to think that boarding houses could come back into fashion (not boarding schools)

That's what they used to be called in the UK too.
Boarding houses were once the home of the lonely elderly population here, often located at seaside resorts. The landlady would provide meals on top of the cost of a room and shared bathroom.

I can see HMO's increasing with tenants sharing kitchens and bathrooms, but not "lodgings" as used to be because of so many tightened regulations around food hygiene etc plus people simply wouldn't accept "eat what you're given".

I remember Guest Houses from the 60's onwards. Lots of house rules (no room occupation between 10am and 4pm for example no matter what the weather) and very limited choices at meals. If you didn't like any of the food on offer you went hungry or went out to eat at your expense.

I can't see that coming back.

I think boarding houses used to be quite a particular phenomen which could exist due to:

• women who couldn't really work outside of the home, who had time to cook & clean for tenants
• women who were widowed (eg after wars) needing a source of income
• some rather big old houses owned by families fallen on harder times needing money
• few safety regulations & no licensing regimes for HMOs, no background checks of landlords, no mortgage providers limiting rooms being rented, no monitoring/, few tax implications

So you might have had a large old house owned by a genteel widow fallen on hard times, no income or mortgage so willing to rent cheaply, with four or five people each renting rooms, it could be quite sociable dining etc.

Nowadays?

• most people with a house large enough do not need the money
• most homes are small and people often don't have many empty/unused rooms
• regulations and tax impact mean its not worth it for the effort
• heavily mortgaged people who'd need it most may not get the permission from mortgage provider
• women have a wealth of other ways to earn money

There's a balance isn't there?

When I was at university in the early 1990s nobody had ensuite accommodation except certain very wealthy overseas students who didn't mix with the 95% of students in the shared bathroom basic halls, or who rented cheap terraced houses together where the living room had often been turned into a bedroom too and the kitchen was the only shared space, and everyone would share one toilet and bathroom.

I even knew someone who sublet someone else's walk in wardrobe with a bed in it - obviously that wasn't technically legal!

Now parents seem to believe their late teens need an ensuite (maybe because halls are no longer single sex) and an astronomically higher percentage of teenagers go to university, so of course prices have skyrocketed and accommodation is harder to find.

Spare room dot com is testament to the fact people have been renting out rooms to paying guests on a fairly large scale in recent decades, just as they always have...

My db was at uni in Manchester and he was at a similar set up back in 1994. The landlady was an arse, but it worked out for him as a student and he met so many lovely people along the way, even a neighbour that didn’t get in with the landlady who he was still friends with until her passing about 2 years ago.

My dd had ‘weekdays only’ lodgers for a couple years - it helped to pay the mortgage. I don’t know what the limit is now, but there was quite a hefty tax free allowance for having lodgers in your own home.

They certainly did exist here in the UK. In my town there was a dreadful fire in one and many men died, think it was in the early 60s.

Yes, set dinner at a set time. That was also what it was like in college accommodation for people training to be nurses or teachers. You ate what was provided at the time it was provided!

Compared to when I was at university, some modules taught into the evenings, students had jobs so were eating at different times. There were many people who were veggie, vegan, dairy-free, ate halal etc. There is no way a large shepherds pie with carrots and peas dished up at 6pm on the dot would work!

Boarding houses were places where that landlady served you breakfast and dinner, at set times, and you got what you were given. Can't see many people going for that nowadays - there are so many fad diets etc, plus people just expect to have choice and flexibility over what they eat.

I went on a three month course in Harlow, Essex, to gain qualifications in my job and all of the students on the course, apart from a couple who lived fairly locally, were put up with families in the area. This would have been around 1989.
I lived with an elderly woman and her little dog. She certainly cooked an evening meal and probably there was toast or cereal or something for breakfast but I can’t remember if a packed lunch was provided. She asked if I liked egg and chips and I said yes, so virtually every evening meal was egg and chips!
She was a nice lady though and we’d sit and watch the soaps in an evening.
at one point there were two of us girls living there as our courses overlapped.
I had to come home every weekend as weekend accommodation was not included and she often had her granddaughter to stay then anyway. So it was a long drive back to the Midlands on a Friday afternoon and back again on a Sunday evening.
We kept in touch for some years with occasional letters but she died many years ago.
I also remember seaside b&b holidays and wasn’t keen on those as I felt so self conscious as a teenager trailing into the dining room after my parents and also was (still am) a really fussy eater so meals were a nightmare. I also hated having to share a room with my parents, a shared bathroom with other guests and the general lack of privacy. Now I’d always opt for self catering or an anonymous chain hotel!

Seaside boarding houses:

I went to school in Blackpool in the 60s. Lots of my friends’ mums ran boarding houses. Those weren’t what some people are describing above, they were what’s now called guest houses and B &Bs. Breakfast was provided and usually an evening meal. Most “visitors” stayed for a week. The family lived in the same house: I imagine they squashed up during the summer so there were more letting rooms available. Link.

Boarding accommodation for students

Several of my friends went on to training colleges, to learn how to teach. That was a 3 year course, possibly with a further year to get a degree - BEd mostly. Their college provided accommodation and all meals. If you were on a “full grant” (the means-tested government grant you got to study, happy days) it went partly to the college and partly to the student for their other expenses. All my friends were put up in family houses, as suggested by the OP, having breakfast there and lunch and dinner in college already paid for. If you ate out there was no refund! Very few training college students I knew had independent arrangements. If they didn’t get a full grant their parents were expected to give them money to make the total the same. Presumably the parents had to pay the college (amount dependent on income) for the accommodation and meals if they were really high earners, but I didn’t know anyone like that.

