Sharehouse Etiquette: 12 Rules to Set in the First Week (Or Regret Later)

The single best predictor of whether a sharehouse will be happy or miserable isn’t the housemates. It’s whether they had one honest conversation about how the house will work — in the first week — or whether they assumed everyone would just “figure it out.”

The houses that “figure it out” are the ones where the fridge fills up with passive-aggressive Post-It notes about milk theft. The houses that had the conversation don’t need Post-It notes.

This is a list of 12 things worth agreeing on in your first week. It’s not about rules for the sake of rules — it’s about surfacing the small stuff before it becomes resentment. Do it while everyone’s still on their best behaviour.

For the underlying legal picture of who’s actually on the lease and who isn’t (co-tenant vs sub-tenant vs boarder), see our guide on co-tenants, sub-tenants and boarders in NSW. That distinction changes how bond, rent, and dispute resolution work — worth understanding before the rules conversation.

Before the 12 rules — the one legal thing to sort first

Are you all on the lease, or is one person the “head tenant” and the others sub-tenants?

• All on the lease (co-tenants): you’re all directly liable to the landlord for rent and damage. Bond is jointly held. If one person leaves early, the remaining tenants are collectively responsible for their share of the rent until the lease is varied.
• One person on the lease, others sub-tenants: the head tenant collects rent and is legally responsible to the landlord. Sub-tenants have rights against the head tenant, not directly against the landlord.
• One person on the lease, others boarders: boarders sit outside the standard tenancy protections. Different rules apply. See the linked Resources article for detail.

This isn’t a rules-conversation topic — it’s a “who’s legally in this together” question that determines whose name goes on which form. Sort it in the first week and everything else gets easier.

The maximum bond a NSW landlord can collect is 4 weeks’ rent, held by NSW Fair Trading via Rental Bonds Online — check the wider RentWiz Resources for the full framework.

The 12 rules

Before we start — a note. These rules are house-etiquette starting points, not legal rules. The legal notice periods and processes for actually ending your tenancy (or removing someone from it) come from NSW tenancy law, and they differ depending on whether you’re a co-tenant on the lease or a sub-tenant. When in doubt, cross-check with the Resources articles linked throughout — the informal rules below are for smooth day-to-day living, not for handling actual disputes or exits.

1. How rent gets paid — one system, one date

Pick a system and stick with it. The most reliable options:

• One person collects and pays the landlord. Simple but concentrates risk on that person. Use a dedicated “rent” bank account if possible.
• A shared bank account that everyone deposits into, then pays the landlord directly. Fair distribution, but adds admin overhead.
• Direct payments from each housemate to the landlord. Cleanest legally (each person’s rent goes straight from them to the landlord), but requires the landlord to accept split payments.

Whichever you pick — agree on a “rent due” day that’s the same for everyone (usually payday + 2 days). Reliable rent transfers are the #1 differentiator between smooth sharehouses and stressful ones.

2. How bills get split — evenly, or by usage?

For most bills (electricity, gas, internet), splitting evenly is simplest and rarely worth arguing about the difference. For water usage where one person is significantly higher (long showers, running the dishwasher at half capacity), consider adjusting.

A good default: all utilities and internet split evenly, revisit if someone’s usage is genuinely outsized. The mental energy saved on “fair” calculations is worth the small overpay for lighter users.

One admin trick: rotate who’s on the account for each bill. Person A on electricity, person B on internet, person C on gas. When bills arrive, that person shares the bill in the group chat with a specific request for reimbursement.

3. The shared shopping list (and what’s not on it)

Agree on what counts as “shared” vs “personal”:

• Usually shared: dish soap, hand soap, cleaning products, toilet paper, spices, oils, bin liners, sometimes basics like milk, bread, eggs, coffee
• Usually personal: all main groceries, snacks, alcohol, specialty items you bought for a specific recipe

The shared shopping list is a shared Google Doc, a shared Notes page, or an app like Splitwise. Whoever bought the last round starts the receipt tally so the next person shops without having to negotiate.

