AIBU to leave council flat for private renting? 5 in a 1 bed flat.

[Hereforhelp]

Hi. So I was housed a 1 bedroom flat with council when I was 7 months pregnant with my first child. Now theres 5 of us in the same flat me, dh, dd 5 yrs, DS1 3 yrs and DS2 4 months old.

Dh and I are both employed, him full time me part time (currently on maternity leave) & don’t receive any sort of benefit.

The plan for our family increase was to return flat and private rent somewhere bigger but now private rent have massively increased £300 more than it was 2 years ago 😅 so that plan failed, leaving us cramped, in a 1 bed 🙃

We’ve tried to talk to council but according to law we’re not overcrowded as living room could be used as bedroom too and according to my room measurements each room can fit up to 2 adults (that’ll be 4 kids in each bedroom as they count a kid as half an adult).

Shall I hang in here and hopefully be rehoused after couple of years or stretch our finances and rent privately? People are calling me mad to be thinking of giving up a council home & I’d hate to give up the security of our home tbh but we are so desperate!!

Has anyone here left a council home for private renting? Or has anyone got a success story of getting rehoused due to overcrowding?

zsa zsa Its all there The discussion you and i had on that other thread People only have to advance search our names You do know that right And how you were applying different rules to me as opposed to your gran when we were dealing with the same on on our estates You told me to live and let live when it came to the dug problem on our estate hen you had previously praised your gran for fighting it. Like many on here you think housing estates should be hostels.

Ah so you dont want to apply your "live and let live" to pensioners like you do with heavy weed users zsazsa

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3633460-AIBU-in-thinking-if-you-have-a-Council-house-and-the-Council-are-modernising-it-you-shouldnt-really-moan-about-it?pg=17

@donotcovertheradiator
You do come across as incredibly condescending.

Wow just seen this "gem" on page ten. One of the nastiest comments I've seen on Mumsnet. How dare you say the op's children have a "shit life"? Ive reported your post as a personal attack. Some vile posters on this thread..

Talking about Tobythecats post on page 10. Sorry I tried to quote it and reply to it but failed! Horrible. People have no understanding or empathy about other's situations these days.

These threads always turn nasty. Op as much as it sucks being cramped in you would be mad to give up a secure tenancy. I would do my best with the space for now and sign up to homeswapper etc in the meantime, you could get lucky with someone wanting to downsize or a 3 way swap maybe, if not there will be a point where you will count as overcrowded and you'll be higher priority for a bigger place. Ignore all the shitty comments on here, you could really struggle to rent privately and find yourself in a worse situation when the landlord suddenly decided to sell, no doubt then you would find people want to criticize you for giving up your council flat

The vast majority of those who want to swap are looking for larger houses

Do you have stats for this?

Maybe we need a shift from the thought of a [particular] home for life and think more about a tenancy for life. People have a right to the secure tenancy but that should be in an appropriate property.

This would involve building a better range of properties though - no-one really likes building bungalows though (inc private housebuilders) as they require a large footprint compared to an equivalent sized house.

Keeping an ageing population in houses isn't always the answer, space can be limited for mobility aids and old housing stock often does not lend itself to be easily adapted. Putting in a stairlift, ramp and/or shower can prove costly, if not impossible.

There is no simple answer, if there was then the OP wouldn't be in this situation. My idea is very pie in the sky before it and I get jumped on.

FWIW - My old house was a 3 bed on a road that was about 25% 3 beds and 75% 4 beds. (all privately owned) I used to get internally very grumpy at the fact that the vast majority of 4 beds had either a couple or single person in them when we had 5 of us in our 3 bed. Totally irrational, I know, but these feelings aren't unique to people in social housing.

@HelenaDove I shouldn’t really engage with you but I will, just once. On the other thread You were making a number of ridiculous comments about your neighbour smoking weed and having a scented candle in their own home. When I told you to live and let live, you must have spent a long time looking up threads to find one where I’d posted about my gran who was a community activist and managed to make huge changes to her local area from the crime and violence and anti social behaviour caused by heroin addicts and dealers. You then made a number of crazy bullying comments and insults and compared your intolerance to your neighbour smoking some weed in their own home to my grans community activism.

You are an intolerant bully Helena. Neither your word or actions are anything like my gran.

Regardless of how many children you should or should.not have, I would wait until after Brexit had settled down. So give it a year or so at least. I don't know what jobs you are in but if they are affected by Brexit' one of you may lose your jobs. Priced may go up in the short/ mid term. This would make a private rent where you are financially stretched to begin with very risky and stressful ( In a different way to overcrowding in the council flat) .

Move when things settle down, which I am sure they will. If you both still have jobs after Brexit' and and can afford it, move then. At the moment you have some security in housing ( albeit not necessarily perfect housing) which is worth a lot in this time of a lot of uncertainty..

If.Brexit does not happen in October, I.would move as fast as possible then so you are settled before it does happen

In the meantime, I would.suggest you don't have any more children until.you have a better living situation.

