If you had a second home, have you or would you go to it ?

[Lardlizard]

?

I think it can be complicated. My sister owns two homes. One is her family home in the countryside, near where our wider family live. One is a London flat she uses for work. She travelled to the country because she saw lockdown was coming because in her mind, she wanted to be home, where her stuff is, where her support structure is, where her kids bedrooms are etc. I'm sure some people would see her as travelling to her second home, or complain she should have stayed in London instead of a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.

And I'm sure there are other people who think of their country home as being the "primary" home and the London home as just being where they go to work and don't want to be stuck there for months.

I’ll be amazed if anyone comes onto this thread and announces that they have gone to their second home. Realistically, almost everyone who has done so will have done so before lockdown, when this was allowed. Things changed so fast, it’s easy to forget that only a few weeks ago people were still going on aeroplanes and living ordinary lives.

It’s also difficult to say which is the first and second home. I should think a lot of second home owners think of the country house as the family house. They will have some form of ID which includes the country house address. Should a policeman knock on the door, they’ll show it.

I saw the Kirsty Allsop thread. There were points where it got quite weird - one person said that if people had gone to a house in the country, they should have their London house taken off them. How?

I have a second home and I didn’t go to it

I don't have a 2nd home but wouldn't go there now if i did. I agree with the balanced posters who say "come when this is over".

BUT it's striking that some people who complain about people buying second homes in villages are fine when their kids move to Bristol for a graduate job displacing a local graduate, or when they or their DH commute to London for weekdays, renting a home that is never used during the weekend.

I live in a well known coastal tourist area.
My dad is isolating (over 80) and lives alone. The holiday home next door is occupied with four adults (parents and two adult children). They have had two visits from the police and they are still there. They think it was my dad who called the police on them (it wasn't) and they are are now hurling abuse at him over the garden wall. He is terrified to go in his garden. They also had a go at my dd who dropped shopping off for him yesterday.

I like to think they will look back once this is over and realise how appalling their behaviour is, but I doubt it. They are alright jack.
Wankers.

@BookWitch That's is terrible. Do they own the place or renting? There are horrible people everywhere unfortunately.

CruCru That's a good idea. A major resason why cities like London and Birmingham are so badly hit is the amount of households crammed into overcrowded housing (in part due to rural people moving there or owning bolt holes). Making use of the part-time city dweller homes could go some way towards resolving this. It's a time of national crisis. Perhaps people like Kirstie might like to volunteer their city home for purpose. The private hospitals are doing their bit. Private homes were used as hospitals in the world wars. It's not so dissimilar.

turquoisedoor you may want to do a little research because Wales and Cumbria have both had large outbreaks thought to be as a direct result of people from cities flocking to rural areas bringing the disease with them.

And we simply don't have the resources to deal with that.

We sent PILs to theirs when we got wind they'd be told to shield. Its safer there for them.

The problem is a lot of the places people have second homes are rural/coastal.
These places do not have hospital capacities like city hospitals.

They don't have the housing and population density, either. Unless half of London suddenly started camping on the beach or taking holiday lets the difference would be negligable.

My second home was lived in permanently by a family before it became a holiday home, as were most people's, I imagine. If your second home is a normal residential property with council tax payable on it then it should be taken it into account when providing hospitals and other public services. The fact that your second home may sit empty for a few weeks or months at a time is not the point - they don't know when or how often you are, or are not there. If you sold your holiday home tomorrow to a family who wanted to live in it full time, or you chose to move in full time, it wouldn't automatically make the hospital any bigger or better equipped, would it? You'd re-register with a local GP but that would be it.

Part of the reason Covid 19 is spreading so rapidly is because people in cities cannot physically get enough space between them to stop the spread. Look at the photos of the underground when those people were still being made to go to work. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

If had managed to get to my holiday home before lockdown in that country meaning that i could not easily get there, I'd have spent the time gardening in the fresh air and I'd not have seen a soul except for a weekly supermarket visit in a small town. As it is, I can't even go for a walk in my city without having to duck and dive and to avoid the hordes. Social distancing is virtually impossible in certain circumstances.

There are not enough of us second home owners to make any real negative impact on quieter communities, however. Most of the peak period crowds in holiday areas come from short term holiday lets, not second home owners.

