Flatmate compatibility test: find out what kind of flatmate actually works for you

What are your daily hours like?

The options capture your actual daily pattern: whether you are an early riser who is home in the afternoon, whether you wake late and arrive home late, whether you work non-standard shifts, or whether your routine has no fixed pattern week to week.

Routine incompatibility is the most commonly cited cause of tension in shared flats, and the most consistently ignored when searching for a flatmate. Someone who wakes at 6am and someone who arrives home at 2am are not incompatible as people — they are incompatible as flatmates unless both manage it explicitly from the start.

How would you describe your relationship with tidiness at home?

The options run from "everything in its place, always" to "tidy with room for margin" to "comfortable with chaos". This scale does not measure whether you are a good or bad person — it measures what level of tidiness in common areas you need in order not to accumulate tension.

A gap of two or more positions between flatmates on this scale is where real conflicts tend to appear: not major arguments, but an accumulation of small irritations that nobody raises directly.

How do you use sound in the flat?

This covers music, TV series, work video calls, phone calls on speaker. There are people who need silence to function and people who need background noise to feel at home. Neither position is a problem in itself — the mix without knowing in advance is.

What is your general attitude to sharing a flat?

This question captures the overall social tone: whether you want flatmates with whom you have a real relationship beyond passing in the hallway, or whether you prefer to coexist with mutual respect and each person doing their own thing. Neither preference is better than the other. Opposite expectations without discussing them generate the conflicts of "they're never around" vs "they always want to socialise".

How often do you have people over?

The options run from "almost never, or only with advance notice" to "it's a regular part of my social life". This includes dinners, gatherings, people staying overnight. If the flat is a rest space for one flatmate and a social space for the other, that incompatibility is predictable from the start — but is rarely discussed before signing.

Do you smoke?

The options capture whether you smoke, whether you do not smoke and need a smoke-free flat, or whether you do not smoke but are happy with a flatmate who smokes outside. One of the most straightforward data points in the onboarding — and one of the most conflict-generating when not clarified in the first exchange.

What is your relationship with alcohol?

This dimension is not about frequency of consumption — it is about expectations in the shared flat. There are people for whom alcohol plays no part in home life and people for whom a glass of wine at dinner is completely normal. The purpose of this question is that compatibility on this point is not a surprise.

Do you have pets, or do you prefer to live without them?

The options cover whether you have a pet, whether you have no pet but are happy with flatmates who do, and whether you prefer a pet-free flat (for allergy, preference, or any other reason). A binary data point with high impact when it is not crossed correctly.