Shared Living

Today I am not going to do a post on Valentine's day, which was yesterday, but instead take the time to have a waffle about the ups and downs of shared living. Now so far for me, my whole life has been shared living, but I am not going to count the years I spent living with my parents (although some would argue that this is where you learn the principles of share housing), no today's post is going to be drawn upon my last two year's experience couch surfing, subletting and dodgy leasing.

In the last two years, my quality of living has been as follows: A brief stint in my aunt and uncle's spare room, a shared room above a pub in Camden, a packed-to-the-rafters town house in Marylebone, a small flat (or house they might call it) in Glasgow, a couch in a friend's place in North Finchley, a brief stint in a friends flat in Battersea, a decent sized flat in Archway, a first floor flat on the edge of Camden Town and a fourth floor flat in Paris's troisième arrondissement. I think it is a pretty decent resume of living experiences, but you be the judge. In each of these places, I have learnt various things that annoy people, bring them closer together and in some case boarder on the edge of just being weird. I also know the pains of having a landlord that either doesn't know you're living there or simply doesn't give a crap if you are.

So, leaving out the parts of my life living with family, what I have learnt from share housing is that the number one rule is quiet often to look after yourself. Yes, it sounds harsh, but the truth is that unless you're living with friends, your other housemates are probably planning on robbing you, killing you, keeping you up, breaking your stuff or simply being a downright nuissance. Ok, this is not 100% true (probably barely even 50% true) but it is what it feel like during the first few weeks of moving in. The key is to respect whoever you're living with, because if you respect them then, in theory, they'll respect you. I've been lucky that just about everyone I have lived with has been pretty tame, although some could make a mess that would put garbage island (you know, that monstrosity of mankind floating in the pacific) to shame. The most interesting and fun and eye-opening experience for me is that I lived with stacks of people at one point in the Marylebone townhouse.

In the summer of 2015, I moved out of the shared room above the pub in Camden, which was driving me nuts as I was sick of being at work all the time and having no privacy, and into a spacious room in Marylebone. It was a god send. So strict had the rules been back at the pub, this new place felt like a paradise where I could come and go as I pleased and throw parties and stay up all night drinking because the others didn't care or simply joined in. In true Aussie fashion, the original occupants had all been British, but as soon as my mate from back in the Barossa had moved in (the one who'd notified me about the room in the room going up in the first place), he opened up the doors to multiplication and soon us Aussies and Kiwis outnumbered the Brits 7/4. Yes, in this place there was eleven of us living there, that we knew of, but at any given time there would be someone crashing on someone's couch or passed out on someone's floor and it brought the total probably closer to 15. What I learnt from this is that you pretty much constantly had to be ok with noise at all hours, dishes in the sink that stacked to the ceiling, no toilet paper, both bathrooms constantly in use, the fridge always full of stuff that never seems to be yours and the sinister smell of something rotting, somewhere, but you're never quite sure exactly.

I've decided to list this place first in this post as it pretty much sums up most of anyone's experiences in a share house. There was illegal subletting going on (Me, my mate upstairs, my three other mates sharing the room above me, my three other other mates sharing the basement, and the guy in the attic, all when there was only four people listed on the lease and only one of them currently living there), there was theft of property (no one ever seemed to have food and my beer seemed to last for a lot less than it should), uncouth weirdness that you had to tolerate (one of my housemates came home after a shift at 1am to find attic guy tripping on acid in the kitchen, also my mate had a strange habit of tossing food he no longer wanted to eat out of his window on the third floor, so there was always foxes or pigeons hanging around a left over pizza or sandwich on the sidewalk out front), noise (the guy below me would always play really loud reggae that would shake the house until late a night, all the while the smell of weed would fill the whole first floor, the funny thing was, though, that he was tall and ginger), and the list goes on. Eventually my stint in this house had to come to an end though, as fun as it was, as the person I was subletting from returned from Africa. I would later find out that the house was then sold soon after by the actual person who owned it and thus the awesome reign of 22 Broadley St came to an end.

After the Marylebone house, I moved to Glasgow with my third-floor, pizza-throwing mate, and leased a small, second floor flat with him (although, in Glasgow, all the flats look exactly the same, have the same floor plan and I think are called houses). What I learned in this house is that sometimes it is best to really check what your signing for when you start the lease and that you learn things about your friends that you never knew. First off, when we moved in, we were so excited and signed the lease so quickly that we didn't realise that none of the doors closed properly (my mates room didn't even have a door), the shower was leaky, the heating was only operating at 60%, the water tank in the ceiling constantly overflowed into the neighbour's yard and the washing machine was unbalanced, but hey, they threw in some couches for free.

Yes, always check what you're signing for as it took us nearly two months to sort most of these problems once we'd moved in. So little did our landlord seem to care that, to this day (as my mate still lives there), the doors still don't work, not to mention that one of the tradies that came to fix the water tank (who we later  suspected was actually the landlord) left his ladder and never came back for it, so... free ladder. On top of all this, understand that you will also be spending a lot of time around your friend, especially if this is the first time you've done this. What you will quickly learn is whether or not they clean, are tidy, shower regularly or have any other weird quirks you don't know about. I was lucky with my friend, who I lived quite happily with due to similar humour, thoughts, ideas and level of stupidity. The only real hiccup was there were times we'd go days barely speaking to one another as a result of busy schedules and different sleeping hours. What this created was an eerie lonely feeling that would linger about the place, if you can imagine being alone in a house which you occupy with someone else.

In regards to couch surfing, it is a great way to get through a couple days when you're between flats and on the hunt for somewhere to live, or are just visiting somewhere, but do not consider it for long term (My girlfriend actually managed to pull it off for five months). For a number of reasons, couch surfing should always be temporary. First off, couches are uncomfortable, second, you do not want to seem like any over-staying guest, third, it is quite awkward waking up to a house of people you've never met (if the person who is letting you stay has flatmates*), fourth, you will never really get your say when it comes to any decisions being made in the house, and the list goes on. Naturally you must be polite and offer to return the favour whenever the other person needs a place to crash. Personally I repay the host with a carton of beer, or offer to do the shopping once or twice.

In London I stayed on a couch where they did not have a spare key to give out and unfortunately the key was needed to leave the flat. As a result, I was sometimes stuck in the flat until someone came home from work to let me out (Unless I fancied dropping out of a first floor window into the neighbour's yard). The experience was quite similar to what I imagine a dog or cat going through.

To wrap things up, share housing is an interesting and often exciting way of living, if you do it right. Make sure you're respectful, don't do drugs (and if you do, share them), and don't steal stuff. I'm not exactly sure where I was going when I started writing this post so forgive me if it seems a bit muddled, random, or doesn't really go anywhere**, the main point is that I hope you enjoyed it and have gained a little bit of insight as to my  living experiences abroad. I must say, however, that I am looking forward to having my own place one day where I can do what I want and no one can stop me, not even the government, or that one annoying neighbour that seems to live on every street, or the cops, where I can build a giant ball pit and breed snakes and stay up all night playing video games and eating junk food and forgive me for making this such a long post, bye.

*It is also a bit weird being a flatmate and coming home to find some stranger on your couch in your living room

**To any future employers who may be reading this, please understand that I am usually better than this, I was just tired, hungry, and doing it all for the sake of humor

***What? there was a third footnote? Where?****

****There wasn't