Squashed cramped homes-how do people manage sharing cramped conditions?

sonastin

Living conditions haven't changed. DM's definition of "cramped" has changed.

jee

Ahhh DM eh?
I live in London- demand for property is very high and if you want to live in the city you take what you can. I recently had 150 responses to a rental property in a day...and the part of London it's in is not even that nice.
People make do.

FireWyrm

Many people are completely confused by the difference between truly cramped and homely. The DM article is chock full of comments from people who grew up in large families stuffed into small houses. The house I am currently living in would have been a standard Victorian two up two down in it's day and I know for a fact that my grandfathers generation would have fitted 12 or even 16 children into such a place. Children do not need their own room, what they need is a warm clean bed, good food and love. Incidentally, I'm convinced that half the obesity problem is due to this concept of 'one room per child' since instead of being kicked out of the house to play in the street with their friends as happened years ago, each 'child' now sits in 'their' room and plays on the xbox instead. There was a reason why there used to be hoards of kids out and about at the weekends....mother was washing the floor and she didn't want the kids underfoot.

As for not being able to buy a house, this is absolute nonsense. You can't buy in London, this is true, but seriously, large proportions of the country manage to live their entire lives without needing to live in London. There are jobs out here and still 3 bed houses on offer for under £150K, especially with the economic downturn. You just have to work for it. This is still perfectly feasible for a two parent unit earning about £25K each and having saved a 15% deposit by the simple expedient of not wasting money on the latest must have gadget. In my grandparents generation, money was spent on food, bills and mortgage only..anything else was a luxury.

phill99

I worked in Hong Kong for a while. They really live in cramped conditions. We were shown round some new build properties in the New Territories. A flat of 550 sq ft (which is less than juist one floor of the average three bed semi in the UK was designed to accommodate 6 people.

Cissi

Hmm, I guess we're adding to that statistic as we're in Greater London and our two children, aged 7 and 5, share a bedroom - even though that's their choice as we have 4 large bedrooms (they use one as their play room and we have a permanent guest room as we often have familly to stay for long periods of time. We could obviously easily do without the play room if we needed to).

Frankly, I grew up always having my own bedroom (as one of 3) and I'm sorry that my sister and I weren't made to share when we were younger... We never learned to get on, and to this day we don't have much of a relationship. My kids on the other hand are learning to get along and compromise from the start, and they're each other's best friend :T

muskoka

My Mother was one of 12 children in a 3 bed terrace in Liverpool. Now that's cramped...

domcastro

You should do your family tree then you'll see there were about 15 people in a 2 up 2 down. 3 generations at least per house

FireWyrm

My grandfather was 1 of 16 siblings. He grew up in a two up, two down near the docks in London. They didnt have indoor plumbing either, except for a tap in the kitchen. Somehow, they all managed just fine. I'm not saying that this should be the norm, we've moved on since then, but I see absolutely no problem with 2 or even 3 siblings sharing a single room. Indeed, when we moved here, we gave our two girls a room each for the first time in their lives. Do you know what.....? They spend the majority of the evening watching the TV in the eldest's room and then they have a 'sleep-over'. This isnt uncommon behaviour. I'm seriously considering putting them back in the same room again since they've clearly chosen that option by their behaviour.

breadlinebetty

DominicJ wrote: »

Move away from london?
£80k for a three bed terraced round my way.

Go to Ikea for furnishing ideas?

Where's YOUR WAY Dominic?

FireWyrm

£142K for a 3/4 bed terrace in Daventry...just 10 miles from either the M40 or M1...and close links for rail to London. £80K is probably further north, but I was seeing similar numbers in Swindon and the outskirts of Corby.