Falling frogs and late-night chats: How flat shares shaped me
In Pimlico, it’s the corridor conferences I’ll always look back on — the nights we stayed up debriefing about someone’s Tinder date on those red wine-stained carpets outside our rooms. In Balham, it’s probably that late-night A&E trip we had to make after Fran left the gas on downstairs. In Wandsworth, it’s a toss-up as to which ridiculous happening will stay with me the most: my flatmate Aoife would say it’s that Christmas party where she broke her foot trying to do the Mean Girls dance, but our guests would probably say it’s the frogs our upstairs landlords kept in their garden, which had a nasty habit of tumbling in through our windows. Come to think of it, actually – it has to be the falling frogs.
Say what you like about my decade of flat sharing in London, but it’s certainly given my boyfriend a run for his money if he wants my post-flat share chapter to be as memorable as the last few. In fact, contrary to what he and his predecessors might want to believe, the relationships I’ve formed with my various sets of flatmates over the years (13 across four flats and three boroughs, if my quick tally of old WhatsApp groups is correct) have been far more formative than any romantic partner — which strikes a chord, when I think of the baby-faced Gen-Zers being forced to move in with parents to afford a flat amid London’s rentaggeddon hell.
According to a new ONS study, rents in the capital hit a record high last month, and a separate report by Savills now forecasts an 18 per cent rise in UK rents over the next five years. With one in three Gen Zs living with family and increasing numbers entering into ‘inflationships’ to combat this (share a bed, halve your rent — go figure), I worry for my little sister and her generation — will they be able to afford to keep living with friends? Could the flat share be dying out? And will there be anyone left to live with, anyway, if half of London’s twenty-somethings are back at home watching Strictly with mum and dad?
For Gen Z’s sanity’s sake, I certainly hope so — especially when WFH culture means that home is a bigger part of our lives than ever. My years spent flat sharing between 21 and 31 might have been chaotic, messy, and wildly unpredictable – but that was exactly the magic of them: the fun jumble of characters under one roof, the intimacy of all those no-make-up, late night conversations, the camaraderie that comes from having to compose a message to your nightmare landlord or someone’s toxic ex or deciding who’s going to deal with the mouse at the bottom of the stairs before everyone goes to bed.
“It feels like a break-up,” one flatmate commented when the four of us hugged goodbye in our Wandsworth kitchen a couple of months ago. But the truth is the relationship between flatmates is unlike any other: after years of house parties, hangovers and hallway crisis meetings, you come to understand each other’s quirks, habits and sleeping patterns much more deeply than any partner does in just a matter of months. And speaking of partners, what’ll happen to young people’s love lives if we lose flat shares? Friends and The Big Bang Theory aren’t based on myths, kids: hookups through friends and their flatmates is one of the oldest wedding speech themes around. Just ask SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson, who met his now-wife after his flatmate began dating her friend.
Hutchinson says he worries about what today’s hyper-connected young people will miss out on without the rite-of-passage that is flat sharing. “It’s not just about independence. The people you meet through living with others can change your life,” he explains – an important message, as studies reveal Gen Z to be the loneliest age-group and scientists sound regular warning sirens about the dangers this kind of social isolation can have on our physical and mental health.
Having attempted nine months living alone at the start of my twenties, this loneliness point particularly resonates. Sure, I would probably have got more of my life admin done had I not opted to live with others, and I’d be lying to say there haven’t been moments I’ve turned my key in the door hoping I might have the kitchen to myself for a while — but have I ever regretted the resulting kitchen conversations when I wasn’t? Absolutely not. It might be a cliché, but I am a reflection of the strangers-turned-BFFs I’ve shared a roof with over the last decade — bad cooking and dodgy dancing included — and I am a better friend, partner and sister because of them.
I may have moved into my living-with-partner chapter now, but I’m still far from buying a house, and despite 95% of my friends being on the property ladder (don’t go to Durham University if you want to feel good about your salary), I don’t regret a thing. I often wonder whether many of them even realise what a parallel existence I’ve been living away from all the weddings and couples dinner parties over the years. Home for me has never been a quiet refuge, but a place where friendships are formed and DMCs are had and one minute you’re poaching your eggs and the next you’re deep into a group stalk of Aoife’s crush from school who wants to pop round to buy your old wardrobe on Facebook Marketplace. Exhausting? Yes. Lonely? Far from it. Frogs, A&E trips, dodgy landlords — I’ll take the lot of them. I just hope my Gen Z sister can look back and say the same in 2029.
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