To ask why the Brits hate apartment-living?

[PaulaLollie]

Hi all, I have been living in the UK for a few years, but I am originally from Europe and I have lived in multiple countries before moving to the UK.

I have never understood why the Brits seem to be so into living in a house vs. living in an apartment.

Where I come from, the wealthy live in huge, renovated, fancy apartments in nice historical buildings, right in the city centre. That is "the dream" for most, if you see what I mean.

In my home country, living in a house most of the times means living in the countryside/ suburbs, which is not what most people aspire to do, if they have the means to live in the city centre. The concept of having a family = living in a house does not really exist.

For example, I come from a comfortable family background, went to private school, and grew up in an apartment. Nearly all my childhood friends did the same. It never crossed my mind that growing up in an apartment was anything less than ideal.

Here in the UK (as widely shown here on Mumsnet) it sounds like the dream is living in a house, while living in an apartment is really not that great if you have an alternative.

Please, British mumsnetters, can you shed some light on this aspect of the British society? I genuinely just don't get it!

Thank you!

I'm another Brit currently living in a lovely appartement in a French city, it's not huge but it's great for us. We don't need a garden ( have a big, well maintained, private communal area out the back where the D.C.'s run around with other kids and a massive park complete with zoo, lake. Botanic gardens just rond the corner). We are on the ground floor, and we never hear our neighbors upstairs (except over Passover weekend when they had 5 grandchildren visiting!) . All our other neighbours very much keep to themselves. And it enables us to live almost in the city centre with all the benefits of that - and we don't have to drive anywhere. We do have a car, but don't use it very often.

And It's sustainable. If the entire population of the world aspires to 3-bed-semi-with-garden, the whole world would be paved over in one endless suburb. Communal living is sustainable living.

I think the English love gardens like few other countries.

mildshock oh yes, the recycling facilities! As I said it was in the nineties I lived in my Scandi country but the communal recycling facilities in my block were ahead of the game even back then.

It's not all rosy though, there are sometimes issues, smoking on the balcony is actually quite a big annoyance. As it travels in the other apartment and there's no way to escape it. Reading the forums this seems to be big bone of discontent.

For me it would be noise. I would never live in a flat again. I was thinking about saying 'unless it was some swanky penthouse thing' but you could not be guaranteed respectful neighbours there either.

I lived in a family sized house with my 3 children because it had a garden. Small, but ours. It was the difference between having to make trips to the park twice a day or opening the backdoor for fun in the garden anytime any weather. Free, unstructured simple outdoor play.
Ive got a tiny house now they have all griwn and left home. House as opposed to flat so that there is a small garden for visiting grandchildren and also for me to sit in with the cat, a pot of tea and a book
So, its all about having your own outdoor space for me.

Im staying in a house until I cant climb the stairs!

Noise, especially music and children.

Lack of space.

No garden of my own.

Those are the main reasons why I prefer living in a house. My UK home has all of those, and it's just a 10-minute walk to the centre.

We do have a holiday flat in Cyprus. It's rather nice, with a large balcony, but it's the only flat on the block with such a balcony, being the top one. I wouldn't want to live in it full time, and could never live in the other flats in the block. They're mostly also holiday flats, so there's no noise problem.

I have lived in apartments since I moved out of my mother's house in my early twenties. UK apartments are overpriced, badly sound proofed, badly designed, no storage space, woeful square footage, cheaply fitted... that goes for new builds and conversions unless done very well (and then they are even more expensive). Rental culture is less fun here because we are absolutely rinsed for something that isn't worth the rent we pay, especially in larger cities. Most flats do not allow pets. Landlords can often flout the law, so can rental agencies, squeezing fees out of the resident whenever possible. I would say most people aspire to own a house simply for a better standard of living; you could also paint the walls, keep a pet, etc. Many rentals I have lived in don't even allow artwork to be hung.

I have lived in apartment at the top of a large house in Germany and it was much nicer, more spacious, better value for money etc, and we could keep our cats there and decorate if we wished. It's just a desire for more freedom and in the UK, only owning can give you that unfortunately. If our rental culture was like Europe it would not be an issue.

So yeah, cramped, noisy, depressing flats are the norm here. A standard flat in Europe would seem like a luxury. I would also say for my own city, there has been a rise in crime recently and the city centre doesn't have a great vibe, so being in the thick of it doesn't feel like an advantage.

I am spanish and was brought up in a lovely apartment (btw, in Spain an apartment or apartamento is usually small or a holiday home while what we call piso, flat here, is bigger than an apartment and a family home).
I have a work colleague who looks down at me because I used to live in an apartment when I was a child. I find it very funny because he lived in a very small house in the suburbs while my parents' flat is in the centre of Spain's 3rd largest city has 5 beds, 3 baths, 1 guest WC, 2 terraces (one of which is kind of landscaped), kitchen, utility room. dining-room, 2 reception rooms and my dad's study.
Not boasting, just highlighting that there is a component of perception and of knowing thee are different ways of living.

I think that's slightly unfair @highhorse when OP says she is from a different culture and is genuinely trying to understand our culture.

