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!

Although - just thought - there's often laments on here about how Brits are also nuts about owning rather than renting, which may be linked to this. As there isn't such a renting culture, and the laws/lack of rent controls don't make it so appealing, then if you're gonna own your own place you might as well really have your own place, not a leasehold. Could be a factor.

I hate noise from other people so my detached house in the countryside is perfect. I'd happily have a city apartment but only to visit now and then not to live in.

Englishman's home is his castle.

Upstairs neighbours
Downstairs neighbours
Communal areas hassles
Parking
No garden
Leasehold issues
Noisy (if in city)
Pets/kids running in and out of the garden in the summer not an option

I would love to live in a massive converted apartment ... but there aren’t many outside of central London and those ones cost millions. So I live in a small 2 bed flat... but the only way I’ll get the space I need is with a house as I cannot afford a central London £4m 5 bed flat

Garden, fresh air away from traffic fumes and noise. No-one stomping about above or blasting out music below, no-one else's boiled cabbage and garlic fumes wafting through the walls and floors. No overflowing baths and leaking washing machines dripping into your flat from above or light swinging about when they walk across their floor. Old buildings with creaking floorboards and insomniacs above...

No-one slamming the shared front door shut and shaking the entire building, leaving it open so that thieves can get in and pinch the post or break into the flats, steal the hall table. Sitting on the balcony below and wafting smoke into your windows so you have to shut them.

I can sip an aperitivo on my balcony, sunbathe and potter around. When I had a garden in the Uk it was usually too bloody cold to enjoy it, or too wet to cut the grass. I do miss having more outside space but we do tend to go out more here as the climate is so much nicer.

Bad neighbours can make your life hell, and in a flat there's more neighbours hence more chance of blaring music/anti social behaviour/poorly kept communal areas. I lived in a flat for many years and at one point had such an awful upstairs neighbour that I had my flat on the market and was willing to sell it below valuation just to get away.

I now live in a detached house with no close by neighbours and would never live in close proximity to others again.

Oh yes parking. We have a garage and a nice big driveway, rather than having to fight for on-street parking nowhere near where we live.

"I can sip an aperitivo on my balcony, sunbathe and potter around. When I had a garden in the UK it was usually too bloody cold to enjoy it, or too wet to cut the grass"

But that's not a feature of living in a flat, that's a feature of living in a completely different country!

Presumably in a house where you are, you could also sip, sunbathe and potter?

Because of a garden! Lovely for bbqs or kids playing outside. A bit of sunbathing the one day a year it's hot. Even the view of a garden.

Also not having someone above/below you.

Having different floors.

Ah but on the continent there are rules re noise after a certain hour and they do tend to get enforced (if you don't live in a shitpit).
Also the soundproofing dies tend to be better here.
No leasehold either, although there are management fees

Many of the houses in Central London are also leasehold, owned by eg: Portman Estates and others, who happily evict their long term tenants and dump the landlords that have looked after the rented properties for years.

A lot of flats went up post war and not to a very high standard so living in a flat was seen to be a bit inferior than a house with a small garden. We are just not a big country so we don’t have those grand city apartments like New York and other European cities apart from isolated pockets of grand apartments in the likes of London. It was only in a he 80’s and 90’s when a lot of the industrial buildings and waterfronts in cities like Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester were renovated into flats that it become trendy for apartment living

I like the idea of an apartment and have friends in France, three different ones actually who all live in apartments where I’ve stayed for extended periods. In all 3apartments I have never once heard the neighbours, not the tv, not music, no shouting, etc.

I can’t imagine that here and I see loads of threads on MN about neighbour noise in flats (and in terrace houses as well to be fair). I don’t ow whether it’s worse noise insulation here or Shitty arsehole people or a combination of both.

Presumably in a house where you are, you could also sip, sunbathe and potter?

Yes, I would love a villa nonetheless, if only to keep chickens. However my Italian partner is convinced that living in a house you're exposed and a target for thieves. Even worse if you're rural! I cannot change his mind...

Cities tend to be built up, busy and dirty.

Brits tend to covet personal space and clean air over and above communal living.

It's probably partly a knee-jerk reaction to our industrial past where the cities turned into slums due to overpopulation with the masses pouring into urban centres for work.

It could also be partly influenced by emulation of the upper classes as landed gentry tend to live in private estates with access to land. Thus land ownership is a motivator.

From a simplistic viewpoint; it's just nice.

But that's not a feature of living in a flat, that's a feature of living in a completely different country!

^ this. I loved living in our apartment in Madrid, overlooking the palace, sitting on the balcony sipping wine in the sun. Wouldn’t have been the same in the East Midlands.

I can't speak for all Brits obviously but off the top of my head:

Leaseholds
Service charges
Shared bin areas
Shared parking areas
Shared hallways/lifts
In fact anything shared
Noise from above
Noise from below
No private garden
No pets
Having to tell the kids to be quiet constantly because of the neighbours.
Neighbourhood groups who dictate which front door you can have.
Loads more.

I'm a solitary soul.
I shared a driveway for a while. Nightmare.

I don't get the noise and bad neighbours arguments. So many people live in terraced or semi-detached, it's just as bad as living in a flat.

All the flats I lived in had private parking, but it doesn't seem to be the case for many houses.

People probably think they are posh if they have a house or something, it's very odd.

Flats are too close to other people. I like space and outdoor land!

My Polish friends, living in recently built (and expensive!) flats here say they are built to a significantly lower standard than in Poland, so there may not be much comparable housing stock here.

In my (English) city, there are very few large flats - we couldn't find any 4-bed ones when we were house hunting.

One of our neighbour's children plays the violin. We can't hear it at all. Which is best for everyone (both houses are detached)

We have a garage and parking. The garage makes an incredibly useful bike store and workshop. It has power, so we can use power tools and see what we're doing!

Most of us like to have a private garden.

I couldn't live in an apartment, it would feel like I hadn't grown up and was still a student.
For me it's the privacy and lovely garden that the kids loved playing in and now I enjoy sitting out in the summer.
You can't get the same from an apartment.
We also don't tend to have apartments in all counties or towns.
You can have a high rise flat in our area or a nice house.

Oh yes and BBQs!

No-one wants to have to fork out £1000 on bricks because they live on the 14th floor

I love having a garden
I don't want to live in the city centre
I don't want to be able to hear my neighbours
I want to be able to make noise without worrying about disturbing neighbours
I like pets (dogs and cats)
I prefer to own a freehold property than worry about leasehold issues / costs of maintaining communal areas

When I lived in flats before the other occupants would throw rubbish outside, not keep the outside area nice (it was a £500k + flat in London). With my own house I keep the external areas looking nice