Renting

Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours. Baby boomers rediscover the joy of having a roommate.

“Financially, it works out great. And I don’t think I want to live alone.”

Rhea Becker keeps her stuff in in the left cupboard in the pantry, while her roommate has his on the right. John Tlumacki/Globe staff

By Megan Johnson

March 13, 2024

5 minutes to read

Rhea Becker, 65, was writing a book about living with roommates. Then she made a few poor choices in housemates.

“I realized: Oh, man, I don’t think I know what I’m talking about,” Becker said. “If I can’t do it myself, it’s hard to teach somebody else.”

A former journalist who runs a home organization business called The Clutter Queen, Becker never finished the book. But she did decide to dive back into living with a roommate. After a few years of living alone, she felt increasingly lonely after her dog died. When she moved into a new Jamaica Plain apartment in September, she decided to share the unit with someone else.

“I can afford to live on my own, but I don’t want to, because I just have a much richer experience when I have a good housemate,” said Becker, who advertised in the neighborhood. She hit it off with a man who responded, and he moved in shortly after that.

After a few years of living alone and her dog’s death, Rhea Becker decided to try having a roommate again to combat the loneliness.

The shoes, hers and her roommate’s, are lined up in the apartment.

Becker is just one of the 76 million people born in the United States from 1946 to 1964, the era known as the “Baby Boom.” Flash forward to the present day, and baby boomers are navigating their golden years with the same challenge as the rest of the Commonwealth: finding an affordable place to live. After all, it’s no secret that the cost of living in Massachusetts is astronomical. We have the fourth-most expensive rent in the country, and the median sale price for a condo in January was $507,000. Compounded by inflation, taxes, climbing mortgage rates, and a significant housing shortage, suitable residences are few and far between, particularly for those on a fixed income. To adjust, some baby boomers are returning to life with roommates.

Diverse circumstances

When a friend in his 60s needed a place to stay, Dennis Huddleston, 73, saw no reason not to rent out one of the rooms in his five-bedroom Marshfield home.

“For me to put out one bedroom is no problem,” Huddleston said. “We’ve got to take care of each other.” Of course, that doesn’t mean the duo spends all their waking hours together. “We’re a couple of guys. We’re grumpy. We don’t really talk that much,” he said.

While the cost of living is one of the primary motivations for having a roommate, it’s far from the only one.

After his partner of 30 years died of cirrhosis and kidney failure in 2010, John Young found himself living alone in his 3,000-square-foot home in Dorchester’s Melville Park.

“I was totally unprepared,” Young, 83, said.

When Young discovered that a friend was living in the woods, he offered him an empty room in his home. That jump-started Young’s journey, prompting him to take in 25 to 30 roommates over the years. Primarily gay men working toward sobriety, the roommates are not permitted to use drugs or alcohol. They pay $500 in rent per month, plus utilities and other expenses, but the financial benefits aren’t Young’s motivation.

“Clearly, I’m not into it for the money,” said Young, who worked for years as an accountant and director of finance for nonprofits and has four men living in his house. “I am into it because I was afraid of being alone. And I thought, you know what? This house functions much better if it’s full.”

When her cousin’s 20-year relationship ended abruptly, Ann Marie Trainor, 68, invited her to move into her three-bedroom home in West Newton. At the time, Trainor was caring for her sister, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at 58 years old, and welcomed the extra set of hands.

“And she ended up staying,” said Trainor, who thinks she’s the oldest resident on a street filled with young families. “Financially, it works out great. And I don’t think I want to live alone.”

Trainor knows how lucky she is to own the home she grew up in, and presumes she wouldn’t be able to live there if she didn’t have a roommate. After all, houses in her area (“little saltboxes!”) sell for around $800,000. She’s received phone calls asking if she’s interested in selling the house, particularly after family members’ obituaries ran in the newspaper, but she has no intention of leaving. Her cousin pays the cable and phone bills, and they split food costs. Trainor doesn’t charge her rent.

“If I needed money, I know I could go to her,” she said.

Big transitions

Tom Baechle, 77, left Cleveland for Plymouth last year with his brother, 80. The siblings built and moved into a three-story home in The Pinehills with Tom’s son Alec and his wife, Kathryn, who had relocated from St. Paul. Tom and his brother wanted to live on the first floor, and Alec and Kathryn needed workspaces on their level. It was a “big change” for all of them, particularly after Baechle lived alone for about 30 years. But there are also benefits. He didn’t see his son much when he lived in Minnesota, and he considers it a bit of a throwback to generational living.

“It’s been a really big transition. We’re all adjusting to the idea of living in the same space. I think it’s gone remarkably well,” said Baechle, noting that the biggest struggles are learning to deal with communal areas like the kitchen, garage, and laundry room. Still, he believes “the pluses outweigh the challenges.”

Making it work

Living with a roommate into your golden years has its challenges. Nina Hasin, who is in her 60s, has rented in the same Jamaica Plain three-decker for 35 years. Whenever she interviews prospective roommates, the semi-retired editor makes sure they will care for her cats when she spends two months each winter in Oaxaca, Mexico. But they also have to adhere to her standard of living when she’s at home.

“It is basically saying, all right, this is the way I’ve lived for the past 30 years, and I’m not going to change,” said Hasin, a self-described cleanliness nut.

As for Becker, she may have ditched the book about living with roommates, but she does adhere to one piece of advice from that era: She recommends that anyone looking into prospective roommates conduct “the toothbrush test.”

“If you’re meeting somebody, and you’re considering living with them, picture in your mind if you can see this person’s toothbrush next to yours,” Becker said. “Is that going to be good, or is that going to creep you out?”

Send comments to [email protected]. Follow Megan Johnson on X @megansarahj and Address @globehomes.

Megan Johnson

Correspondent

Megan Johnson is a Boston-based writer and reporter whose work appears in People, Architectural Digest, The Boston Globe, and more.

Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours. Baby boomers rediscover the joy of having a roommate.