Move in with friend or stay living alone?

pinkshoes

From your original post, it seems the disadvantages by far outweigh the advantages!! BT charge £125 to connect lines that have never been connected before, so i'm presuming your flat is relatively new, coz usually phone lines get connected, and the engineering doesnt come out. they just say they do to make the £125 sound like you're actually getting something for your money, but they just connect it using a computer!

The rat smell doesn't last long! just air it for a couple of days! (i'm presuming you meant pet rats, and not disease carrying vermin!).

Moving doesn't cost much at all. hire a man with a van for half a day (£40 or maybe less), or hire a car (as little as £20).

Badger_Lady

It sounds like a positive move to me - much better quality of living (for you and the cat!) and company to boot. As for your downsides:

misscomikcat wrote:

The girl who currently lives in the big bedroom has lots of rats and it STINKS. Would I be able to get rid of that smell?

Yeah...

No central heating and I suspect it would be freezing in the winter

What kind of heating has it got - storage? Or none at all? Has your friend lived there during winter and what did she think? Since it's a rented house, there should be standards of accommodation allowing you to keep fairly warm.

Having said that, I lived in a terrible house once (informally) with no insulation and no heating at all - I got some plug-in radiators and wore fluffy jumpers and I was fine for 3 years!

Could I get used to sharing again?

I lived on my own for 6 years and thought it was the bees knees. I was forced to rent a room from a stranger when I relocated and was terrified that I wouldn't get used to it - but actually, it was the most natural move ever, and we've become great friends!

I don't feel like my privacy's compromised at all (except there's less wondering around in the nuddy!), and I feel like I have more space because the house is much bigger than my little flat was.

Have to pay for bills: electric, gas, internet, phone

Yeah, but the rent's quite a bit cheaper and you'd be sharing the cost. Have you asked your friend what she currently pays? You're still likely to be on the positive side.

The expense of moving (I don't have a car and even though it's only a few miles away, I'm sure it would be extortionate to move)

It's a one-off cost for a long-term benefit. If there's only 1 of you, how much stuff do you have to move? You can hire a transit van for £40-ish for 1 day, and if your friend / other friends and relatives are happy to help, you could do it yourself in one day. Hard work, but not expensive.

If my friend moves out, I have to cover the extra rent or find a new housemate

Now, that is a risk... how likely is it that she could move out within the next, say, year? And how bouyant is the market - do rooms stay empty for long, or do they tend to be filled quite quickly? If you did have to pay the whole lot short-term, could you manage or would you be straight into arrears?

roses

Move in then move out again if you don't like it? The pros outweigh the cons. As you say, you think the rent you pay now is expensive so it shouldn't be a problem to find somewhere new if it doesn't wort out with the friend

A good carpet clean will get rid of the rat smell Just make sure the landlord checks the room thoroughly before you move in to make sure it is in a good state

grownupgirly

Just wanted to offer another suggestion: If you do want to stay living in your flat, go on the Freecycle website for your area and see if anyone is offering a cooker for free or advertise, asking for one. And a washing machine too. You never know, you may get one. Or there are probably churches (generally Vineyard churches) who give things like washing machines and cookers etc away for free to people who would struggle to find the money for stuff like that. Just a thought.

misscomickat

Badger_Lady wrote: »

Yeah, but the rent's quite a bit cheaper and you'd be sharing the cost. Have you asked your friend what she currently pays? You're still likely to be on the positive side.
It's a one-off cost for a long-term benefit. If there's only 1 of you, how much stuff do you have to move? You can hire a transit van for £40-ish for 1 day, and if your friend / other friends and relatives are happy to help, you could do it yourself in one day. Hard work, but not expensive.
Now, that is a risk... how likely is it that she could move out within the next, say, year? And how bouyant is the market - do rooms stay empty for long, or do they tend to be filled quite quickly? If you did have to pay the whole lot short-term, could you manage or would you be straight into arrears?

My friends flat has single glazing only, and the only heating is a storage heater and a gas fire in the living room (nothing in the bedrooms). My flat is centrally heated and lovely and warm.

If I move in to hers, I will end up buying a laptop so I can get on the internet so that's another expense.

I do have quite a bit of stuff to move as my flat is unfurnished so I have tables, chairs, double bed, everything I own. My boyfriend has said he will help me move so it would be do-able.

My friend is currently unemployed and looking for work. She has said she is quite open to getting a job elsewhere but would prefer to stay in the same place. If she moved out, I would have to get a stranger to move in as I don't know many people here. I can not live with a stranger, I have had too many awful experiences in the past.

Thanks for the above suggestion about freecycle. I am a member of my local freecycle and did get a bed through it some time ago. I have given up using it now though as anything decent seems to go straight away and people post too many "requests" and "taken" so it's hard to trawl through to find anything you may need.

I think with bills, the other place will be:
£250 rent
£15 internet
£6 phone rental
£50 ish for council tax
£?? electric and gas. I don't know but last time I had to pay it came to about £10 a week in winter for leccy and £5 for gas. So I guess about £30 a month.

So a total of about £350 which is only £20 less than what I pay now!

As for the rats...this girl keeps 8 of them! the smell is truly appalling.

Thanks for all the comments