Having roommates can be a great experience or a nightmare. On the one hand, good roommates can become as close as family members, sharing and getting through the ups and downs of life together. On the other hand, they can be frustrating to deal with when it comes to keeping track of whose turn it is to do the household chores, not to mention having to adapt to their lifestyle to a certain extent and even compromising on some of your habits for the sake of living in harmony. These shared experiences, both positive and negative, often end up teaching us some really important life lessons that we may have not learned otherwise. Here, we’ve compiled some life lessons from an AskReddit subReddit, which featured a string of some fun and, more importantly, informative life lessons shared by Redditors who learned them from their roommates. The best part is that readers won’t even need to live with a roommate in order to learn all of these lessons, as they are presented right here for the taking. Just be sure to take good notes.

Cleanliness is relative

This might come as a surprise, especially for those who have never lived with roommates. But each one of us has a different perception of what “clean” and “cleanliness” means. Something that looks clean for one person might not necessarily appear as anywhere close to clean for someone else.

Living with another person made this person realize that not everyone thinks of the concept of cleaning in the same way. This difference in opinion and perception can cause arguments between roommates. After all, everyone has different standards and definitions of cleanliness.