For grocery budgeting in a shared setup, see your first grocery shop: a $75 week for one — designed for solo but the principles scale to shared.

4. Cleaning — rotation vs zones vs “just do your share”

Three models, ranked from most to least reliable in practice:

• Zones (weekly rotation): each person is responsible for a zone (kitchen, bathroom, common areas + hallway) for a week, then rotate. Predictable, no “whose turn is it” confusion.
• Rota with a shared calendar: everyone owns a specific task on a specific day (bathroom = Tuesday, vacuuming = Sunday, etc.). Fair but requires more coordination.
• “We’re all adults, just clean when it’s dirty”: works for the first month, then falls apart because “dirty” is subjective.

Zones + rotation almost always wins. Print or pin the roster somewhere everyone sees it.

5. Guests — how many, how often, how long

The friction points are usually:

• Overnight guests staying more than 2-3 nights in a row (starts to feel like a fourth housemate)
• Guests using the shared kitchen/bathroom during the housemate’s absence
• Frequent gatherings that impact quiet time or shared space use

Agree on:

• Maximum consecutive nights a guest can stay (3 nights is a common default)
• Whether a heads-up in the group chat is needed for overnight guests
• Whether recurring guests (partners staying multiple nights per week) count differently

Note on legal implications: most standard NSW leases have a limit on the number of people who can occupy the property. A partner effectively moving in half the week can technically breach that clause. If a housemate’s partner is spending 3-4 nights a week over months, that’s a conversation to have, not a passive-aggressive Post-It note about.

6. Quiet hours

Not everyone has the same sleep schedule. The person who’s up at 5:30am for work has a different notion of “quiet” than the shift worker who gets home at 2am.

Agree on a default quiet window — usually 10pm-8am or 11pm-7am — during which:

• No loud music (headphones after a certain hour)
• No vacuuming or laundry cycles
• Common areas kept to reasonable-conversation volume

Weekends can be slightly looser. If one housemate works nights, adjust the window to protect their day sleep.

7. Bathroom mornings — the schedule question

If you all leave for work at the same time, you’ll compete for the bathroom. Have the conversation now, not on a Monday at 7:45am when someone’s in the shower and someone else needs to brush their teeth.

Options:

• Staggered shower slots (person A: 7:00, person B: 7:20, person C: 7:40)
• First-come-first-served with a 15-minute max
• Some people shower the night before

Also agree on what happens if someone’s shower takes 30 minutes when someone else is running late.

8. Kitchen usage — cooking, cleaning, and shared appliances

Agree on:

• How long dishes can sit in the sink (usually until end-of-day the same day they were used)
• Whether it’s okay to cook large-batch meals that dominate the stovetop for 90 minutes at dinner time
• What happens if you use someone’s specific pan/utensil (wash and return before they need it next)
• Fridge organisation — dedicated shelves per person, or shared with labelling

The single most common sharehouse conflict is dishes. Everyone will underestimate how frustrating a full sink is. Set the standard early.

9. Personal food — is it fair game?

The classic “you don’t touch someone else’s food” rule. But there are edge cases:

• Someone’s leftovers sitting for 4+ days
• Half a loaf of bread going stale on the shared shelf
• The last serving of shared pasta that someone was planning to have for lunch

A good default: shared items are shared. Personal items are personal, no exceptions. If it’s not clearly labelled or on a shared shelf, ask before eating.

For the food-storage side of this, see your first grocery shop: a $75 week for one — labelling and storage prevents 90% of “who ate my thing” disputes.

10. Common area boundaries

The living room is technically everyone’s. The kitchen bench is technically everyone’s. In practice:

• Personal items don’t accumulate in shared spaces (return laptops, books, clothes to bedrooms daily)
• TV / streaming service — one person’s account or a shared service?
• Decor and rearranging — no one moves furniture or hangs art in shared spaces without a group chat consensus
• Working from home — if someone works from the kitchen table daily, that changes how the space is available to others

11. What happens when things go wrong — the “flag it early” rule

The biggest sharehouse killer isn’t the specific problem — it’s the conflict-avoidance that lets small problems fester into resentments.

