Moving to a different city for university is a big deal. You’re going to be working hard for the next few years and you’ll also find yourself living with different people; together this can sometimes be a big challenge.

It’s great if you have friends who you are moving to university with, but if not, you’re going to have to make friends pretty quickly. Some student halls can be a chaotic choice of living arrangement so you’ll most likely find yourself living in a student flat or a house, just like the ones we have here at Rooms4u.

So if you’re going to be moving to Liverpool alone come September, or are moving into shared student accommodation with your friends, here’s some helpful tips to help you get along with your flatmates:

1. Set ground rules. You may think moving in with your friends will be a barrel of laughs all of the time. Whilst you’re right you’ll have a great time together, you’ll also find all of their annoying qualities really grate on you. If you set some ground rules before you get started, hopefully you can avoid some arguments and disagreements rising in the future.

2. Communicate. If things do start to go awry, make sure you’re talking to each other. Arguments or sarcastic notes left around the house are only going to exacerbate the problem. Call a house meeting and make sure both sides of the problem are heard.

3. Pick your battles. Yes, it’s annoying when housemates ‘borrow’ your food or don’t do their share of the housework, but it’s sometimes best to bite your tongue and save the real disputes for important things, e.g bills.

4. Don’t steal your housemates food. Sometimes you may need to borrow some rice or a bit of pasta, but if you can, ask before you take. And if you do, replace it ASAP.

5. Make sure you’re a good housemate. Don’t leave dirty dishes hanging around and don’t play your music at unsociable hours, hopefully, you’ll get the same courtesy back.

6. Try to have a rota for buying communal household items. If you put some money together once a month, you can share cleaning products, kitchen basics and anything else you might like to use as a house.

7. Enjoy living together! Sometimes it can be difficult, particularly around exam time, but overall, you’ll have a brilliant time and will hate to part ways once the years over.