Housemate red flags — catch them before you sign anything

Money flags — some of these are scams

Real households are relaxed about money before you commit and precise about it after. Scammers are the opposite: urgent before, vanished after.

• Asked to pay bond, rent or a "holding deposit" before you've inspected or met anyone in person: walk away. This is the classic rental scam, full stop.
• "The landlord's overseas, pay and the keys will be couriered": a scam with decades of service. No legitimate arrangement works this way.
• Pressure to transfer money to "secure your viewing time": viewings are free everywhere on earth.
• Bond with no receipt and no written record of the amount: even between friendly flatmates, no paper means no bond when you leave.
• Cash-only rent with no record: fine for some households, but insist on a written note of what's paid — protection runs both directions.

Ad flags

• No photos of the kitchen or living room. You're joining the common areas; hiding them is a choice.
• Rent dramatically under the suburb's going rate: sometimes a genuine bargain, usually bait. Check the room against live listings in that suburb before you get excited.
• The room count and the bathroom count don't appear in the same sentence. Seven bedrooms, one bathroom is information you deserve early.
• Location given as a vibe ("inner north-ish!") rather than a suburb. Vagueness in ads is rarely accidental.
• Re-posted constantly for weeks. Rooms that never fill have a reason you'll learn on day one.

Inspection flags

• You can't meet the people you'd actually live with — "they're all out" once is life; twice is policy.
• The current housemates clearly didn't know you were coming. A household that doesn't communicate about who's moving in won't communicate about anything else.
• "Three other people are seeing it at five, I need an answer now." Real demand exists in Melbourne, but manufactured urgency at the human level is a negotiation tactic — decide on your own clock, even if that clock is fast.
• You're shown the room but conversation about bills, guests or how the house runs keeps sliding away. Slipperiness now is slipperiness later.

Interview flags

These cut both ways — a sharp applicant is checking the household for them too.

• Every answer is "easy-going": you've learned nothing, on purpose or not.
• Every previous housemate was apparently a nightmare: notice the common denominator.
• Money questions answered with charm instead of specifics.
• No questions back about how the house runs. Curiosity is what commitment looks like at this stage.

First-weeks flags — and what to actually do

Some flags only show after move-in. The response to all of them is the same: early, specific, in person. Passive-aggressive is a flag; being direct about a problem is not — it's the fix.

• The bills arrangement everyone agreed to verbally keeps not making it into writing: set it down now — the free VIC flatmate agreement has a clause for exactly this.
• The "couple of nights" guest enters week three: name the norm, kindly, before it calcifies.
• Notes on the fridge instead of words in the kitchen: answer the note in person, without heat.
• Your rent or bond receipts stop appearing: re-establish the paper trail immediately.

The compounding rule

One flag is a conversation; three flags is a pattern; a pattern at inspection stage is a preview. The cost of walking away is one more Saturday of looking. The cost of ignoring a pattern is a year of it — priced weekly, paid in advance.

The inverse holds too: a house that's precise about money, honest about its rhythm, and introduces you to everyone has already shown you how it handles the important things. That's the green flag that outweighs a small kitchen.

Keep reading

• Flatmate interview questions that actually work
• Free VIC flatmate agreement (PDF)
• How to find a housemate in Melbourne
• Splitting bills without the wars