I don't ever want to live in a flat but I would be curious to understand why in her culture it's so sought after and aspirational just out of interest. Sometimes privileged backgrounds don't always teach you every cultural nuance.

In my experience living in flats in the UK and France - they're really noisy to live in. Plus the areas that flats are built in often aren't the areas you would want to live in...

Go to Scotland... lots of apartments. Less space meant building upwards. Tenements are popular with all ages and incomes.

Generally though Britain really doesn’t do urban living well. Most flats are aimed at first time buyers and are boxy and small. Not like flats in Europe. Not designed for families.

Late 40s with minor but developing mobility issues and have bought a house that has potential to not climb stairs. Roof was knackered and our family of 4 lived comfortably downstairs for the first 3 months. Meantime, we're moving into 3 double bedrooms upstairs.

I’ve lived in several “apartments “ and then in a conversion and a semi detached house. We’re now in a detached house and it is such a relief not to have to share any kind of communal space with anyone else anymore.

There were problems with neighbours in every single place we lived. Even when the neighbours were lovely I still wished for my own space without sharing it with anyone else.

I cannot understand why you would choose an apartment over a detached house.

Due to industrialisation most people in the UK lived in small cramped terraced housing, some of it 'back to back'. They had no garden. Then after the war there was a lot of slum clearance. People were moved onto the new council (social housing) estates or into new council flats. Most of these new council houses had gardens and so the tenants embraced this by growing vegetables, fruit and decorative plants. It was the start of our modern love of gardens
This is all changing now though. Because people are losing these skills and seem to want to gravel or pave them over or worse cover them in that horrible decking stuff
Sad really.
So the fashion will be less for gardens in the future I think

Flat / apartment dweller here.
I have no neighbour noise at all (clearly very good soundproofing), and I don’t know / see my neighbours so am not bothered by them at all in the communal areas.
I have a lovely private balcony.
We have a 24hr concierge - someone upthread was worried about deliveries, don’t worry!
Onsite gym.
999 year lease - now about 989 years, but still long enough to not have to worry about it.
Lift hasn’t yet broken down.
Fair enough I do pay a fairly hefty service charge - but clearly that pays for the concierge staff, gym, lift maintenance, daily communal area cleaning & gardenening plus buildings insurance so I don’t really object.

I lived in an apartment in a stately home in U.K. was fabulous. Would swap current house for apartment anyday.
Alas I wanted to buy before I had a family and therefore gave up rented apartment and moved back to my home town reality.

I've lived on the continent in a few places in the type of flats the op describes (large, city centre, mansion-style blocks) that would be considered desirable by locals. I was young with no family and so it was fine but it certainly didn't feel like living the dream. Having so many neighbours on all sides and having to listen to all their noises smacks of poverty to me. What I mean is, I wouldn't live like that if I could afford not to (now I don't). It's a cultural thing plain and simple. British culture, broadly speaking, values space, peace and privacy. Other cultures I've lived in (southern Europe) have different values and don't place the same stigmas on flats / apartments that we do. Things like noise can be seen in more than one way. For me, it's intrusive and makes me feel stressed and anxious that I'm not in control of my own environment. For someone of a different background it's comforting, a reminder of safety in numbers and a community that surrounds them. Conversely, quiet and the absence of other people might be wonderful to me but could be a burden or bring about feelings of isolation to others.

Flats are noisier generally, no garden, you have to pay ground rent and extra fees for shared areas.
We have a lot of Victorian houses still standing.

Parking on the street or in an underground car park and lugging your shopping up to your apartment = way too much effort! Parking on your own driveway and walking in your own front door is way more preferable, especially when you have kids with scooters / bikes etc. Apartment living is fine for uni / early twenties, but houses with gardens all the way after that! And yes, I have lived (child-free) in apartments in France & Italy. No way would I even contemplate it now.

Also, in a nutshell, Britain is the reverse of many European countries. Here, the city centres are considered grotty, whereas suberbia has much more desirable areas. In Paris, the centre is lovely, whereas the banlieue is generally considered grotty.

Flats are noisier generally, no garden, you have to pay ground rent and extra fees for shared areas

Not the case in Scotland. Most purpose built tenements have back greens. We don't have ground rent , flats are owned outright same as any other house and we don't pay extra for shared areas.

I'm in a mid Victorian flat- huge rooms, ceiling heights which need internal scaffolding to decorate , our own private walled back garden and, because it's Edinburgh, one of those beautiful, locked private shared gardens, the existence of which seems to annoy a lot of people.

Here, the city centres are considered grotty

Not in Edinburgh or Bath.

I lived in one of those huge 'fancy' city centre apartments in France, sweeping staircase in the building, marbled floors and huge rooms and corridors inside of the apartment itself.

But the only bit of 'outside' we got was a narrow balcony that ran the length of the apartment - you could get a chair out there and hang up a bit of washing but it just overlooked the backs of other big city apartment buildings with waste areas and so on and it's not the greatest view. Lines of washing are lines of washing, even outside fancy buildings.

The area I lived was hot and the balcony doors to all rooms were open all the time, but I still found it claustrophobic. Add to that the noise of city traffic - day and night.

I much prefer my little English house in the suburbs with front and back garden.