RoomApes.com - Report All Bad Roommates

Having a roommate can be tops, you may get along like two peas in a pod; but then again, it may be hellish. The perfect roommate can become your worst nightmare. In order to avoid this, Roomapes has put together a public resource to promote better matches. The site works via profiles. Users fill out personal information about themselves—gender, height, location, and living preferences/attributes such as hygiene, responsibility, respect, sanity, and trustworthiness ranked on a 1-10 scale. Below that, you’ll find comments from all the people interested in living with you. Interestingly, Roomapes encourages users to post not only about themselves but also about their own roommates. Say your roomie is too stoned to pay the bills and you’re looking for a new place to stay. You post your own profile and also make one for your mate so that others know to look out and stay away. The site actually has a section for doing background checks on potential flatmates. Besides that, users can search for roomies using the map and my checking out posted listings.

“Roomapes.com (View all Roommates) is here to act as a resource to help the public research potential roommates before living with them. Through community cooperation, this website will help increase transparency when choosing roommates; help others by identifying both good and bad roommates. Together, we can make the roommate living experience more enjoyable for everybody.”

This is actually not a bad idea. People do need to be warned about bad roomies and they do need a place where they can better screen potential roommates beforehand. If this gets more people on board it could very well become popular.

The problem with this concept is that roommates and all that it means to be or to live with a roommate is all very subjective. One person may not like his roommate simply because he chews with his mouth open or because she reads Danielle Steele. These types of reasons aren’t enough to warrant a bad profile. As anyone can post a profile about anyone else, the information could turn out to be all lies and slander.