Ten Reasons to Have a House-Mate in Mexico
Updated June, 2023
From the upstairs window, the first house I shared in Mexico seemed to be actually in the ocean.
The surf hit the wall hard, broke, shot up several feet, then landed as if people were throwing buckets of water on the patio. Each part of the process was a distinct auditory thrill, during storm season, invoking squeals from both of us each time a particularly large wave hit.
My housemate, to be clear, is she an extraordinary person. The Intrepid Elise decided to move to Mazatlán during a vacation from Canada with her parents. She was 12 years old. At 22, with no Spanish, she did it and never looked back. For some reason that was never entirely clear to me, she decided to take a housemate for 5 months and I won the lotto. It made a case that stays with me, even years later, for having a sharing a place occasionally if single.
Should you get a room-mate or live alone in a foreign country? Over the years of being single, I have periodically shared houses. I’ve shared places in California and in Mexico. The benefits are many.
Benefits of a housemate
1. Having a housemate enables you to significantly upgrade your standard of living. What would get you a nice house or apartment solo sometimes will get more than twice the place when costs are shared. Located on mountains and on beaches, the houses that I’ve shared in the past were not just houses, they were experiences.
2. It’s healthy to invite people in from time to time to audit your mental health. It may be more peaceful to live alone but I am convinced that it’s not healthy in terms of maintaining your ability to phrase things diplomatically.
3. Improving people management skills is, like learning a foreign language, a lifelong pursuit. When you work with many people in a job, it’s automatic. You experience the gratification of learning what motivates one person versus another. Working remote or retiring denies you the experience of practicing your skills managing other people, and I mean that in a good way - we all need managing sometimes.
4. It’s fun to have the chance to make someone else’s day a little better, whether it’s a colleague, spouse or housemate. Sharing a house gives you impromptu opportunities to make someone else happy - with an offer to cook, or even fetching them a fresh cup of coffee. Who doesn’t love that?
5. The right house-mate can be tons of laughs, and even the wrong one can be funny on occasion.
6. Housemates invariably complement your strengths and weaknesses. I’ve never had a housemate who didn’t have household skills that I didn’t. (Fortunately, I cook well. It’s my only skill.)
7. Having a housemate from the area is invaluable in terms of trading information about where to go, what to do and what to avoid. The Intrepid Elise was a weather channel nut, pretty comforting trait in Mazatlán in hurricane season. Yes, I can go on-line to check the weather, but can I do it as well as a weather nut?
8. If you are relocating, whether to Austin or Paris, having even one person more or less know your habits increases your confidence and peace of mind in unfamiliar surroundings. You are safer.
9. We all need real relationships. In Spanish there’s a saying, “No conoces a Andres hasta que vivas con él un mes.” (You don’t know Andrés until you live with him a month rhymes in Spanish). A year of lunches and happy hours will never help you get to know someone as well as living with that person when he’s lost a dog or knocked on your door after he’s heard you crying in there.
10. It helps you categorize your life in a way that is more accessible to memory. Like an index card file, the tabs become people you’ve really gotten to know and often come to love. Even after you have moved on, there is a tendency to know you can count on one another in a pinch, like people who were neighbors for years. You have lived through things together. Nothing takes the place of that in establishing the foundation of a solid relationship. No one can accuse you of not knowing that person well.
It’s an opportunity for personal growth
If you decide to share a place, watch their television shows, and listen to their music once in awhile. I was amazed how I began to enjoy music and television shows I'd never would have considered on my own, ones that I thought were "not to my taste."
I actually got hooked on a Mexican telenovela I would never have considered myself. The Intrepid Elise was ahead of me a few episodes so we’ meet in the hall and she’d clarify the plot since my Spanish wasn’t that great.) I even came to understand the appeal of Antique Road Show. You have the rest of your life to enjoy what you already know you like, why not give some others a try?
House-sharing isn’t a permanent situation, although some older people are choosing to make it one. I can’t imagine how much more disoriented I would have been in a new country living by myself in the first six months.
I love living alone but feel that living with someone from time to time prevents me from becoming one of those people who has to have her bath towels lined up just so. House-sharing from time to time helps me rejoice in both companionship and solitude.
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About the author:
Kerry Baker a partner in Ventanas Mexico, which provides resources to help people explore full or part-time expat living in Mexico, including "If Only I Had a Place," a guide to renting for aspiring expats. Avoid the pitfalls, know the advantages of being an expat when you rent. Most recently, she released, “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” This book gives you a concrete plan and is sure to entertain. Most recently she released The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico a cookbook for travelers, expats and snowbirds who need to cook.