me credit ? The person can decide to do chore and receive not credit or not do the chore.

Questions for helping house members explore managing chores

At house meeting and or in writing, everyone answers these questions:

How does X chore getting done impact your life ? This is to let the person doing the chore hear how doing the chore impacts people’s life, helps chore have purpose.

How do you know the chore is getting done, observations ? This is to let the person doing the chore know how people will know if he/she is doing the chore.

What tasks are involved in doing the chore and how much time do you expect it will take and how often do you expect to do the chore ? You may discover great similarity or differences among members. Now, that this is known, the house is better prepared to move forward in a constructive way.