Good luck

If can afford to rent privately then you should. there are plenty of people who can’t afford it and would benefit from your 1 bed

Hi op
Sorry I've not read the whole thread,I was getting lost in all the arguements😃...so apologies if this has already been suggested,but have Shelter for any advice on their website about your particular issue?it must be quite a concern for many parents at this time,so they may well have something.
Hopefully a swap will come up soon,possibly in a more rural area.
Good luck🌻

Rather than thinking about moving to a privately rented place with understandable worries about security, could you save for a deposit to buy a place of your own? We live in the East Midlands and got a £100k mortgage on £35k joint income. Depending on the area you can get a 3 bed for £110k or less. There was actually a 2 bed flat three roads away from us on for £65k a couple of years ago! (needed modernisation but still a 2 bed, it wasn't a wreck it just was very dated). Mortgage rates are so low that you probably won't pay much more than you would on your social housing rent for your 1 bed. I appreciate that you might live in a more expensive area than we do so might not be possible, but I'd recommend it as a long term aim for security if you can! Good luck either way, your flat sounds lovely so understand your hesitation despite lack of space.

Is there an open gas fire in your living room? If yes then it can't be counted as a bedroom

And for the SECOND time @zsazsajuju i didnt go looking so dont keep flattering yourself and telling lies

for the SECOND time i was on the same fucking thread where you posted about your gran

So stop gaslighting and lying.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3327828-AIBU-to-not-want-to-have-homeless-people-with-complex-needs-placed-in-the-house-next-door-to-me

i didnt need to go fucking looking And i also told you that the weed smoker had threatened my DH but that didnt seem to make a difference. Probably because hes a pensioner

If you still being pissed that i pointed out your hypocrisy makes me an intolerant bully then so be it.

I dont know why you keep saying i had to go looking for that thread when i was on the fucking thing same as you were.

@CitadelsofScience

It's really telling the spite and vitriol felt by some.
Sadly SH tenants are fair game so people don't think they just soak up bollox propaganda and spew it out.

I don't agree with Helena on a few things like RTB and weed () but complaining she provides her source is ridiculous, she gives a link go look and decide yourself.
Being nasty to her because she gets wound up is daft. Some of the replies are so nasty it'd test most at people..

Hi, I would definitely stay in your council property if you can. Once you leave it would be so hard to get one again. I privated rented for years and was housed in a council property 2 years ago. The difference I feel for me and my son is huge. It’s secure and major repairs will be done. These suggestions have probably already been made but check out Pinterest for ways of maximizing space, also ikea have some space saving ideas. Are you registered on the council house swap site? That might be worth looking at too.

When I told you to live and let live, you must have spent a long time looking up threads to find one where I’d posted about my gran who was a community activist

Eh? Wasn't that the same thread? I remember that thread.

@HelenaDove
”At least in their homes a stairlift could be fitted if needed. You cannot do this in communal stairs in flats And lifts are always breaking down and taking ages to be fixed.”

I take your point about lifts always breaking (shocking and unacceptable) but unfortunately, it is often inappropriate for a stairlift to be added. Sometimes, this is due to the poor structure and building of the home rendering it impossible. Often, it is inappropriate as the risks are too high i.e. a person has a cognitive impairment which could mean serious injury. The waiting lists are long; in some areas, we are talking a couple of years which is obviously completely unacceptable. That said, the wait in my area is much shorter. Many houses also don’t have step free access so people struggle to get into gardens and out the front door. I’ve also seen steps throughout the house such as; to access the kitchen. Ramps can be unsafe too if the gradient is too steep and there isn’t enough turn, for example, for a self propelling wheelchair user.

It’s never as easy as adding in a stairlift. Sadly, this is not a resolution. Over the many years I’ve been an adult social worker, the biggest problems with accessibility people have faced are those in older properties, especially houses.

Over the many years I’ve been an adult social worker, the biggest problems with accessibility people have faced are those in older properties, especially houses.

Even bungalows can be a nightmare. They were often built at the time that the purpose was for people to downside to and to eliminate the stairs. As soon as any illness or disability set in they would have been placed in a residential home. Wheelchair use was never considered. Doors are often impossible to widen due to layout of the property, no turning spaces, ridiculous height of steps at the access etc etc

Getting it right for families with a disabled parent or child is often even harder.

Very good points And older houses were built when disabled people were living in institutions or expected to be (as well as elderly people going into residential homes when they became more immobile) so accessibility wasnt incorporated into plans for builds.

Now because times have changed and disabled people live in the community and not shut away in institutions (and rightly so) accessibility is a real problem which never got a chance to be rectified as the decimation of social housing had already started.

I was surprised that accessible housing never got mentioned in the George Clarke programme.

Yes, I agree about the bungalows. I have seen some amazing, purpose built ones with wide doorways and full accessibility but these are the minority. Even in a standard ground floor flat or bungalow, many wheelchair users struggle, especially if a kitchen is fitted and they cannot reach the hob or most of the cupboards.

I find it exceptionally sad working with individuals who are struggling to move around their own homes. Simple things like sitting in the garden are unachievable for some people and it begins to grind them down.

The answer, to me, is obvious. Let’s build fully accessible family homes and small homes within the community. When builders buy land and X percentage is for social housing, within that, X percentage should be properties which allow people to move around freely. In the short term, there may be costs associated with building accessible homes but in the long term, there will be massive savings as people will need less care and support if they can physically do things for themselves. Hey, but nobody listens to me.

YY @Schuyler

Somerford Grove which was built in the late 1940s included a terrace of bungalows.

The architect who designed it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Gibberd

And it would probably mean shorter hospital stays if a home was already at least partly accessible.