I imagine this system stopped when training colleges became universities - but others may know differently.

Where I live now there are lots of (foreign) language schools. Many arrange for their students to live with families, who usually provide breakfast and supper. The school arranges this, charges the parents and pays the family. I’ve noticed an increasing tendency for the language schools to build or buy accommodation blocks, which are like university halls of residence. They probably make more money that way and it saves them having to find host families. It also gives the students more independence.

An old lady in my DM’s (dementia) care home, told me more than once very crossly that another resident still owed her nine quid for the previous week’s rent!

How long ago she’d had lodgers goodness only knows - must have been decades for £9 a week - but she evidently thought the care home was her own boarding house. 😂

When I first started working in London I lived in lodgings, this was mid 80s.

It was in a flat in a mansion block in Earls Court, the landlady was quite grand and a senior civil servant although her housekeeping was shambolic and the flat hadn't been modernised since the 1920s! She rented out three rooms, to girls only but all of us were out most of the time.

There were compromises but it was very cheap, I think people today think they are entitled to more and want brand new accommodation all to themselves.

I had a few days in a student residence in Newcastle this summer. Bedsit with shower, desk and mini kitchen. Communal lounge, gym, laundry, cinema room and party kitchen. £38 a night on AirBnB when hotels were over 100.
I’d have loved that when I was a student, instead of mouldy ramshackle student flats (now selling for €1m) in Rathmines!

My parents' generation (born 1940s) used lodgings, like a boarding house, if they needed to work away from home for a while. It was a room rented in someone's house with shared bathroom and the owner (usually an older woman) would cook breakfast and an evening meal at set times. Also do laundry. It was company for the homeowner too as I think they'd watch tv together in the evenings sometimes.

I've been a lodger in the 2000s and it was a very different experience. Room provided but had to do own meals - working around other people in a shared kitchen and usually the home owner made it pretty clear they didn't really want you there and limited access to the kitchen!

I can't imagine the first set up working now!

I lived in a convent run boarding house/student digs for a bit which was pretty miserable. The nuns only allowed the kitchen electriticty on for 90 mins in the evening so if your turn was last then they switched the electricity off whilst you were boiling your pasta. Dads weren't allowed in any part of the building, some days you weren't allowed to cook and had to eat their evening meal which was rationed into tiny portions.

I also was a lodger to a lady who was verbally abusive.

Both places didnt allow boys so i had to always go to the man's place to have sex (and in the case of the convent had to stay until the next day as the front door was locked at 10)

However i did stay in a lovely student digs type place for under 25s (you didnt need to be a student) which was great as it was run by a company and very geared towards younger people.

Places like the third would be great for young people as you met so many people like yourself and i made friends for life.

That sounds lovely. The advantage of that over a shared house is that, given one person becoming a problem, there is no politics or an ugly tussle required to get them out- the landlady can step in and do it.

When I went back to uni a year after graduating to do a masters, I lived in a big house in Highgate. It was owned by an elderly lady who had lived there all her life and she rented out six rooms to students. We all had access to a kitchen (separate to hers) and several ancient bathrooms with baths so big you would bob around in them, and malachite tiles.

One day I let the meter reader in and he (knowing the house) opened a door in the hall that I always thought was a boot cupboard, and walked down quite a big staircase into a massive cellar, where the meter was.

Happy days! The students all got along great, and the lady of the house really couldn't have lived in a house like that alone. I'm sure it is owned by an oligarch now, with a home spa and cinema in the basement.

We've had quite a few lodgers over time. You don't need to pay tax on income derived from letting out a room in your house - up to a certain amount.
It's a great way to boost your income if you have a spare room.

The other thing is that it's both easier and more expected that everyone can cook for themselves now. Back in the day, it wasn't even a given that women could cook, if they had grown up with servants. And you had to go out shopping in the daytime- to the butcher's for your meat, the greengrocers for the (inevitable) cabbage... Nowadays you can grab a ready meal from Tesco Metro at 9.00pm if you need, or order in from Just Eat.

Same with laundry- everyone has automatic washing machines and most have tumble dryers now.

They do still exist in some of the seaside towns but more from a short term holiday perspective than a student type set up. My husband and I stayed in one in West Wales for a race we were doing, a couple with a lovely house on the seafront ran it and had little tables set up in their front room for breakfast etc. You had to sign a book by the stairs for the fire alarm to say when you entered or left.

Isn't it a HMO? A house where people rent a bedroom (with its own lock) and share everything else? There are plenty of these in London. Its not a "normal" house share where someone rents a house and gets other people in (often going through interviews to see if they get on) or a group of people rent together - but rather a landlord putting random people in, sometimes of different sexes/ ages. Usually around 3-4 people per house.

Its grim, tbh.

I suppose people don’t want this sort of set up now. Young people want their privacy and to be able to have their friends over and not to have to be home for meals at a certain time etc. It also wouldn’t feel altogether safe to me to have a house full of strangers living with myself and my family, lots of them presumably younger single men.

I imagine it would have offered a good deal of protection for young women on their own, too. The dragon landladies may have been a hindrance to those wishing to smuggle a boyfriend in, but would have been a great excuse for anyone needing to shake off a persistent pest at the end of the evening.