Oh but they are shielding there. No contact with any locals.

Why do you think the Nightingale hospitals have been built? Hospitals can't cope in the cities. Rural areas are far better off, and if they weren't they'd get a nightingale hospital too.

The nightingale hospital(s) are actually huge exhibition/conference centres and concert venues around large cities in the country. While at the moment the spread is concentrated in cities and unfortunately they will need extra capacity, I think it's highly unlikely a village in cornwall or the lake district will have sort of similar building suitable for converting to a hospital. Facilities are limited now and they dont have the same provision to create extra capacity like London/Birmingham etc

Yes I would go to my second home, if it had better facilities and was safer. We have no garden and it is really affecting us, as we don't want to go to the park or shops. Husband has been going once every 10 days. We locked down early.

I do and I wouldn't. I'll keep my London germs to London.

Have a look at the Lake District equivalent of the London Nightingale hospital.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-cumbria-52150170

Tourist areas are not set up to cater for large numbers of patients.

@Nottherealslimshady
I know I am not being balanced and rational on this topic due to the wankers in the holiday home next door to my dad who are currently terrorising him, but what is your plan when/if they fall ill? Most rural GPs are not taking temporary residents at the moment. They are stretched at the best of times in the summer months, due to tourists needing emergency care, and their argument is no one should be in a temporary address right now.

Exactly.

We have a cobbled together 'nightingale hospital ' where I live.

It's in our largest amenity which is a secondary school hall. And it isn't full of ICU beds. It's full of army cots for people to stay in and monitor if they're sick enough to need hospital or if they've been discharged but aren't quite well enough to go home meaning their bed can be used for someone else.

That's literally as good as it gets here. Hell, we don't even have the walk in medical centres everywhere else seems to have these days.

Tourist areas are not set up to cater for large numbers of patients.

But we are not talking about tourists. We are not talking about people taking a flipping holiday in a chalet, or an air BnB rental. We are talking about home owners going to their own home. And they should already figure in the numbers when calculating how many hospital beds are needed in any given area.

We simply don't the resources to deal with that Agreed, the cities don't - and now vulnerable people in cities are suffering because of people "flocking to them bringing the disease", from rural dwellers on day trips, to commuters, to the hundreds of thousands coming through the airports. Hopefully the new nightingale hospitals will help.

Has Cumbria got it's cases under control or are they, like London and Birmingham, in need of a nightingale hospital? I hope not. I know Cumbria had early cases, some time before the furore around people returning to their home towns (together with a minority of second homers). I heard it was linked to ski holidays and other trips.

I don't, but if I did I think I would have seriously considered it at the start of the pandemic, because being in a small house is hard for kids.
However, once I heard everyone asking people to stay at home and worrying about ICU beds etc, I would have changed my mind.
I did suggest to DH that we go and stay with my mum, because she's 70+ and on her own and has a nicer house than us, and could help with childcare. But DH said we would all drive each other bonkers, and I think he's probably right. (She lives in a similar area to us, so wouldn't be putting pressure on beds).

Whatwouldyoudo You don't need anything else because lockdown was implemented so it won't spread where you are. It wasn't put it place in time to protect the cities. Why not move to a city if you think it's so much better?

No. It's in France. We didn't when we could because our careers are in London and we need to be here when lockdown eases.

Turquoise we don't have huge arena venues here.

Our 'nightingale hospitals' are in sports halls what we need and what we have are two different things.

Statistics are in the top 10% anyone thinking Cumbria is really quiet wants to take a look at Windermere or Keswick on a bank holiday which is what it was like just a few weeks ago the day after school closures were announced.

And that's why we now have roadblocks. Partly because people take the absolute piss and to protect what we have.

BookWitch I thought doctors had to accept temporary patients by law? It would also be highly irresponsible for a doctor of all people to encourage unnecessary travel. Now the people are in their holiday home, they need to stay there.

I don’t, but let’s be honest, if I had one I would. Maybe if i was an at risk age group or had medical needs I’d think twice if it was a remote area with few hospitals, but I don’t fall into those categories. I would have done it before lockdown was even announced though - it’s way too late now.

I do have to say I think unless the above applies (over 60 or have medical needs and it’s in a remote area) then why not? These houses belong to those individuals just as much as their primary residences and they have every right to be there.