Finding and Screening a Roommate, with specific Arizona resources.
A practical guide for renting a room in your home, especially when children live there.
1. Keep the search businesslike
Treat the arrangement as a business transaction from the beginning. Renting to friends, relatives, or acquaintances can make it harder to screen objectively, enforce rules, collect rent, or end the arrangement. A stranger who is thoroughly screened may be easier to live with than someone whose personal relationship creates pressure to make exceptions.
2. Advertising and first contact
Advertise the room without publishing your exact address. Give the general area, rent, basic household expectations, and the type of space being offered.
Use a separate email address or other contact method for initial inquiries if you prefer not to give applicants your personal information immediately.
Do not invite every person who responds into your home. Do an initial phone or video conversation first and meet promising applicants in a public place before a home visit.
Use the same basic screening criteria for every applicant. Housing laws apply to roommate arrangements, and the rules vary depending on the circumstances and location.
3. Questions to ask
Ask open-ended, practical questions rather than questions that invite an automatic yes or no:
- Where are you living now, and why are you moving?
- How long did you live in your last two homes?
- What is your work schedule and typical daily schedule?
- How will you be paying the rent?
- Tell me about a disagreement with a previous roommate and how you handled it.
- If you knew you could not pay rent on time, what would you do?
- How often do you normally have friends or overnight guests?
- What are your habits concerning smoking, alcohol, cooking, noise, cleaning, pets, parking, and shared household items?
- What kind of interaction do you expect with the other people in the household?
4. Verify rather than rely on the interview
A pleasant interview is useful but does not verify someone’s history. Before accepting an applicant, verify identity, income or employment, rental history, and references. Contact former landlords yourself. When possible, independently verify that the person you are calling actually owns or manages the former property.
5. Run a real tenant background check
Use a tenant-screening service rather than a generic people-search website. Tenant screening can include credit history, criminal records, eviction history, and other information. Consumer reports used for housing decisions are regulated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), so use a service designed for rental screening.
- TransUnion SmartMove – tenant screening for smaller property owners; reports can include credit, criminal, and eviction information.
- RentSpree Tenant Screening – screening packages powered by TransUnion that can include credit, criminal background, eviction history, and optional income/reference verification.
- FTC: Using Consumer Reports – What Landlords Need to Know – federal guidance on using tenant background reports and the FCRA.
6. Check references carefully
Ask for previous landlords or roommates, not only friends or relatives.
Ask former landlords whether the applicant paid as agreed, followed household/property rules, gave proper notice, and left owing money. Ask if they would rent to them again, and why or why not.
Do not assume a supplied phone number belongs to a landlord. Verify the property or management connection independently when practical.
Listen for inconsistencies between the application, interview, screening report, and references.
7. Red flags worth slowing down for
- Pressure to move in immediately or pay money before screening is finished.
- Changing or contradictory stories about employment, income, addresses, or previous roommates.
- Refusal or unusual reluctance to provide identification, screening authorization, or legitimate references.
- Requests to skip the written agreement, deposit, screening, or other rules you apply to applicants.
- Repeatedly testing or negotiating household boundaries before moving in.
- Hostility toward previous landlords or roommates combined with an inability to describe their own role in any conflict.
- A mismatch between stated income or employment and information that can be verified.
8. Children in the home
Screen for the realities of sharing a household with children. Establish expectations about guests, privacy, shared spaces, substances, weapons, noise, supervision, photographs/social media, and interaction with the children. The roommate should never become an assumed babysitter or caregiver unless a completely separate arrangement is intentionally made.
Pay particular attention to how an applicant orients toward the children specifically. Trust with children is something that develops through ordinary, incidental contact over time — it is not something a stranger is owed or should be angling for from the first conversation. Some things worth slowing down for:
- Unusual interest in the children early on — asking about their ages, schedules, routines, or personalities before or instead of asking the normal questions a roommate applicant would ask about the household.
- Volunteering, unprompted, to spend time with, help with, or be alone with the children before any relationship or trust has developed.
- Testing or pushing against boundaries you’ve set around the children specifically — supervision, privacy, physical contact, or access to their spaces — even in small or seemingly reasonable-sounding ways.
- Working to position themselves as especially safe, trustworthy, or good with children, rather than simply being a housemate and letting any relationship with the kids develop on its own, at your pace, under your supervision.
Do not let a person’s warmth toward children substitute for the rest of your screening process. Someone can be genuinely good with kids and still be a poor fit, and someone working hard to seem good with kids warrants more scrutiny, not less.
