Shared House Cleaning Rota

Who this is for

The rota a flat-share can point at. Each job has an area, whose turn it is, a day, a tick and a set of initials, and the agreement itself is written at the top by the people who made it.

Flat-shares, student houses, houses of multiple occupation and any household where the washing up has become a conversation.

What this helps you track

• Which jobs the house has agreed exist, written down once
• Whose turn each job is this week and which day it falls
• A tick and initials, so a done job is not still being argued about
• What the house agreed about guests, bins and shared supplies
• Which jobs keep being missed, week after week

How to use it

1. Write the address, the week beginning and the names on the rota at the top, and the arrangement you agreed in the agreed line — in your own words.
2. Go down the printed jobs, cross out any that do not apply and add your own on the blank rows.
3. Put a name against each job for this week and a day if the job needs to happen on one — bins usually do.
4. Tick and initial a job when it is done. The initials matter more than the tick when memories differ.
5. Rotate the names down one row at the start of each week so nobody keeps the same job, and print or duplicate a fresh sheet.
6. Use the notes for what needs buying, what is broken and what the house needs to talk about.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

How should the jobs be divided?

However the house agrees. The sheet records the arrangement rather than imposing one, because a rota someone else wrote is the first thing a shared house ignores.

What if someone does not do their job?

The sheet gives you a dated, initialled record instead of a disagreement about who did what. What happens next is between the housemates, or with the landlord or agent if it is in the tenancy.

Should shared supplies be on it?

There is a row for restocking them, and the notes are the place to record who bought what. Some houses keep a separate list for the money side.

Can we use it with a cleaner?

Yes. Keep the rows the cleaner covers marked in the notes and use the rota for everything between visits. The jobs a house still owns are usually the ones that cause the friction.