On housemates, houses and landlords
Housing Awareness Week at the University of Surrey has just passed around the corner, so I hope a good number of you made use of the information on offer. However for those of you who weren't listening, or are simply a little bit behind on what’s happening on campus these days (this is usually me), here are my tips from experience.On finding a house:
- Find out what is important to you in terms of location to university and shops, ease of access to transport, the price and the amount of space. Be prepared to make compromises with your housemates. Then you can start looking for a house that will suit everyone.
- Try to not get distracted by the current tenants’ belongings – look out for evidence of mould or damp, whether the house has adequate locks for security, is it easy to keep warm?
- Ask what furniture and appliances will stay with the house when you move in and what you might want to supply yourself.
- Check whether any bills are included in the rent. Water bills usually are.
By second or third year, I bet you feel you have a pretty good idea who your true friends are. Even better if you have friends that you feel share the same values as you in terms of cleaning, sharing and your place on the sliding scale of money vs. comfort. Well done! But once living together, you might find you’re not so similar after all. People have different ideas of what is clean or how often cleaning should be done, so that bitching session you had together about a previous housemate isn't necessarily a good indicator of your friend’s perspectives.
If problems do arise, try to solve them face to face rather than leaving notes. If you don’t think you’ll be comfortable being honest with the friend in question, then question whether you are going to be compatible as housemates. You don’t have to ruin a friendship this way!
On landlords:
If you have trouble communicating or negotiating with a landlord, university Student Advice centres are really helpful for sorting out queries and giving you a clear idea of the usual procedures. They might also know a bit about the landlord to inform you what they are like.
Meanwhile, it’s been fun browsing through the estate agent brochures that come through the door, imagining what I might do with that £3m+ house in Godalming or Haslemere.
I wish you the best of luck on your housing adventure, and leave you with some pictures of some utterly cool and crazy houses from around the world:
Read the rest of The Stag Issue 56
On landlords:
If you have trouble communicating or negotiating with a landlord, university Student Advice centres are really helpful for sorting out queries and giving you a clear idea of the usual procedures. They might also know a bit about the landlord to inform you what they are like.
Meanwhile, it’s been fun browsing through the estate agent brochures that come through the door, imagining what I might do with that £3m+ house in Godalming or Haslemere.
I wish you the best of luck on your housing adventure, and leave you with some pictures of some utterly cool and crazy houses from around the world:
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| Cubic houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands) |
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| The UFO house, (Sanjhih, Taiwan) |
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| The smallest house in Great Britain (Conwy, Wales) |
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| Cut straight into the rock: stone house (Romania) |
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| Real-life Hobbit-like house (Wales) |
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| Another upside-down house |
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| The Crooked House (Sopot, Poland) |
Read the rest of The Stag Issue 56
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