For the most part, no dormitory or apartment in Oakland is a real luxury. While some could say a home has “good bones” and it is purely what you tape to the walls or the pillows you toss on the loveseat, you cannot call a place home when it’s a mess. Now, I am not talking about the charm of an older place from uncleanable dirt or dents, but man-made filth. 

I’ll admit I am a bit — massive — of a neat freak. I like everything in its place so I know if somebody messed with it. I do my dishes in a timely fashion and color-organize my closet. Past experiences dealing with such disorganization have been best addressed in my case by simply talking. When you live in close quarters with someone, you pick up on their habits — good and bad — and see how they live.

I can admit that most people in the world, and especially those I surround myself with, find this behavior extreme at points — but does that matter when you have roommates, are only renting and especially if it’s just not that nice of a place? 

So, a good and hopefully clean hill I would be OK to die on is one where I rest on the idea that nowhere is ideal if you live with messy people. In my opinion, you could live in the White House — probably even outer space — and if things were not to your level of cleanliness, you would live in constant discomfort. 

I could justify that we get very little control over most aspects of our lives as college students. Others decide what will be served at the dining hall, how much homework we get and if there will even be an open table at Posvar after class. Coming back to any type of mess for a person like me is just an additional stressor. But while my new home sometimes feels a bit out of my control, all I care about is that I come back to good, kind people. We can not always control what life is like, but we can control who we surround ourselves with.

Sometimes, you just have to deal with a bad teacher or messy room for a day because you just do not always know the day someone else had. While I like everything positioned at a certain angle, stored in the correct drawer and laundry folded to my desire, I think knowing cleaning has a time and place is crucial to a happy college experience. 

So yes, I would say make a fuss when it becomes a habit, but sometimes we just need to embrace the mess. Now, there is a clear difference between pure filth and some dust, so you have to be able to differentiate or it will be a very long year for you and your roommate(s). 

A little mess is sometimes comforting, and while it can increase my stress a little, being able to prioritize things like school instead of constantly cleaning or organizing is important. So maybe I want to die on a neat hill, but I don’t really want to live there. We should surround ourselves with others who share our goals and aspirations. Maybe they are not a carbon copy of us and our habits, but they should uplift us. That’s what home is all about.