Mr B

Absolutely. That's an approach I've found useful in working out how to deal with these kinds of issues. I rearrange it into "If it was me who was exhibiting those behaviours, how would I deal with it? And if I just ignored it and didn't deal with it, what kind of reaction would I expect to receive from others?"

For example, if I dropped a pot of stew on a newly-cleaned floor, I'd clean it up and try to get the floor back into the state it was before the accident. Fair enough, accidents can happen to anyone (I've got a stone floor in my kitchen and it's instant death to anything remotely fragile that's dropped on it). But you clean up after yourself. If I failed to do that, I'd expect that the person with whom I shared a house with to be having very serious second-thoughts about the wisdom of co-habiting with me. If the "accident" involved my bodily waste products, I'd be mortified to even think about leaving it for someone else to clean up. I've got some pride and self-respect, after all.

By the same token, I'd expect anyone I share a house with to follow much the same basic principles. I'm all for people being individuals and that's great. But if I'm sharing a house with them through choice, there are certain minimum standards of behaviour that I will not stick around to see transgressed.

Mr B.