When you live with a roommate in the home, you are going to be interacting with their personal belongings on an almost daily basis. It could be using their television or their favorite sauce pan, and since we’re all human, accidents are going to happen. Sooner or later, we are going to accidently break something that our roommate owns. What happens next will lay the groundwork for your relationship with your roommate from that point on. Let’s take a look at what you should do and what you shouldn’t.

Above all else, honesty is your best policy here. Don’t think that you can hide the fact that you broke something of theirs; this is only going to exasperate the situation. You aren’t a child anymore and hiding things from mom and dad is the behavior of a child. The next time you see your roommate, fess up and ask them how you can replace the item you broke.

Now that most of us have the Internet, we have the ability to search for items and their cost in mere seconds. If you broke a small television set, you can Google the brand and the size and in seconds you will not only know the price but also the stores in which you can buy one at. If you’ve broken something that has no real monetary value but has sentimental value, replacement may be impossible and that leaves you in a precarious situation.

If this is the case, talk to your roommate about how you can make it up to them and do your best to show how genuinely sorry you are. If your roommate asks for something ridiculous or out-of-bounds, be polite and simply tell them what you are willing to do to make things better.

Roommate theft is likely the most common fear that each and every one of us has, even if we have had the same trustworthy roommate for months or even years. While there is no sure fire way to ever completely assuage those fears, you can take common sense steps to protect yourself in a situation where you are living with someone you don’t know very well.

Most apartments are set up so that both roommates have a private, bedroom area and a shared public space like a kitchen, living room and dining room. When you come home from a long day at work, make sure you leave your wallet, cash, credit cards and anything else that’s in your pocket in your private bedroom area. Even if your roommate isn’t a thief, there is no way to tell if his or her friends are and by leaving your valuables in a place where others can get to them, you are tempting fate when you don’t have to.

Every roommate should invest in a small safe so that important documents, checkbooks, bank books and extra cash can be safe and secure at all times. You don’t have to spend a fortune on one, either thanks to the sheer number of safes that are made just for this purpose.

Finally, renters insurance can protect you if there is an accident and you lose some valuable possessions. The extra cost each and every month is more than worth it when you consider the peace of mind that you get in return.

When you and your roommate first move together in the apartment, the most important thing you can do is to set boundaries. Even men and women who view themselves as laid back and carefree will have some limits or rules that need to be instituted right away. It could be about paying rent on time or who does the dishes. Ground rules are what make a relationship work. One area that many men and women forget to talk about are ones regarding intimacy or private time with another person. This can lead to an extremely awkward situation where one roommate walks in on another and disturbs what was up to that point an intimate, private setting. Here are a few easy steps you can follow so that this incident never happens again.

Prior notification is absolutely key here. If roommate B is going to have someone over, make sure roommate A knows about it and understands that the public areas, such as the living room, are off limits for a period of time. There needs to be a real sense of give and take here since roommate A may feel like a prisoner in his own home. Set limits on how many days a week one roommate can dominate the public areas and if it gets too lopsided, changed will need to be made.

Asking one roommate to not be home while the other one is entertaining is too much to ask, unless both roommates agree that this is acceptable. You both live there, and you both have the right to be there as much or as little as you want and the other person really has no right to infringe on that right. If this gets to be too big of an issue, it may be time for one of you to find accommodations that don’t involve having a roommate.

When it comes to getting a roommate, you have two options: move in with someone you know or pick a stranger off the street and hope for the best. If you get along with your roommate, you must eventually make a conscious decision on whether you want to simply be casual buds with your roommate or if you want to be best friends. This decision is more important than you think.

A roommate is a business partner, first and foremost. People have a roommate because they don’t want to pay the full cost of rent and utilities themselves, so they have someone else foot half the bill. As with any business partnership, there should probably be a degree of professional distance. However, this is next to impossible to maintain when you sleep feet away from each other. The question you have to ask yourself is, can you maintain a business partnership while at the same time being friends who go out together, party together and spend an inordinate amount of time together?

What can make this partnership even more difficult is if a romantic aspect is introduced into the relationship. It doesn’t matter if it is a same sex relationship or an opposite sex one, attempting to handle a romantic partnership and a financial one at the same time is tough. At what point do you stop being roommates and start being a full fledged couple? These are all important questions you should ask yourself before you vault over that imaginary line between casual friends and more than that.

The worst thing that can happen is when a friendship gone awry ends what was a successful and beneficial business partnership. If your roommate seems to want to keep a distance, don’t take it personally, they have likely evaluated the risk and reward of being close friends and have decided to keep a respectful distance.