To wonder how people actually afford to move into council properties

[Niknick]

So, me and my dh have been offered a house with our local council after years of being on the waiting list. We have two son’s youngest of whom is autistic and we have been offered 3 bed meaning we’d all have our own bedroom at last. I haven’t had an official viewing of the house yet ie with the hosing officer but workmen are currently doing some repairs and they allowed me and my dh in the other day to have a quick look round whilst they were sat in the garden on a break.

Anyway i went equipped with my tape measure to measure up for carpeta, blinds and just to get a general idea of how things will fit. I’ve since gone to a cheap carpet place and been quoted £1500. Blinds will cost around £450-£500. Then there are things like decoration, removal costs, buying a new oven as our current one our landlord owns etc. The property isn’t in great condition and having viewed another of the council’s houses years back me and my dh are under no illusion that the council will do anymore than the bare minimum.

So far it needs plaster work doing as the workmen have done a rubbish job. It needs scrubbing beyond recognition, the garden is like a jungle so that will be more cost as we’ll need to pay someone to do it as me and my dh are busy with work and the kids. Plus parts of the fences are smashed and need replacing as it’s not safe with my son. I know it’s the tenants responsibility to do a lot of these jobs but usually, people moving into these properties aren’t well off so AIBU to wonder how do people manage to do all this? We have virtually zero savings due to paying high private rent, so long term moving to this house would be financially a good idea, but short term I’m panicking about where the hell we find the kind of money we are going to need to make this house at least comfortable for us all to live in. Moving to my current house paying a months rent up front plus deposit and referencing check fees is cheaper than what we’ll have to spend to move to the new house so I’m quietly panicking.

"towels taped to windows as curtains...irl I know people from all backgrounds and income levels and no one lives like this."

I had a sheet draped over the curtain rail in my bedroom for a while and no curtains in the living room for a very long time. More out of laziness than poverty though...
So, you probably just don't know people who live in imperfect places.
I'm sitting now on garden furniture by the way. It does exactly the same thing as indoor furniture and is loads cheaper so that's what I have inside. Not ashamed of it either.

As for the garden - I watched a family move into a house in our street where the garden was a jungle. They were out in it all hours every weekend, with the children digging and planting. It looks lovely now, and it was so lovely to watch the four of them working hard together it make it look good.
Just clear a patch for the DC to play in, nearest to the house, and then do the rest in stages.

I've read all of your replies and you haven't been rude. I'd be very interested to know how many MNetters have actually lived with bare floors and newspaper at the windows as some are suggesting, especially with two children. There's nothing wrong with wanting a comfortable living space for your family, you just need to prioritise and do it as cheaply as possible.

We bought our house six years ago and I'm also impatient and wanted everything done immediately. Needless to say, we still have manky carpet in the ensuite, broken kitchen cupboards, furniture in our bedroom that is peeling and too big for the room, and a huge milk stain on one of DD1s bedroom carpets. We had to prioritise what needed doing - the only thing that was done prior to moving was new carpets throughout, which was about £400 for a small 3 bed semi, from a local independant shop. We prioritised the areas that would be used the most - the living spaces, main bathroom, and garden. I've very slowly been buying nicer made to measure blinds from online blind shops, but before that we had off the shelf blinds and curtains from Argos and Dunlem. Definitely have a look at local charity shops and Facebook pages. We live in a fairly bog standard village, but around half an hour away is a very affluent town - I follow their buying/selling pages on social media as the things being sold are always lovely quality and practically being given away. Ebay is fab for bargains too.

According to this thread, everyone is living in house with crumbling walls, concrete floors with random off cuts of rugs thrown down, towels taped to windows as curtains...irl I know people from all backgrounds and income levels and no one lives like this.

Well i do actually, I need to save hard for a whole year to afford all the work that needs to be done to my house. Not everyone wants to splurge on credit cards or loans.
I prefer to do it loan free and do a proper job.
My house is waterproof, warm and I'm not going to die living like this for a year.

" One thing that can work really well, if you have an uncarpeted room where the floor surface isn't great, is to get a big cheap roll of vinyl flooring (The Range do these, for example, for like £20-30) and literally use it like a massive rug. It looks perfectly decent and is easy to clean, and it's no hassle to put down/take up."

