Hall or suite style bathrooms for freshman boys

[mlktwins]

Hope this is ok here as I know there are moms with lots of knowledge with this!

Freshman boys - 2 different schools.

Hall bath or suite style for freshman year?

For DS2's school, small and not a party school, hall baths are cleaned Mon-Fri. Suite style would be 4 boys with 2 sinks, one shower, and one toilet (does have a privacy door like a public bathroom stall would have). Boys would have to clean it, little older dorms, and we provide the TP.  Hall baths at this school are in recently renovated within the last couple of years - the whole buildings were renovated and we have toured one of them. They are nice! Any thoughts?

For DS1, we are going to be able to go into about 6 different dorms this month and he doesn't have to decide just yet. He is my less neat kid in the bathroom 😬.

[Roadrunner]

Four boys cleaning the bathroom? 🤣 So if I judge by my kids, I would be contacting parents of other three and setting up some paid cleaning service for the fear of disease outbreak. If I had raised mine better, I would prefer private over hallway, but in my case, I would take whatever gets regular cleaning. 😉

[mlktwins]

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Four boys cleaning the bathroom? 🤣 So if I judge by my kids, I would be contacting parents of other three and setting up some paid cleaning service for the fear of disease outbreak. If I had raised mine better, I would prefer private over hallway, but in my case, I would take whatever gets regular cleaning. 😉

I am in agreement with you -- LOL!  My 2 have shared their bathroom forever. Neither is perfect, but one is def better than the other. And...they are used to each other. 4 boys who don't know each other 😬! I guess, for sophomore year, they can see if they find a group of 4 boys who they know would be somewhat tidy. 

[Miss Tick]

Bathroom cleaning and group project work combined! Could work, may be a disaster, unlikely that anyone will get seriously ill even if they put it off the entire year. The purported benefit of the suite bathroom is increased privacy? But it is shared with 3 other people and you have to clean it and paper it? Doesn't seem like an advantage to me. 

[Sneezyone]

For my DD, the one without regular cleaning would be a disaster. Given a schedule, my boy will do the work. Agreeing with the others to be VERY real about what you think they can/will do and decide based on that. No one wants a roomie that says they can be neat/clean and carry their fair share of the cleaning load and then…doesn’t.

[cintinative]

All I know is that my nephew shares a suite with three other boys (one bathroom) and the bath rug got so gross they threw it away. I am not sure exactly if anyone does laundry. It sounds like they had never ever washed it. ewwwwwww

I have regular proof of how this could happen by looking in my boys' bathroom. Their standards for good enough are super low. 😃 At least I change their towels and wash their bath rug though.  

I am sure it really depends on the kid, of course. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by cintinative

[idnib]

Why can I smell this thread? 😂

[rzberrymom]

I’ve been told by countless parents to try to avoid suites. It sounds so fantastic to not have to share a bathroom with lots of folks (and the suites are often newer). But with cell phone use like it is, I’m told kids often end up hibernating when they’re in suites. With the bathroom down the long hall, at least one *has* to get out and socialize every so often. Even if the kid is social, the suite-mates may all be hibernating. Just a thought.

[easypeasy]

Hall bathrooms with someone else cleaning is great. Except if you get on a floor with kids who think it's hilarious to smear ...stuff... around or to plug up toilets purposefully so they overflow (has happened at my dds school more times than I can count, but luckily not in her dorms).

DD2 shared a bathroom (shower/toilet - her sink was in her bedroom with her roommate) with 3 girls and it was fine. She also shared a house with sorority sisters and it was much less fine. The icky bathroom stories she has told me! 🤢

What I've learned (as a person who never went to college as a young person) is that college kids can be disgusting. lol

Both DSs are currently in hall bathroom sharing situations, but with small halls. Like, if someone was routinely being disgusting, they'd have figured out who it was by now. I think that's been the ideal situation for each of them. They don't have to share cleaning responsibilities with 8 other guys (I like to think my boys would clean the bathroom, but all the kids say it just hits different when you're cleaning someone *else's* mess) and the bathrooms are always sparkling clean.

Next year, DS1 is moving off campus so he'll be responsible for his own space and DS2 is praying for a similar rooming situation as what he got this year. lol

 

 

[mlktwins]

Thanks all! DS2 is going to pick the dorms with the hall baths for freshman year. Those were renovated in 2020 and 2021 and are super nice. Huge rooms with tall ceilings, big windows, and nice furniture. He will be eligible to move into their on-campus apartments next year that are 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room. Each bedroom is for 2 students (like a dorm room) with a bathroom in each bedroom. That would only be 2 to a bathroom then. If we can get him a single in those apartments for a little more $$$, we will do that. That would be the perfect place for him.

 

[teachermom2834]

I would go with the one that gets cleaned. Even if you have one or two boys that do clean there will be conflict because the others will not be up to their standards for sure. 
 

Also, while I love the idea of the privacy of the in suite bathroom, it does give less flexibility on time. It is great to only share with one or two people unless you all need it at the same time. Then you would be better off with a bank of multiples. 
 

