Let's see:
1.) Know your terms. "Hot bed" vs "Cold" or Dedicated. If you don't like the thought of a matress/futon that is not yours and you just change the sheets to go to sleep, then a "hot bed" is not for you. Oh, those are YOUR sheets, that YOU buy.
2.) Snoring. I'm sorry but I AM an offender. I hate it because I can't stand other people snoring - so I felt self-conscious about keeping others awake. Miserable nights in a crash pad if you are noise sensative.
3.) The food thing. I lived in a 3-bedroom apartment with a bunch of folks - the thing was maxed out at 23 padders. One hot bed room, two cold bed room. 7 hot beds, 10 dedicated beds. Now food is what yours is yours. In our pad, I'd take a guess that 50% of the padders were ex-military. Stealing ex-GI food is about equal to signing your own death warrant. So we didn't have THAT problem. Old food, fuzzy food, bacterial contamination unit food - now that was a problem. Since stealing was discouraged you could get some funny conversations. "Hey, who stole my half & half?" "You mean the half & half that has been in the fridge for 6 months?" "Ah yeah" "Well it was half germs and half bacteria and the fridge police threw it out" "Oh." Potluck dinners, however, could be quite fun. I remember one snowy evening with about 12 residents - we had an all out cooking party. That was some good eating that night. Some weird combinations of food, but still a lot of fun.
4.) Clean. 23 people, 13 more transient than others. Let's face it, everyone has their own definition of clean. There were no maids at our pad, however, I must be a clean freak because I spent a whole lot of time scrubbing bathtubs, toilets and bathroom floors. I could come back after two weeks away from the pad and no one had done anything to clean up their mess. There is nothing worse than stepping into a bath tub/ shower that hasn't been cleaned in 2 weeks.
5.) Hot water / ironing boards / TV's and other shared items. One guy takes a Navy shower - 1 min/ 1 min / 1 min. The next guy sings the entire works of Luciano Pavorotti while in the shower. Hot water? Not until the boiler catches up in about an hour. Oh, you gotta be kidding me, the collective viewing audience that got to the TV is watching Survivor? What a waste of humanity. It's 6 am and you need to iron the shirt you forgot last night - take a number buddy, six folks in front of you. Who the frig left all this crud on the iron! What did they do make a grilled cheese sandwich with this thing?
The best day of my life was not needing a crash pad anymore. No more dorm life for me. As someone else said, it'll be hotel rooms or I'll rent a single room from somebody or I'll even rent a room in a house without pilots - but no more crash pads. I'm too old, need my sleep and can't stand the mess. Good luck.
