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!

My strongest reason would be "If you have a house, you do not need to speak to anybody if you don't want to." My house is my fortress, etc. It simplifies life so much!

Ongoing service charges can be very expensive
Noise levels
Fear of heights don't laugh
No gardens
Relying on a lift that may break down
Fire risk
smells
too small
getting stuff delivered
nowhere to dry washing
leasehold
etc etc

I will echo what others have said. Apartment living with a family isn't good in the UK for lots of reasons. I love the idea of a huge apartment with 4 bedroom. The reality is they don't exist unless you pay loads.

I do have to laugh (Unless there was sarcasm) @ikeepaforkinmypurse. Wills and Kate have a 4 storey 10 bedroom 'flat' in grannys palace. A bit different to squeezing 3 kids into a 3 bed flat on the 10th floor having lugged the buggy and shopping up 9 flights of stairs because someone's taking a Shit in the lift and smeared it over the buttons.

I live in a flat it's great. It allows me to live in an expensive town not far from London and have affordable mortgage and bills. The flat itself is big enough for a family and if sharing a front door saves me £150k compared to the same size house I'm ok with that.

What everyone else has already said. Shoddily built or shite conversions with no thought to sound-proofing or storage, no balconies or lifts, leaseholds, people are expected to put up with noise and anti-social behaviours (the threads about people who think it's fine to have an all-night party blasting music and being loud as long as you tell the neighbours are legion here) and there is little recourse if you have an anti-social neighbour, poor/expensive/privatised transport means people want space to park a car, service charges, sky high rents and short-assured tenancy agreements with inspections (sometimes every few months) and clauses in the lease that say you can't so much as hang a picture on the wall and can be given notice to move (an often expensive process) after just 4 months into your 6-month lease and even then being socked with rent increases and fees for drawing up a new tenancy agreement as often as every 6 months, unregulated letting agents who treat tenants like dog shite, stigma on renters (it's dead money, throwing away money).

All combine to make flat living a poor option in the UK.

I don't think there's a big tradition of blocks of flats here. The flat I'm living in now is in a converted house so there's no balcony - nowhere to hang clothes outside and the bin has to be kept inside for two weeks, stinking. Noise and smoke from the neighbours, though this would be a problem in a terrace too to some extent. The leasehold issue is also a problem. It seems to be more common in other countries for the tenants to form a company to manage the building.

When I lived on the continent I had a large terrace facing behind . I had an attic and the other flats had a cellar each downstairs. The launderettes were open till 11pm so not having a garden to hang clothes wasn't a problem (and I could have done it on the terrace anyway). I'd like this country to have better flats and more single people to consider living in one as they're more space and energy efficient. However, I quite understand why people with children want a house so that their children can play in the garden.

I think post war town planning has a lot to do with it. In Scotland there is still a lot of tennanment stock which has been looked after and converted into attractive apartments. However down her after the war two things happened, lots of town planning was driven by the attraction of the suburbs, having a garden was a big thing, men returning from the war were encouraged to garden as a form of therapy and people had all been encouraged to garden veg during the war as our food imports were attacked and fresh veg was scarce for a time. Poor housing that was left in the cities was crowded and lacked basic sanitation and so lots of it was torn down and replaced. The inner cities in the mid 20th century were unattractive. Then in the 60s tower blocks were put up which were only for council tennants, they were initially good, a step up from victorian back to backs without inside toilets or modern kitchens, however they were poorly maintained and became run down. Grenfell illustrates how difficult to renovate and up keep them now is.

Things have changed again, certainly in London, where actually mansion house developments were always attractive and now high spec apartment blocks are going up everywhere. I live near a provincial town and no one is building apartments of more than 2 beds. Having a garden when you have children is quite deeply ingrained.

I forgot to say that in flats (all the countries I've lived in) there can be problems with access to the building and post - where I live now I don't have my own post box and it's really not secure.

