Whether you have just moved into a college dorm and are sharing a room with another student, or are sharing a room simply to save yourself some money on rent, it is important that you take a few home security tips in order to ensure that you remain safe and that your belongings stay safe as well. Because you will be sharing such an intimate space with a complete stranger, it is important that you both respect each other's property and that you remain a bit weary of them at first, until you can feel them out and see if you can trust them. Your home security and your safety will require that you have strict ground rules about who you let into your home and that you maintain a space that is based on respect and trust.

To begin with, you both will have to sit down and discuss what you expect from each other. Because you will be sharing a room, not only the common areas it is important that you both work with each other's hours and respect each others requests for quiet. There will be times when you will want to go to bed and your roommate will need to stay up to work and vice versa, so it is critical that you find a happy medium between inhabiting the space as well as respecting the fact that it is shared. For your home security you will need to discuss with each other the matter of having guests over and make it very clear that you are only to invite people that you know into your home. Because it is a shared small space, you will have to be vigilant about upholding this self-imposed rule for the safety of you and your roommate.

Make sure that you have a home alarm system installed so that you can feel safe and secure knowing that your home is being looked after. Discuss the fact that the code for the alarm must remain strictly between you and your roommate and that it is imperative that neither one of you give the code to anyone else. You will have to lay strict ground-rules from the beginning that you both must adhere to, so that you can be sure that you are both on the same page and that you both remain safe and secure in the home. Until you get to know your roommate better, it is also a good idea to keep your valuables in a safe place or to hide them in various different places around the room in order to be sure that they remain with you and that they don't get nicked. As long as you ensure that your safety is of top priority, you shouldn't encounter any problems and should be able to live harmoniously with your new roommate. It will be difficult to adjust to at first but you will soon grow accustomed to sharing the space.