Do not let financial urgency lower the screening standard. It is reasonable to reject an applicant because the overall information leaves you uncomfortable sharing your home, provided your decision complies with applicable housing law.
9. Put the agreement in writing
Before anyone receives a key or moves belongings in, put the important terms in writing:
- Rent amount, due date, payment method, late-payment terms, and security deposit.
- Utilities and exactly how they are divided.
- Which rooms, storage areas, appliances, and parking spaces the roommate may use.
- Guest and overnight-guest rules.
- Smoking, vaping, drugs, alcohol, pets, noise, cleaning, food, and shared-property rules.
- Privacy expectations and bedroom access.
- Notice requirements and the procedure for ending the tenancy.
- Any household rules that are important enough that a violation could end the arrangement.
10. Know the law before accepting money
Once someone becomes a tenant, removing them may require formal notice and a legal eviction process. Check the landlord-tenant rules for your state and local area before taking a deposit, accepting rent, or giving someone a key. Also check fair-housing requirements and the FCRA rules that apply when screening reports are used.
11. Arizona-specific resources
If you are renting a room in your Arizona home, read the Arizona rules before accepting rent or giving someone a key. A roommate who pays or agrees to pay rent may legally be a tenant even if there is no written lease.
Arizona Courts: Evicting Guests, Roommates, Family Members, and Other Unwanted Occupants
Especially useful for someone renting a room in their own home. It explains the difference between a tenant and a guest and what happens if someone refuses to leave.
Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 33, Chapter 10)
The actual Arizona statutes governing most residential landlord-tenant relationships.
https://www.azleg.gov/arsDetail/?title=33
Arizona Courts: Landlord and Tenant Obligations
A much easier starting point than reading the statutes. It summarizes important responsibilities of Arizona landlords and tenants.
Arizona Courts: Landlord/Tenant Disputes and Eviction Actions
Central Arizona Courts resource for landlord-tenant disputes, notices, eviction procedures, forms, and legal-help resources.
https://www.azcourts.gov/selfservicecenter/Landlord-Tenant-Disputes-Eviction-Actions
Arizona Courts: Eviction Forms and Notices
Official Arizona forms for nonpayment of rent, lease violations, eviction complaints, summonses, and related procedures.
One important practical point: do the screening before allowing the person to move in. Once someone establishes a tenancy, deciding that the arrangement is not working does not necessarily mean you can simply tell them to leave, change the locks, or remove their belongings. Arizona notice and eviction procedures may apply.
12. A simple screening sequence
- Written inquiry or short application.
- Phone/video screening.
- Public-place meeting.
- Home visit for applicants who remain under consideration.
- Formal rental application and identity verification.
- Tenant background/credit/eviction screening.
- Income or employment verification.
- Independent reference checks.
- Second conversation to resolve discrepancies or remaining questions.
- Written agreement, deposit, and move-in only after screening is complete.
13. Useful links
- TransUnion SmartMove
- RentSpree Tenant Screening
- FTC landlord guidance on consumer reports
- FTC tenant background-check information
Note: This is a practical screening guide, not legal advice. State and local rules can affect screening, deposits, leases, discrimination protections, notices, and eviction procedures.
Click here to download the interview worksheet. Roommate Interview Worksheet
14. Where to get a room rental agreement
You do not have to write a rental agreement from scratch. Several services provide customizable rental agreements, including options designed for renting a room within a home.
For this situation, look specifically for a room rental agreement between a homeowner and the person renting the room. This is more appropriate than a generic roommate agreement intended for two people who are both tenants under someone else’s lease. A room rental agreement can address the private room as well as shared spaces, utilities, guests, household rules, parking, and other issues that matter when someone is living inside your home.
- Rocket Lawyer Room Rental Agreement – specifically designed for renting a room in a shared property, including when you own a home and want to rent out a bedroom.
- Avail Arizona Lease Template – provides a customizable Arizona-specific lease and supports electronic signing.
- Zillow Rental Manager – offers a lease-building tool for Arizona properties. Its Arizona leases are drafted to reflect rental laws generally applicable in the state.
A room-rental template should still be reviewed carefully rather than signed exactly as generated. Make sure it accurately describes the arrangement in your home and covers the household rules that matter to you.
If the arrangement is unusual, expected to be long-term, or involves an HOA, mortgage restriction, complicated property ownership, or another legal issue, having an Arizona landlord-tenant attorney review the agreement before anyone moves in can be worthwhile.