I live in a co-op. You may have heard of them. They’re those “really grimy, dirty houses on campus where people don’t shower and grow excessively long body hair.” Or at least, that’s what they are to those who have been too frightened by the prospect of dirt to actually walk inside.

But here’s where I separate fact from fiction. Yes, I’ve never had to wait in line for one of five showers in Columbae (interpret as you will), but no, we are not Neanderthals, more related to apes than humans.

In fact, I’m going to make a bold statement. After having spent a year in a freshman dorm followed by a housed sorority, Columbae is by far the cleanest of the three.

No, really, I’m dead serious. Okay, maybe it’s all psychological, but hear me out.

For those of you completely unfamiliar with the co-op lifestyle, let me break it down. Life in a co-op means no cleaning staff and no chef. Through a system of weekly and bi-weekly jobs, we do all of our own chores. It doesn’t really matter what individual job you sign up for–whether it’s scrubbing the woodblock after lunch or tidying the common area or cooking dinner; taken all together, the job system ensures that daily life in the house runs smoothly.

As someone who never did her own laundry growing up, I had the sudden realization in college that dirty clothes would–well–stay dirty if I didn’t wash them myself. Living in a co-op has taught me the same lesson about cooking and cleaning. Plates that aren’t washed stay unwashed. Common areas that collect clutter stay cluttered. And toilets that don’t get scrubbed…let me just say that they get really gross.

How long does it really take to wash out your cereal bowl in the morning before running off to class? Not long enough to make you significantly later, but just long enough to justify leaving it for someone else. And once the first dirty dish is left in the sink, forget trying to stave off the tide of dirty dishes that will follow in its footsteps. Unfortunately, that’s the reigning mentality in most houses: creating a mess entitles you to bequeath cleaning it to someone else. Most people clean their own rooms when necessary, but when it comes to the kitchen or the lounge, the tragedy of the commons is hard at play. And why wouldn’t it be, when messes magically disappear overnight with the arrival of the cleaning staff in the morning?

There’s no way to prevent messes or clutter. After all, we’re college students! We’re bound to raid the pantries at all hours and scatter crumbs all over the floor, drop our books in the computer cluster and then forget about them or amass upwards of twenty cups in our rooms. That part will never change. It’s how you deal with the mess that makes all the difference.

Things are far from perfect in co-ops. I’ll be the first to admit that neat freaks might want to reconsider pre-assigning to Columbae. But from everything I’ve seen, people in co-ops take more pride in their living space than most anywhere else. Maybe we don’t clean up our messes as well as a maid might, but in general, co-op residents have learned to take ownership of the individual impact they can have on the community. It’s the job system that kick-starts this incredible community buy-in. Instead of hating cleaning up, people learn to love the sound of “Hobart!” as a sign to flock to the kitchen and help unload dishes and silverware. Weekly cleaners blast music and sing as they pot-wash. Dinner cook crews have life-chats while chopping carrots. Ideally, the system creates a community of individuals who wash their dishes not because they have to, but because they truly care about respecting not only their own living space, but that of all other fifty residents.

You’d think people would free-ride, but somehow, they generally don’t. Shirking your weekly job makes you look bad in front of all your peers. Furthermore, as much as the time commitment is hard, the satisfaction makes up for it. Whenever you make a positive impact on the house, you feel a sense of connection to your community; these small actions on the part of individuals on behalf of the whole are what makes co-ops not just survive, but thrive.

Last Tuesday, I spent approximately six hours baking English muffins for the house. And while I cursed my life flipping 250 individual balls of dough over a hot griddle at 1 a.m., there was nothing like the feeling of satisfaction after I had pulled the last batch out of the oven. Knowing that you that you defied the laws of physics and made this chaotic universe a little less chaotic (take that, Newton’s 2nd law!) is, in a word, awesome.

Leslie’s always looking for baking partners, so email her at labrian “at” Stanford “dot” edu.