Don’t live with your friends in college, they said. It’ll ruin your friendships, they said.

Moving in with your friends sounds like all your third grade dreams of the neverending sleepover coming true. You get to be with people you like all the time and do fun things like bake cookies and yell at Blackhawks games on TV together.

However, as likable as you and your friends find each other, a little bit of dissent rises when people live in a small space together. To avoid unpleasant fights about whose turn it is to take out the trash and what time of the night at which it is inappropriate to bring people over, I offer some words of advice.

For two years, I lived with a rotation of four other people who had all grown up together. I was the new friend in the group, only knowing them for a few years.

You’d assume we’d be used to each other’s habits, and for the most part, it was predictable. When differences surfaced, the easiest and best thing for us was be honest and able to communicate without being a total jerk. It wasn’t always comfortable, and I admit that I sometimes instigated immature text fights instead of talking it out, but when you can’t pay the rent one month or want to have a party when your roommate has a big accounting test the next day, it’s much better to address this right away than to wait until the last minute, when a good solution can’t be reached.

Assuming everyone will equally share responsibility is naive. Everyone’s raised differently, and maybe you know how to do laundry and work the vacuum cleaner, but your roommate’s mom always just took care of that for him or her. If you’re that guy or girl, be an adult and learn how to sort your whites and colors. Ask for help. Sit down together and explicitly lay out what and when chores need to be done and by whom.

If it helps, make a poster or list on a white board in the kitchen of everyone’s responsibilities.

A few of my friends drew up a contract they all signed and posted on the fridge. Make it fair, make it realistic, and you’ll save yourself a lot of grief later.

My new roommates and I are trying to work out a system where one of us cooks dinner one night a week. Get organized and you will eventually have less worry and work.

I probably sound like a Berenstain Bears book, harping about responsibility and order, but I can assure you, I’m a scatterbrain. I need to be reminded to do things, I forget when bills are due and I hate cleaning the litter box. But I also really like the people I have lived and currently live with, and as their friend, I want to do my part to make sure we stay friends at the end of our lease.