Agree, in the first week, that:

• Any housemate can raise a concern in the group chat or at a house catch-up without it being “weird” or “aggressive”
• Small problems get raised small (not stored up for 6 months)
• The group discusses; nobody gets ganged up on
• If a rule isn’t working, revise it (rules aren’t sacred)

One practical trick: have a monthly 20-minute “house catch-up” — over dinner, in the living room, whatever. A regular airing means small stuff doesn’t accumulate.

If a house catch-up can’t resolve it. For serious disputes that internal discussion doesn’t fix — bond repayment issues after someone leaves, one housemate causing damage others are being blamed for, disputes between co-tenants over rent — a co-tenant can apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) for orders. See how to apply to NCAT for a tenancy dispute in NSW for the process. Most sharehouses never need this route, but knowing it exists changes how you handle serious conflicts.

12. Moving out — what the notice looks like

Nobody wants to think about moving out in the first week. But agreeing the framework now saves a mess later.

House-agreement things to sort:

• How much house-level notice each person gives the others before leaving (2-4 weeks is standard sharehouse etiquette, though the legal notice periods below may be different)
• Who’s responsible for finding a replacement housemate (usually the person leaving)
• How the room is “handed over” — cleaned, painted-back-to-white if they’d done anything to it, condition-report style

The legal reality is more complicated than the house agreement can capture. Your informal rules don’t override NSW tenancy law:

• Co-tenants on a periodic (month-to-month) lease can legally end their own individual tenancy by giving 21 days’ written notice to the landlord AND all other co-tenants. They don’t need the other housemates’ permission. The tenancy continues for those who remain. This is set out in section 97 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 — check current NSW Fair Trading guidance for the notice-form details.
• Co-tenants on a fixed-term lease who want to leave early face a different process — either the landlord consents to transfer the departing person’s part of the tenancy to a new person, or an early-termination fee may apply. See how to break a lease early in NSW.
• Sub-tenants operate under different notice rules against the head tenant, not the landlord directly. Check the sub-tenancy agreement.

Bond apportionment — the formal way. If the departing housemate’s bond stays with the landlord until end-of-lease, the incoming housemate needs to pay their own bond upfront — leaving either the departing person out of pocket or the incoming person refunding them directly. The legally cleaner option is a Change of Shared Tenancy Arrangement form via NSW Fair Trading (or Rental Bonds Online), which formally updates who the bond is held for. Everyone signs, and the bond is transferred without either housemate carrying uncovered risk. This is the recommended path — the informal “pay the departing housemate directly” arrangement leaves the incoming person potentially liable for damage they didn’t cause.

The printable one-page template

A one-page house-rules doc that everyone signs is worth ten conversations later. Include:

• Rent — how much each, paid to whom, on what date
• Bills — what’s split, who’s on each account
• Groceries — what’s shared, what’s personal
• Cleaning — the zones and rotation
• Quiet hours — the window
• Guests — the overnight and consecutive-nights limit
• The moving-out process — notice period + bond mechanism
• The house catch-up — day and frequency
• Signature lines — each housemate signs

Print it, put it on the fridge, take a photo of it in the group chat. It’s not a legal document — it’s a memory aid. But housemates who’ve signed something are far more likely to honour it than housemates who “kind of agreed one time.”

When housemates change

Every time someone new joins the house, redo the conversation. Don’t assume the new person read the template — go through it together in their first week. A house that’s been running smoothly with four people can fall apart in three months when the fifth person joins without the same context.

Same principle applies to any change of circumstance: someone’s partner is now spending 5 nights a week, someone got a night-shift job, someone lost a job and is home during the day. Big life changes should trigger a quick rules revisit.

Save this checklist

Sharehouses don’t fail because housemates are bad people. They fail because everyone assumed the small stuff would sort itself out, and it didn’t. Twelve rules and one house catch-up a month costs 30 minutes and prevents the passive-aggressive Post-It notes.

Print the template. Have the conversation. Sign it together. Everything gets easier from there.