I have a floor that's really difficult to clean and I'm planning to buy bamboo rugs that can be mopped easily. I'm on the continent so don't know how common those rugs are in the UK and the big ones are a bit more expensive than the vinyl you suggested as well.

@Rainallnight

I think this is an issue for most people. We’re fairly comfortably off but have been in our house for six years and still don’t have all the curtains we need!

The thing is to ruthlessly prioritise. When we moved in here, we realised the carpets were making my asthma really bad so we pulled them up and got the floors sanded. That was it. That was all we did for about three years.

Us too. We bought our house 2.5 years ago and still only have blinds in the bedrooms and we earn pretty decent money.

We still don't have a light fitting in the hallway either.

@formerbabe

According to this thread, everyone is living in house with crumbling walls, concrete floors with random off cuts of rugs thrown down, towels taped to windows as curtains...irl I know people from all backgrounds and income levels and no one lives like this.

But they might have a few months after buying their house.

I have I friend who is currently doing up a beautiful house a room at a time. She started with kitchens and bathrooms, and two years in still hasn’t saved enough to do the living room. It is a beautiful work in progress.

I have been in my house for fifteen years now so everything’s is done (and being redone😊). But for the first year it was clearly a work in progress.

I am amazed that everyone you know has their house fully decorated one day one

Ive lived with bare boards, I stained them and it cost me £10 to stain each room and a lot of elbow grease sanding them down with an electric hand sander.

Ive searched charity shops and auction houses to find curtains for the windows and thats why I showed a colleague yesterday and saw brand new curtains for 99p and £3.99 postage but considering they were 90"x90" thats still a bargain for brand new in the open packet curtains

I surprised by people buying new and putting it on credit when they really don't have the means to pay back and could easily do without for a few weeks whilst they source second hand for a fraction of the price

Most houses have standard window sizes so buy ready made from somewhere like dunelm

Garden - well most people work full time and don't have gardeners - you just have to set aside a weekend and blitz it - with help from family/friends if needs be

Fence panels and posts aren't hard to do - watch a couple of videos on u tube

Carpet rooms one at a time as you need them or spread the cost using finance

Same with decoration - tin of paint and some brushes so you can probably say £35 per room or less - again spread it out

I do think you have made this out to be worse/more expensive/more hard work than it actually is? 🤷‍♀️

I’m not moving my kids into a half done house

Why ever not?

We bought our house nearly 14 years ago. A year later we had a new central heating system put in. We had to cut through the laminate flooring in the hall/a reception room for installation. It was screwed back down and covered with rugs. We can’t afford to relay it (my husband is not handy and wouldn’t be able to do it) so we have rugs.

We have decorated the kids bedrooms, but ours is still ok. The carpets are not to my taste, but we put up with them.

I get that you want it to be perfect to move into, but that isn’t practical for most people. Prioritise your fences, for your son’s safety, especially if you can get a grant/help/the council.

Perhaps then prioritise you son’s room so he has a familiar feel to his room. The rest will have to follow. Don’t discount charity shops for curtains, even if only for stop gaps. Be prepared to compromise on colours

Omg I haven’t pushed my ds’s issues at all. It must be different in other areas as since my eldest ds was 16 (almost 18 now) we automatically became entitled to a 3 bed house, prior to that we could only bid on two beds. Our council won’t just take your word if you want to try and move up the list based of medical needs. You usually have to provide proof of issues that are specifically housing related ie how moving house would significantly improve your dc’s life. Well, specifically moving house for us, won’t actually make a difference to my ds’s autism or his associated difficulties. It would help me and dh as we’d have a proper bedroom and yes, it would mean we couldn’t be evicted for no reason and we’d be settled but it wouldn’t directly help my ds. For some dc they need adaptions especially if they’re physically disabled. My ds isn’t physically disabled so unless I got a social worker on board to support me and say to the council it isn’t ok for me and my dh to sleep in a tiny dining room as our boys can’t share due to ds being awake most of the night, then we wouldn’t get anywhere, and haven’t up until being offered this house which we only got bidding in the bottom band for just over ten years. So please don’t assume I’m not being honest I’ve been morning but!

you say your elder ds is a teenager and does not have autism: well, there’s your gardener! I’m sure you can bribe him...

