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!

Snakie-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.

This is what my db and his gf's flat is like. It's a council flat and like most of them, it was built with concrete (good sound proofing). They live in the city centre. The flat has good views, large windows and a good security system. I was surprised how private it is, when I visit I don't see any neighbours. They are only a short walk from all the day and night life. I envy them sometimes

Lass I've lived in Bath too - for a number of years, but it's very much the exception to the rule here in Britain, in that the city centre is gorgeous.

I think it's an 'age and stage' thing. My Mum & Stepdad have retired to a beautiful apartment in our local town - we are lucky as it's a very lovely historic town - and she has never been happier. Everything she could ever need on her doorstep. Lucky enough to have private gated parking. Lots of apartments being built here currently as it's apparently a popular 'undiscovered' retirement destination,

They have no garden, a drawback, but there are fabulous historic gardens a stones throw away which someone else obviously has responsibility to maintain and they often grab a paper and a coffee and amble down to sit in the rose garden on a sunny day.

A lovely life and she is very happy in her 70's. We are getting to the point where it would suit our family to live that way with older teens. Until now we are living rurally in a large family detached house which has been perfect.

When people talk about Continental flats being of superior build, do they realise that Continental houses are also of superior build too? In general, the quality-of-life is better on the Continent.

Yes the UK is dreadful in every possible way

I lived in an apartment (well, flat) once. The group of lads who lived upstairs had a penchant for playing cricket down the corridor of their flat all hours of the night (with no carpet) and the man downstairs practised his drums. Loudly.
Can’t say I miss it. I’ve lived in terraced or semi detached houses most of my life and that’s as ‘attached’ as I wish to be to another dwelling.

No garden, having to be careful what noise you make, having to tolerate the noise of others, having other people around me in general, communal spaces, shared entrances. Just no.

I’ve lived in my light, airy, non-pokey, with balcony, flat for 10 years. Had one neighbour who had a loud party one NYE around 6 years ago and no other noise other than that.

I know some of the neighbours from waving from said balcony but have seen them in the halls maybe 10 times in 10 years (so probably less than most see their ‘house’ neigjbours) and I have my own front door. And plants / chairs / table on said balcony.

Not all flats are created equal.

I love my garden, being able to park right outside my front door, not sharing access with the neighbours, not sharing bins!
I love being able to have my back door open for the kids to play out while I get on in the kitchen. I don't want to have to drag bags of shopping up multiple flights of stairs/rely on a grotty, broken down lift that smells of wee.
The list goes on! Also I like living in a small ish town and the only flags here are tiny two beds above the shops in the town centre or hideous new build practically built underneath a dual carriageway.
I love having a washing line, DH loves having a workshop at the back of the garage that he can get to easily.
The list goes on and on! I'd hate living in a flat in the uk.

A friend of mine has sold her detached house to buy a tiny 2 bed flat apartment in Zone 2. She loves it. I feel so sorry for her dc. They had to get rid of most of their stuff as due to the size there is no concept of storage. The 2 dc are sharing a single bedroom. They can't have bikes as there is nowhere to store them (other than the open plan tiny kitchen/living room) The dc can't have friends over or sleepovers as there is no room. The re are strict rules about what can and cannot be on the balcony (no washing hanging out or bikes or plastic furniture) She paid £600k for this way of life and loves it. It would be my idea of hell.

I've done penthouse living in the UK. It looked seriously cool.
It was boiling hot in the summer, freezing cold in winter, the service charges were astronomical, we had no outside space or parking.
At the weekend all we could hear were other people partying with loud music for a full 48 hours.
I am much happier in the suburbs in a house.
I can walk into the city, I can sit in my garden, I'm not going to be woken up at 3am by terrible music and the car is in the driveway.

We vowed to never live in a flat again after too many noisy neighbours. There's nothing quite like being woken at 2am by the upstairs neighbours coming in drunk and deciding to hoover right above your head.

I like living in a house because I like my privacy, not hearing my neighbours every move. Having green space all around me and my pets. I'd hate living in an apartment I'm a country girl!

It’s apples and oranges. Our current apartment (in France) is spacious (big rooms and high ceilings), solidly built etc. Plus we have a secure tenancy (3 yrs), we can decorate or do pretty much whatever we like internally (no inspections in over 10 yrs of living here!), a gardien who takes care of all communal areas and receives packages, keeps an eye on elderly residents etc. Plus the city is designed to facilitate family apartment living - nice small parks every few blocks. We have a good mix of neighbours - a couple of families, many older couples, some elderly living alone or with companions.