Part of it is definitely the British dislike of people and of living too close to others. Things are a lot more communal over here in Germany. There's an expression 'Hausgemeinschaft' - house community - for the people living in an apartment building. Even with houses, there's much less demarcation of space - often there aren't fences or other boundaries between gardens (this still freaks me out).

There are many flats in SW London or parts with a C in the postcode, that cost a few million that would be comparable with OP's description. They are usually owned by the jet set, and nobody has a problem with noise because people are normally away at their villa in Italy/South of France. We need to compare like with like:-)

Interesting also what people are saying about leasehold/freehold. Home ownership is very important here, mainly due to our woeful protections as tenants and in mainland Europe renting is more normal, I'm sure that has a lot to do with it too. Leaseholds are more difficult to buy and sell and get a mortgage on.

Lots of reasons - leasehold, service charges, little outdoor space, noisy neighbours, safety worries (fires and floods from other flats), fear of heights, lack of storage space - no garage or shed, lack of privacy.

I love my garden. I love my loft. I love that we have lots of pets who have space to run about. I love that our garden is big enough to house one of those huge whirly washing lines which makes me super happy when it's filled with laundry. I love that both DCs are running about outside playing football while I dick about on MN.

I visit family in Italy often and they all live in apartments. I think because it's how they've always lived, it's their normality. I find it far too hemmed-in despite them living in enormous apartments and after a few days I want absolute silence. Oddly, though, my DC love it and ask why we can't live in an apartment. They'd go mad in less than a week, though.

" I genuinely don't understand why more Europeans don't think the idea of not having to pay out housing costs each month from around their mid-50s onwards isn't fabulous. "

Some other European countries do have a huge interest in buying. Belgians are said to have 'a brick in the stomach' because they like building their own house. I think in some other countries, buying is common, but there isn't the pressure to do it from 25.
Bear in mind that state pensions are generally higher so there isn't the need to buy a house for your old age.

Rawhh
yes, there was sarcasm. A flat or an apartment could be of any size, and any standing. A "house" could mean a poxy terraced with a tiny garden, it doesn't always mean a spacious 5 or 6 bedroom detached surrounded by land.

People look down at apartment living in principle, regardless of the actual property. It might be because they can say they live in a "house" and let the others picture a mansion?

We’ve tried both houses and flats with the kids.

With the British weather I think flats win. You can have a garden but when it rains so much you get very little use of it.

Flats just need to be built better.

"Wills and Kate have a 4 storey 10 bedroom 'flat' in grannys palace"

How is it a flat if it has 4 floors. A wing?

Because all countries, traditions and homes are different. Imagine

Really lovely big flats, with plenty of space for families, aren't common here, and if they're in the nicer parts of city centres are likely to be very expensive.
Some people here are happy with flats, but many would prefer their own front door and a garden for children to,play in/barbecues/just sitting out with a glass of something on a nice day.

"Shared bin areas"

If only!
I have no bin area and general waste is only collected every two weeks!

I currently live in a beautiful flat in Zone 2 London - lovely and airy and spacious. BUT, it's a conversion, so lots of noise and I'm currently smelling downstairs neighbour's dinner, which appears to be gone-off meat. So when we move in a couple of years it will be to a house. Also nowhere to store a buggy and too many stairs. Mansion block flats are few and far between, so the choice of flats round here is a Victorian conversion or a boxy new build with dismal soundproofing.

There's no outside space and you have people living above, below and either side of you so it's noisy ALL the time.

I don't think our neighbours above, below or next door would appreciate being in such close proximity to ds2's loud, bouncy stimming. We live in a wide semi with his room on the non-adjoining side!

The top of most people's list has to be noise.

I'd never choose to live with neighbours above and below.

Why would you choose to live somewhere where you can have other people pissing in the shared stairwell, rubbish thrown all over the bin area and you pay extra for that privilege? When you can pay for your own house complete with a garden, which is lovely in the summer?