Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think designing a flat with the shower in the living room is taking the piss?

84 replies

StudioFlat · 02/05/2018 14:55

Disclaimer: This doesn't affect me personally, just looking for a discussion.

Some friends are trying to make some extra money by converting part of their garage (not even the whole thing) into a studio flat. It's absolutely tiny, you could touch the bed and the hob at the same time. They've included a teeny little second room for a toilet, but the shower is in the living room / bedroom / kitchen. The whole space is about 16 square metres, which I think 9 times out of 10 is going to be a pretty depressing living space but the design is also rubbish.

Sadly the rental situation where we live is such that some poor sap will almost certainly be willing to pay an obscene amount to live there but I think it looks like an absolute shithole. It's clean and new so that's not the issue, but sooo cramped and yeah, shower in the living room.

AIBU to think they are taking unfair advantage of desperate people in a terrible rental market? Or are there people who wouldn't mind having their shower in their living room? Are they simply resourceful entrepreneurs and everything's OK as long as someone is willing to pay to live there (as long as you comply with relevant regulations of course)?

OP posts:
Oysterbabe · 02/05/2018 14:56

God that's sad. Where would you put your clothes and stuff?

Heratnumber7 · 02/05/2018 14:57

London?

FissionChips · 02/05/2018 14:58

They sound like immoral people.

Original poster
StudioFlat · 02/05/2018 14:59

No, not London. Not the UK, even. But I'd hazard a guess that there are a lot of similarities between the rental markets in our city and in London.

OP posts:
Madeline18 · 02/05/2018 14:59

Gosh are you even allowed to have a shower in a living room?!?

pepperpot99 · 02/05/2018 15:00

They sound like grasping selfish cunts so they will do well in the property field.

Bitchywaitress · 02/05/2018 15:10

That is disgraceful OP. YANBU.

I saw an advert recently for a student HMO where the only bathroom AND toilet for the 5 bed flat was in the loft accessible by a LADDER. Surely this must be illegal? This fiat was to rent at £1400 pcm iirc.

There was a property in the same street where they had put in a proper staircase to the upper floor so it must be possible if you aren't a grasping selfish cunt

Can you imagine how much student pee is going in the kitchen sink Hmm

shoofly · 02/05/2018 15:11

Utterly hateful, you'd wonder how building control would pass it, given that electrics in bathroom require extra care. It's not as if you can have standard plug sockets anywhere near the shower?
Dublin, by any chance?

SouthernComforts · 02/05/2018 15:15

I know someone with a shower in the bedroom.. not an ensuite just a clear plastic walk in shower against the wall. Very random.

Scentofwater · 02/05/2018 15:18

Okay I’m not so outraged as above posters. My dh would’ve loved something like that as a mid-week home when he was having to travel a long way for work.

It might also be good for someone on a low budget but who doesn’t want to houseshare.

Obviously if it’s going to be someone living there full time it is going to be a bit grim, but I’ve lived in worse. It’s not really showing your friends in a good light though. Being a slum landlord isn’t really a life goal for normal people.

BustopherJones · 02/05/2018 15:20

I think that’s a horrible way to make money. I would feel differently about friends who did something like this.

GnotherGnu · 02/05/2018 15:21

Are there planning controls where you are? I'd be dubious whether this complies.

DieSchottin93 · 02/05/2018 15:23

I stayed in an Airbnb in Germany once where the shower cubicle was in the kitchen Confused And to use the toilet you had to go out of the flat and down a small flight of stairs and use the toilet that was on the landing. It was a weird set up.

allertse · 02/05/2018 15:23

I mean, it sounds absolutely insane and I wouldn't live there, but I'm not sure how it's taking advantage of anyone. They're adding a property to the market and taking nothing from it.

Anyone who might choose to rent it is going to be doing so because they think that's a better option than not living there. I'm not sure how taking that option away from them makes things any better for them?

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 02/05/2018 15:25

I was going to suggest Dublin too shoofly. The rental market is ridiculous here. It sounds nasty, but tbh there is such a shortage of rental property that it's probably better to have some places like this than none at all. If it wasn't a studio flat then it would still be a garage and whoever ends up living there would have had to find somewhere else, if they could.

Dontfuckingsaycheese · 02/05/2018 15:27

In The Reader film she had a shower/bathtub in her kitchen/living area and that seemed to work fine.

missperegrinespeculiar · 02/05/2018 15:30

Is it Sydney?

BarbarianMum · 02/05/2018 15:32

A friend of mine had a shower in his living room when we were students. Set up sounds similar to what you describe except that it was a big room (so big you had to wonder why they hadn't partitioned off a bathroom Hmm). This was in a town with lots of cheap student accommodation but he wanted cheap and not shared.

I guess every want finds a need.

Original poster
StudioFlat · 02/05/2018 15:38

There are planning controls but I'm not familiar with them, having never done anything like this myself. I assume what they've done is not actually illegal but I couldn't say for certain.

I see the reasoning behind the idea that the space is more useful as a shit studio flat than a garage, but I still feel uncomfortable with it. When there is such an enormous imbalance between supply and demand the door is wide open for some people to profit off other people's desperation and I feel they've gone through that door. It's definitely changed the way I see them, to be honest.

OP posts:
AbsentmindedWoman · 02/05/2018 15:38

I've stayed with a friend in Paris who has a shower in her tiny room. You see all kinds of strange set ups looking for studio flats in London too.

I wouldn't fancy a shower in my living room. I didn't take a studio that was otherwise pretty good because it had a shower hose hooked up to the wall over the loo, like a tiny unhygienic wet room. No problem with wet rooms, but I don't want to be bumping against the loo when I'm trying to enjoy my shower.

fussychica · 02/05/2018 15:38

Well we had a pantry that had been converted into a toilet in the kitchen in the late 1950s. I was only a kid but I knew it was disgusting even then.
This possibly less rank as it's only the shower, (we had to put a tin bath in the living room) but I'd like to think living conditions have improved over the last 50 odd years but clearly not. Is this even legal?
Money grabbers!

dany174 · 02/05/2018 15:40

I was in a hotel once that had a bath in the bedroom, it was ment to look luxurious, I just found it made the room damp. That is what i would worry about with a shower in the living space, damp, mould, water damage.

Also I think it would look like the landlord does not care much for there tenants living condition. And if landlords don't care for the tenants living condition then tenants usually don't care for the landlords property. I would worry it would attract more problems then its worth.

TheFaerieQueene · 02/05/2018 15:43

Didn’t this happen in Gavin and Stacey when they were looking to buy a flat?

dinosaurkisses · 02/05/2018 15:45

This has to be Dublin!

We moved back to NÍ because the situation had got so bad- DH and I were on decent wages, barely able to rent a 2 bed apt in a Dublin suburb- up here we've got a three bed semi in a lovely village living on just DH's wage.

It's absolutely soul destroying and sharks like the OP's friends are quids in off the back of people's desperation.

SoupDragon · 02/05/2018 15:48

The whole space is about 16 square metres,

I think that is half the minimum space for 1 person accommodation in the U.K.