Another key difference, in France anyway, is that every apartment building is associated with a ‘regie’ or management company. They are responsible for the maintenance of all communal areas - in our case this means employing a gardien who organisés lift repairs, cleans the entrance lobby and stair from cellar to loft (he even polishes our door!), maintains the small garden out front, cleans the bins and takes them in / out for collection and keeps the pavement clean.

We own / rent out our old flat in Edinburgh and it has none of the above! The communal areas are dingy and unkempt as no one looks after them, with loads of rubbish dumped in the little ‘garden’ outside. It’s four floors up and no lift (the majority of apartment buildings here either are built with lifts or have had them fitted later - again done by the regie). Our tenants have typical UK leases of 6 months, no alterations allowed, etc. Over the years all the families have moved out (don’t blame them) and it has become a student / young working etc.

Oh and that’s another difference! No ‘student ghettos’ here. I was a student in Edinburgh and lived in some lovely flats that were basically being ruined by students / crappy landlords. When every property in a block is occupied by students and owned by landlords who don’t really give a shit, it creates an atmosphere that’s not really conducive to family living! Here, far more students stay at home to study in their hone towns, and even when they do flat share they are bound by the same rules re. Communal spaces as we are.

so while I’m happy to bring up my kids in an apartment here in France, if I was in the UK I’d be looking for a house - for all the reasons listed above.

We live in an apartment (conversion of old building, previously not residential). We have an upstairs, so nobody above us, we have a private shared courtyard (not accessible unless you live in the building). We have two big bedrooms, two big bathrooms, utility room, good storage and we're doing some work which will give us a lot more. We have designated parking and we have people to do maintenance. Our service charge is only £600 per year and the residents committee manages the building. We are leasehold but it doesn't particularly affect anything- our homes are easily mortgageable.

Wrt noise, there isn't any from our neighbours. We moved here from a terraced house and that has been the biggest difference- our previous neighbors were horrendously noisy and we could hear everything despite it being a good sized Edwardian property.

We do have a lot of light and the main reaction we get from visitors when they come in is "Oh, this is lovely". We like the security of having the main door which you have to buzz for access. The only downside we find is that deliveries are almost impossible so we don't tend to do online shopping.

We are in the centre of a very nice village, easy walk to station, buses, shops etc and some of the best known, most dramatic landscapes in the UK. Wouldn't live anywhere else.

OP why on earth have you seized on speculation about emulating gentry and ignored all the posts pointing out the facts about the quality of most apartments in the UK? The simplest explanation is usually the right one...

I would love nothing more than to live in an apartment tbh. No idea why I like the idea so much!

There’s some gorgeous ones in Edinburgh - totally out of my price range though of course!

AlbertaSimmons-Wrt noise, there isn't any from our neighbours. We moved here from a terraced house and that has been the biggest difference- our previous neighbors were horrendously noisy and we could hear everything despite it being a good sized Edwardian property.

I agree. I don't understand why posters keep saying flats are noisy. In my experience they are considerably quieter than a lot of semi's and terraced houses.
They are usually concrete structures, are often designed to only have one shared partition wall (a bathroom or kitchen) and the front doors are solid heavy fire doors. The way they are designed keeps noise at a minimal. Also they are more private than houses, as you rarely see your neighbours.

*minimum

Try having someone with wooden floors, children and a tendency to thump about like a fairy elephant living directly above you and you'll soon be complaining about noise

Redglitter

But that would be house flat conversion. In purpose built blocks of flats the floors are concrete

No this was in a purpose build block of flats I lived in. It was a nightmare

But 'blocks' don't have wooden floors, if one did it would be unusual

Well I assure you this flat did. For 2 years I had the pleasure of having to listen to the kids trundling about on toys ad their heavy footed mother wandering about.

I'm not making it up just to contribute to the thread

Haven't read the full thread so this is just my thought on the OP questions.

I suspect it's a self-fulfilling cycle because the property developers who build flats know that they are generally building for first-time-buyers and btl landlords because culturally everyone aspires for their "forever" home to be a house. Therefore blocks of apartments are built with every possible corner cut - poor soundproofing, tiny rooms, low ceilings, no storage space. Therefore no one wants to live there long and instead aspire to a house. If a builder built an apartment block in the uk that was nice enough to be forever homes they would lose money on the project as the target buyers would have too many preconceptions about apartments.