House Managers Assigning Chores, but Minimizing Costs

I live in the AXO sorority house. This sprawling home includes a porch swing, a newly refurbished interior, and a house manager who assigns chores to AXO’s 21 inhabitants. My peers may be horrified by chores in college since we moved out of our parents’ homes to have more autonomy, but having a house manager to act as a Constitution that assigns ground rules for cleanliness in the house is quite rational. Our house manager sets the threshold standard that every 21 days, a resident would either have to perform house duty (which essentially amounts to fluffing pillows) or kitchen duty (where they have to run the dishwasher, put away leftover food, and take out the trash).

It may feel distasteful to take care of other people’s dishes, but let me ask this: how many of you have free-riding roommates who leave their dishes in the sink for weeks at a time or let the trash overflow knowing that you will clean the dishes and take out the trash for them? Next question: how many of you are that roommate? The threshold rules for cleanliness set by our house manager are actually far more beneficial to the group than living in a large home without such a constitution. Decision making costs for following the house rules are very low because each tenant must sign a lease agreeing to the rules prior to moving in, eliminating the hold out problem. External costs are also fairly low because each girl only has to do a chore every 21 days, meaning each resident spends two thirds of her month in leisure. The costs of living in a clean home are then minimized by the existence of a house manager as compared to other housing situations for UVA students that lack such a constitution.