Shared rented houses and flats
Anyone who’s ever seen The Young Ones is familiar with the concept of the shared student house or flat and should regard it as a documentary as much as a sitcom.
Depending on the students, it is often squalid and unhygienic, but it’s home.
What’s available depends very much on where you study. For instance, in Edinburgh and Glasgow there are plenty of elegant tenement flats with high ceilings and a staircase to climb at least twice a day. (If you’ve seen Shallow Grave, you’ll know the sort of thing.) In Newcastle, you’re more likely to be in two-up, two-down, back-to-back terraced Victorian housing.
The standard of what’s available within a student’s budget is all over the place, depending on the demand and location. Since you’re likely to have to live out for at least some of your time at university (except possibly at Oxbridge), you should check out how easy and cheap it’s going to be, what you’re likely to get for your money and whether the university will help you find it.
The classic set-up is a place shared by between three and six students, splitting the rent and falling out over the bills.
Each house makes its own rules (or often they evolve by themselves) but, if you can avoid the pitfalls of arguments, it can be more economical and less hassle to share the cost and effort of shopping and cooking.
Last updated on: 21 May 2008