My boys had suites with in room bathrooms but they only shared with one other and it was cleaned once a week as long as the cleaning person could access it. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by teachermom2834

[matrips]

Ds2- hall bath.  4 guys sharing one bath sounds rough.  And dirty.

[Clemsondana]

My college dorm was built as a hotel, then converted to retirement apartments, and then became a dorm.  It had 2, 3, and 4 person rooms with various layouts.  I lived in 3 or 4 person rooms all 4 years, and as a former hotel each room had its own bathroom.  I don't ever remember a conflict over using the bathroom.  We did often have the situation where one person was in the shower while another used the toilet or brushed their teeth.  I'm still close with 2 of the girls that i lived with during those years.  

I spent 2 summers working at camps on campus and lived in the bathroom-down-the-hall dorms.  The advantage was that they were cleaned for us. The disadvantage was that if they got messed up on Friday, they stayed that way until Monday.  Also you couldn't plan around other people since you didn't know everybody's schedule.  It was rare for there to be no available shower because there were 6-8.  But, you couldn't predict it.  With the suites, we shared schedules so that we knew when each person needed to be getting ready.  But, I usually lived with really awesome people, and that's not a guarantee.  

[NittanyJen]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:19 AM, mlktwins said:

Hope this is ok here as I know there are moms with lots of knowledge with this!

Freshman boys - 2 different schools.

Hall bath or suite style for freshman year?

For DS2's school, small and not a party school, hall baths are cleaned Mon-Fri. Suite style would be 4 boys with 2 sinks, one shower, and one toilet (does have a privacy door like a public bathroom stall would have). Boys would have to clean it, little older dorms, and we provide the TP.  Hall baths at this school are in recently renovated within the last couple of years - the whole buildings were renovated and we have toured one of them. They are nice! Any thoughts?

For DS1, we are going to be able to go into about 6 different dorms this month and he doesn't have to decide just yet. He is my less neat kid in the bathroom 😬.

However they behave now in terms of taking care of their own bathroom…. Is likely how they will behave in a suite style dorm room with their own bathroom. 

My youngest is in the dorms and happy someone else does the cleaning. He could wish for more privacy, but knows it comes at a cost lol.

My oldest is in an apartment that he has rented for a couple of years, sharing 2 bathrooms between four people (mix of male and female). I helped him get it clean when he moved in, because there were no roommates around at the time, and he has simply advised me to not come visit ;P. I reminded him a couple fo times that disease is a real thing, germ theory is not “just a theory,” and that if he doesn’t get his deposit back because he wrecked the bathroom, it’s on his dime. Then I keep my nose out of it (literally and metaphorically). 

Both were taught how to clean a bathroom properly before college, and had years of practice at it; the rest is up to them! I figure the hygiene issue is a trade-off between fewer people and less cleaning done.

 

[SweetCicely]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:19 AM, mlktwins said:

Hope this is ok here as I know there are moms with lots of knowledge with this!

Freshman boys - 2 different schools.

Hall bath or suite style for freshman year?

For DS2's school, small and not a party school, hall baths are cleaned Mon-Fri. Suite style would be 4 boys with 2 sinks, one shower, and one toilet (does have a privacy door like a public bathroom stall would have). Boys would have to clean it, little older dorms, and we provide the TP.  Hall baths at this school are in recently renovated within the last couple of years - the whole buildings were renovated and we have toured one of them. They are nice! Any thoughts?

For DS1, we are going to be able to go into about 6 different dorms this month and he doesn't have to decide just yet. He is my less neat kid in the bathroom 😬.

I saw that your DS 2 is attending the school my daughter attends. Unless things have changed in the last two years, his dorm (and therefore bathroom style) will be based on his fsem. (Unless he is picking an fsem by what dorm he wants to live in, which many students did!)  She lived in the renovated dorm (Virginia) and didn't mind the hall bathrooms, but didn't feel they were always cleaned the best. She, however, did feel like it was the best freshman dorm after seeing the others and would pick that one again.

[mlktwins]

1 hour ago, SweetCicely said:

I saw that your DS 2 is attending the school my daughter attends. Unless things have changed in the last two years, his dorm (and therefore bathroom style) will be based on his fsem. (Unless he is picking an fsem by what dorm he wants to live in, which many students did!)  She lived in the renovated dorm (Virginia) and didn't mind the hall bathrooms, but didn't feel they were always cleaned the best. She, however, did feel like it was the best freshman dorm after seeing the others and would pick that one again.

Thank you. This year, dorm choice is not tied to FSEM and I’m happy about that. I’m glad to hear she liked Virginia. We’ve been in Willard already and will get to see the other 3 dorms in April.

[MagistraKennedy]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:39 AM, Roadrunner said:

Four boys cleaning the bathroom? 🤣 So if I judge by my kids, I would be contacting parents of other three and setting up some paid cleaning service for the fear of disease outbreak. If I had raised mine better, I would prefer private over hallway, but in my case, I would take whatever gets regular cleaning. 😉

I'll be totally honest, this is one of the first things I thought when I was touring colleges with suite style dorms. I can't imagine the end of year clean.