House Share Or House Scare?

Pamela Kokoszka shares her concerns about sharing.

Whether you are a student or young professional, one of the most realistic ways of finding somewhere to live is to share.

At any one time there might be over a 1000 rooms in shared houses advertised on sites like SpareRoom.co.uk. You get somewhere to live, and you get to meet people. So what could go wrong?

Well the search can for a start. It can take weeks. Either you get rejected – again and again – and/or you find yourself wasting a lot of time looking at places that do not look like they did in the pictures, because the house is actually in terrible condition, or the current tenants are messy; or as often happens, the landlord seems dodgy.

Then there are the times when you find a place that you love and the meeting with the landlord goes really well, and they say you are perfect for the house and promise you they will get back to you in the morning, but don’t  –  and when you call them to find out what’s going on they tell you they are mysteriously no longer interested in renting out the room, and so you are back where you started – only more tired and more despondent.

But what about when the search is over. You have found somewhere. So the worst must be over too, mustn’t it?

The problem sometimes is that when you first arrive everyone is on their best behaviour and the house is spotless. But then you begin to see the truth. You realise that the delightful tenants are in fact a nightmare. They leave dirty dishes in the sink, don’t clean up after themselves and use your stuff without your permission.

You try and talk to them about it but they don’t care: they were there first so you have no say. So you have to go through the landlord, and they promise to talk to the others, but don’t.

Or you might be sharing a bathroom, which doesn’t seem like a big deal until everyone tries to get ready at the same time in the morning. So you have to completely change your morning and evening routine so that you can work around everyone else – or else you might end up having to run out of the house with unwashed hair and smelly breath.

In fact I was very lucky and found a place that was perfect. And importantly my friend and I moved in first, and two other tenants moved in afterwards – once we had settled in. There are two bathrooms and everyone has a different schedule, so getting ready is never a problem; and despite all of us being very different, we get along fine and communicate well. The important thing is that we all respect each other.

But some of my friends weren’t so lucky. A friend told me about a house he moved in to that seemed all right at first, but gradually became so overcrowded it was like a homeless shelter. In the end there were four rooms and with ten tenants! He was lucky to have a room of his own, but the other nine had to share three rooms, with all of them sharing one living room. The landlord only cared about the rent – and did not care about the living conditions.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from looking for a shared house, but if you are just arriving in East London be careful. Do some careful research, and ask some difficult questions. Optimism is not good enough.