Navigating living off-campus was daunting at first, even without factoring in moving countries and the height of the pandemic. Moving from the comforts of my 4 walls at Watts and over-reliance on TAMs left me with a lot of questions: Who would I live with? Where would we stay? What even is the average rent in a place like Kingston? How can I still feel equally connected to the community I had built in my first year? Can I fit hiring a chef from Location 21 into my budget? The answer to these didn’t all come at the same time— far from it (though the last one was a near immediate no). But this massive leap into adulthood was tangible and marked the beginning of a series of trials, errors, and corrections, that are likely to last a lifetime. I’ll attempt to cover key points from my journey, to hopefully help even the slightest bit in yours.
In my first year, the pressure of needing to find housemates and housing came surprisingly early. I think it was October when I already heard talks of it and suddenly it felt like a mad rush to be paired up before you were left team-less. I hastily got with a couple of girls from my floor and before we knew it, I had signed a lease. Looking back, the time crunch was self-inflicted and led to easily avoided complications. For one, the place signed (although incredibly well-located and cushy) was bizarrely overpriced for the Kingston student market at the time. Admittedly, the place was found by a friend leading the charge, but having never looked at average housing prices anywhere, I naively (and lazily) took her word for granted that it was to par and reasonable. The first learning here is to take your time and do your research. Depending on your level of comfort, you can realistically sign a lease whenever. For peace of mind, I would recommend by February/March at the latest. It is also true that you’re competing with every other student for good locations and great prices, so keeping that in mind, your mileage may vary. Join the Off-Campus Housing group on Facebook and scroll through listings to get a sense of what prices make sense.
This lease quickly fell apart amidst the onset of COVID. I say quickly like it didn’t involve heaps of emotions, passive-aggressive texts, long email chains, and legal counsel... which brings me to the reality that, housing situations can be and are often messy. Messy, but not unfixable. I learned by the end of this that Queen’s provides a ton of resources for off-campus living. The one most valuable here is Queen’s Legal Aid, which was an incredibly accessible and useful way to seek legal advice for ‘free’ (if not opted out of early in the year). Leases are most of our first exposure to the scary world of binding contracts and understanding them isn’t always intuitive. This resource helped me understand the options available to me and navigate them as best as I could.
And while mine had a very particular ending, you will not find a lack of cases that spiral because of interpersonal drama and household responsibilities. Largely, things to remember here are to do your best in assessing a fit for people you’d live with (in terms of cleanliness, lifestyle, etc), communicate well and often instead of allowing things to build up, and every situation is temporary. You can only assess so much before actually living with someone, and post realizing things just aren’t working, don’t feel the pressure to limit yourself to the circumstances. Reminds me of a saying I once heard, “Don’t be content to remain enduring a familiar sadness, when you could be risking only disappointment for the chance to explore endless possibilities in this life.”. While seemingly dramatic, new houses can mean new worlds for you. There is no lack of posts often looking for single rooms to be filled in large houses in the Facebook group, and while it may seem scary possibly living with people you hadn’t known before, it also introduces you to a whole new friend group and living dynamic. Also given my situation, for example, where I signed no later than 2 months into knowing them— how much did I really know them anyway?
When I returned in my 3rd year, I decided to join a housing plan largely schemed by 2 of my best friends. We were planning for a 6-person house: 4 of us had lived on the same floor in first year, one was from the same program as my friend, and the last one was in a previous living arrangement with one of us. I was well-acquainted with 2 of them, somewhat familiar with 2 more, and knew nothing about the last. The funny thing is, on paper, the 6 of us don’t make much sense. If I was scrolling through the Facebook group, I’m not even sure I’d pick them. But, spoiler alert, this ended up having the most successful outcome.
The first half of the first year admittedly had a couple of awkward and uncomfortable moments as we felt through the dark for each other's boundaries and grew to learn of each other's personalities, quirks, and all. You see, living with others can often be quite intimate. You’re more than friends. You see them after their hardest days, during hunger-fuelled rages, amidst tearful homesick nights, hear break-ups through walls, and somehow inevitably find yourself peeing with the door open. It doesn’t have to make sense to work because you grasp the complexity of understanding a whole person. You see these people as more than classmates or group members, and more as siblings. It’s hard to realize how precious that truly is until it’s over.
While I just graduated, I could have played house with them for a lot longer. One of my housemates and I had a deal where she’d do the cooking and I’d do the dishes. We had a house calendar in our living room with activities we’d have to do every day which we’d brainstorm at the start of the month. We spent reading weeks together, traveling to different places. They introduced me to Canadian traditions (including my first Thanksgiving, the lead-up to Christmas, and hockey games) and I returned the favor with Indian ones (celebrating a festival called Diwali, actually taking one of them back home to India, and introducing them to spices (I joke…)). It’s truly what you make of it. And make of it we did.
I hope you have the same luck (fate?) I did. I hope you spend days after moving to the first city after graduation just planning the next time, you’re going to get to see them again. I hope you wait patiently for a FaceTime asking you to come down to the living room that likely won’t ever come again. I hope you long deeply for the average food your housemate made for you, amidst fancy restaurants in a big city. And I hope to God this makes you realize you did it all right.