Since 40 percent of you out there have roommates, with others in family households, we’ve got some house rules to keep your domicile from becoming a germ pile.

Even if you are shacked up with housemates during our long and surreal shelter-in-place, you should still not get within six feet of each other as Felix and Oscar are above, and you certainly ought not waste disinfectant sprays just to make an argumentative point. But with 38.5 percent of San Franciscans living in roommate or housemate situations according to recent Zillow data, your household should develop some germ-prevention protocol to avoid innocent mistakes that could put your and your homies at a higher COVID-19 risk.  

We can’t tell you how to get along with these people with whom you are experiencing a special new form of cabin fever. Maybe find a mindfulness app or read some Deepak Chopra blog posts. But there’s a hard and fast set of guidelines for keeping your house or apartment a coronavirus-free zone, and you better believe it begins with the bathroom.

Bathroom Etiquette

You have been well-lectured about hand cleanliness, and even the New York Times ran the recent headline How to Wash Your Hands. But that’s only half of your bathroom battle, as separate advisory from Times health writer Tara Parker-Pope says you should be scrubbing your toilet and bathroom “every day,” preferably with products whose labels say things like they will “kill 99.9 percent of germs.”

And the hand-washing thing is not just for after you use the commode. Parker-Pope also advises washing your hands immediately once returning home from an essential trip, and also right before eating a meal.

Kitchen and House Etiquette

Since they are touched by you and your roommates’ grubby hands so much, it’s recommended to give all of your doorknobs a good spray at least once daily. Parker-Pope also recommends a daily scrub of the following surfaces:

• Light switches

• Refrigerator and microwave doors

• Drawer pulls

• TV remote

• Counters and table tops where you cook and eat

• Toilet handles

• Faucet handles

House Guests and Essential Trips

A Citylab piece on roommates under coronavirus lockdown visits several co-living situations  around the country,  including an SF apartment “pod” and an Oakland co-op. With regards to letting outside people in the house, some have instituted rules like “no guests except this one partner we all like,” or “one guest per person.” (One guest per person seems insanely permissive!) Other ground rules that seem a little more sensible and enforceable include showering immediately after returning home from an essential trip, or having separate set of clothes for wearing daily indoors and for what you’d wear out for your essential trips.

What if a Roommate Contracts Coronavirus

Yet another NYT trend piece on roommates in the coronavirus era has the heartbreaking story of a household full of twentysomethings where not one but two roommates fell ill with COVID-19. (Both moved separately to an upper floor.) In terms of practical advice in that nightmare scenario, the University of Michigan has a very medically sound 14 things to do if someone you live with has COVID-19 writeup. The biggies include quarantining them in a “sick room,” establishing them a separate “sick bathroom,” and reminding them to drink plenty of water while discouraging them from drinking alcohol like the rest of us shelter-in-place boozebags are.

It’s getting nauseatingly cliche to say “We’re all in this together,” but to those living in a shared house, that phrase is more urgent and scary than it is uplifting. But daily housecleaning and neurotic levels of handwashing are now pretty much required to keep co-living cool.

Related: SFPD Patrols Dolores Park, Tells Sunbathers and Picnickers To Spread Out [SFist]

Image: Paramount Pictures

Now, this is the roommate we always wanted in college. UC Berkeley freshman Derek Low turned his dorm at aesthetically-jarring Unit 2 into something special and magical. Low fashioned his drab room on the fourth floor into a bachelor pad replete with automated curtains, motion detection sensors and voice-activated light control. He calls is BRAD, the Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm. "It cost about two to three hundred dollars," Low explained to The Daily Cal. "Each device was in the same range of about 20 to 30 bucks."

Here are the materials he used to complete this seemingly herculean task:

Desk lamps (3x)
Appliance Modules (10x)
Room lamp (1x)
X10 Software
CM15A
Wired controller
iPhone App
iPad App
Speakers
Music player/server
Extension cords
Microphone
Pulley and cord
Curtains motor
Party button
Fog machine
Laser lights
Strobe lights
Disco ball
UV lights

He even has a goddamn laser light show. Check out Low's site for more details about his astounding project.

A spat over a kitchen light turned into a harrowing boiling-oil attack Tuesday morning between two San Francisco roommates living in the Tenderloin. "The victim told police he was in the kitchen reading when the suspect came in and started heating the cooking oil in a pan to make some food," reports CBS 5. "The roommate then left the kitchen and turned off the light, but the victim turned it back on, apparently angering the roommate, who allegedly grabbed the pan and flung the boiling oil at the victim, scalding his face and his arms." (Something to about that the next time you fail to pay your fair share of the utilities.)

Soon after the attack, the poor guy left his apartment and headed to the nearest police station. Officers were "flagged down in front of the Tenderloin Police Station around 2:40 a.m." by a 47-year-old injured, oily roommate. SFPD were led to the apartment on the 300 block of Jones Street and arrested the roommate cum suspect, 48-year-old Felipe Manrique.

The victim was treated at a local hospital and released.

[CBS 5]

Mike Aldax, our favorite crime reporter, details a roommate living situation gone awry. Early this morning, a 47-year-old woman was clubbed with a hammer by her roommate on the 100 block of Mission. "The suspect, a 48-year-old man, began “making irrational comments” before unleashing the hammer around 2:40 a.m. at a home in the 1000 block of Mission Street ... The woman temporarily lost consciousness but called 911 when she awoke." No word yet as to why the suspect, who is now in custody, hit his rommie. We can only image what led to such high drama. [Examiner]

There have been four new laws proposed this year that would make it harder for landlords to raise rents and evict tenants. Three of the laws would increase the rights of rent-controlled tenants by allowing them to add roommates and by suspending or limiting rent increases that are a hardship. The fourth law would give eviction protection to tenants in non-rent-controlled units, specifically homes that are being foreclosed.

As noted in SF Gate's comments, the irony is that if it weren't for rent control and the strict eviction laws already in place, landlords often wouldn't have to foreclose. They have to pay their bills too. Additionally, there's still no protection for master tenants who end up with deadbeat roommates, who can't be lawfully evicted. Personally, we've always had awesome and sympathetic landlords, who were willing to work with us when needed. It pays to be a good judge of character from the get-go. How about you, readers, what's your input on this hot issue?