Just to repeat others - normal people do not live on Planet Instagram, otherwise ebay/gumtree/freecycle would not exist. Our curtains came from ebay, the blinds online. And I can’t believe you mentioned scrubbing - er, get scrubbing then ?

I have a floor that's really difficult to clean and I'm planning to buy bamboo rugs that can be mopped easily. I'm on the continent so don't know how common those rugs are in the UK and the big ones are a bit more expensive than the vinyl you suggested as well.

Ooh, those sound interesting! I might look into those.

(And yes, for the 'surely nobody on MN really lives like that' crowd, my vinyl suggestion was based on what is in my own living room, which my own baby lollops about on, and which is perfectly comfortable and pleasant.)

You do the decorating room by room starting with the the one you will spend most of your time in. Go for the cheapest neutral paint in the huge buckets and as for the garden fence, if you go onto YouTube they have easy tutorials on how to create a pallet fence. Pallets are usually given away on gumtree for free or very cheap, again with carpets you do room by room and for yourself and if you go on places like gumtree or into a carpet shop they sell off cuts for a fraction of the price.

I bought my blinds from blinds to go and fit them myself. Easy. Fence panels are also easy to replace.

May I suggest Freecycle?
It's a great resource, you can advertise a wanted advert and if anyone has what you are looking for they will message you and you go and collect for free. The ethos is that it stops things that are usable ending up in landfill. You can also view offered adverts on there too.
It's certainly helped me out over the years.

Or see if you have a mutual aid page on Facebook, on our one locally we've had people ask for help with gardening in return for cake or a homemade curry, we had a woman like you given her first home after living in temporary bedsit accommodation and she had nothing at all, within 48 hours she was offered beds and white goods and a local painter and decorator offered to paint her flat for her as he currently has very little work due to Lockdown. In return she offered music lessons and cleaning.

I don’t even have Instagram lol. Wouldn’t even know joe to use it. I have Facebook but I rarely go on that now a days so I don’t get jealous seeing other people’s perfect houses. I only have family and a few close friends on there anyway. And yeah my eldest son is a grafter and would help us with jobs.

Well its taken us years to get anywhere near the finish line! Blinds are not essential at all .Cheap curtains /rails are your friends here Argos £40 and £15/20 a rail !).(My friend still has a sheet draped across her front window.(Her DH was not well and she still hasnt got round to sourcing any new stuff)Just clean the floors and put down a large rug if you can .Rome /New houses were not furnished in a day!

You out up with it and do things but by bit. I know it looks like a dump now but in a year or so it will be worth it.

"I'm not moving my kids into a half-done house."

Why on earth not?

Many people live without carpet. Blinds and curtains can be makeshift, or purchased cheap at charity shops. You will need a cooker -- again second hand if need be.

Adjust expectations.

I've read all of your replies and you haven't been rude. I'd be very interested to know how many MNetters have actually lived with bare floors and newspaper at the windows as some are suggesting, especially with two children.

We've lived in very tatty places as we do them up and with the kids as well. Not actually newspaper at the windows but freecycle curtains which are horrid and don't fit the window, then drape a blanket over the pole at night to make the room darker. Off cuts of carpet (freecycle again) on the floor so there's some softness on the areas we walk on most. We own our own house but could only afford a do-er upper and due to my animal allergies all the carpets needed to be taken out before I moved in. It's not ideal but we were lucky enough to be able to do things bit by bit ourselves - and to have the spare money to do that after essentials are paid, which is not the case for everyone. I don't think anyone is saying live like that forever, just that it's not uncommon to have to compromise significantly for quite long periods of time.

Sorry but wtf? Where do you think people arrive in perfect houses with decor exactly to your tastes and standard and blinds in place?

We bought a new build ten years ago, the back garden was a muddy swamp with some half dead turf thrown at it. We had an entire house to decorate and a full mortgage to pay.

You need to learn to prioritise.

Or as my boss likes to say ...” how do you eat an elephant? ....one bite at a time”

you say your elder ds is a teenager and does not have autism: well, there’s your gardener! I’m sure you can bribe him...

Just to repeat others - normal people do not live on Planet Instagram, otherwise ebay/gumtree/freecycle would not exist. Our curtains came from ebay, the blinds online. And I can’t believe you mentioned scrubbing- er, get scrubbing then ?

This. Also second pp wholeheartedly about Facebook market place/Freecycle etc for free stuff.