Are bedsits a thing of the past?

dekaspace

The bedsits I am used to are more as said somewhere between studio flat and HMO basically a large room with its own lock (though had small rooms too) shared things like toilets and cooking though one or two did have those mini hobs/ovens in(which I hated as was too cramped plus meant I had to pay more as it was meters in every room)

I would assume in part too its due to changes in law over past 10 years, I remember that there has to be locks on all HMO doors that must have latches on the inside incase a fire and tenant loses keys.

My experiences of bedsits were mostly old fashioned i.e victorian buildings that had been semi modernised i.e must of been the late 80s or early 90s that had larger rooms and sometimes more than 1 kitchen and multiple bathrooms (though most were just toilets) They were cold in winter as landlords were putting heaters on low but as the rooms were so big you had everything you wanted there and a large kitchen to do cooking then another one was a old home above a bar that had been converted into bedsits, again large rooms but opposite in the heating was too hot, very old furniture but I loved it.

Only ever had 1 tiny room in a bedsit and that happened to be the one with the hob, and the pipes used to make popping sounds all the time and bubble over as next to laundry room.

But all my experiences were better than living in flats which are lonely lives, I only stay in flats due to space as I have a lot of stuff.

thesaint

As far as I am aware, there is no legal definition of a bedsit, or studio flat.

What people call them is personal preference.

Contessa

I remember the famous "Cooking in a bedsit" cookbook that was so popular in that era and was written specifically for people having to live in those circumstances. I had a copy of it myself.[/QUOTE]

By Katherine Whitehorn? I still have a tattered old copy which I keep for old times' sake and can still remember a couple of the meals I cooked and the friends who were there. And their comments:(

Fortunately, I now have better cooking facilities although the results are not much better.

moneyistooshorttomention

Yep...that's the one.

Haute cuisine it wasnt:rotfl:. There was NO way I was going to try that tripe recipe - but I did work my way through a noticeable number of the other recipes.

I eat in a very different way these days...

EDIT; Is the new house still working out well?

Davesnave

AdrianC wrote: »

Since people didn't really have the same standards of personal hygiene back then, that was less of an issue.

Huh?

I was in a shared room (hostel) in at the end of the 1960s and I had a bath every day, as did a number of other young men living there....err, with a few notable exceptions.

When I moved on to a shared house, a bath there used to cost 3 old pence, which one had to feed into the gas meter prior to firing the geyser up. Primitive, but effective.

Wasn't just splash on the Lynx in those days!

MerrilyA

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I would define studio apartment as being self-contained.

I remember having to live in bedsits donkeys years ago - and what I had was one room and I shared the bathroom/s and one house had a shared garden (that none of us bothered with basically).

I thought HMO's were where people rented a bedroom each and shared ALL communal facilities (ie kitchen and sitting room)? Which I would call "house-sharing", rather than "renting a bedsit".

In bedsits one doesnt need to have anything to do with anyone else living in the house - because you do only share the bathroom/s basically. In the event - in both houses of bedsits I lived in I became friends with a couple of the other people living there - but that was choice (not necessity) iyswim.

There are different styles of HMOs, some people share bathrooms, kitchens and living room space. Others may have an en suite and share just the kitchen and living room. Some rooms also have kitchenettes and tv's so they are pretty much self-contained.

cloo

There's a couple on our street, including the house next door, which is very well kept and neat. I think that all the residents are Polish and I wonder if many HMO landlords might have a preference to rent to Poles for example (my mum, who is from Eastern Europe always says that Poles, Slovaks, Czechs etc are tidy and respecting of property) so maybe a lot of rooms go by word of mouth within certain communities these days?