To think I will miss this shitty flat

[C0meback]

I'm moving out of my rented flat soon to a lovely 2 bed terrace with my 2 young DC. I moved to the flat when DD was a tot and I was 5 months pregnant with DS. The flat was an absolute crap hole but I was a single mum in a desperate position and I took it on because I had no other options. Over the past few years I've redecorated and made it cosy and homely. Nothing fancy, but it's to my taste and lots of warm fairy lights, the DC's artwork on the wall etc. However, everything is still falling apart, we have a mould problem and I was over the moon (still am) when I was recently accepted for our new house. I've dreamed of a house and a garden for so long. Moving day is just around the corner and I'm suprised to find myself tearing up a bit when I think of leaving the flat. I think this place was a "stepping stone" for me and I've gone through a real transformation process whilst living here. I was forced to face up to how fucking shit I was with money and sort my debt out, my driving instructor picked me up from here for my first ever driving lesson, I sat on my battered sofa every night studying my OU course. I took pictures of DD in the lounge on her first day of school, I bathed my newborn son's tiny body for the first time in the million year old bath. Every splodge/crayon stain tells a story of my kids growing up. I've spent so long moaning about this place instead of reflecting on the times we have had here and now I'm worried about the new house feeling like "home".

Farewell, shitty flat. :(

❤️💐 onwards and upwards!

You’re bound to feel very emotionally attached to the flat that helped you become who you are today. Maybe you should go a bit Marie Kondo, and walk around thanking each room before you leave! Congrats on the new house, too!

Its your home, you have good memories there. But many places can be home in our lives! This one has had its time, now it’s time for the next - you’ll be filling your new place with laughter and memories in no time.

I get emotionally attached to the places l have lived. The best bit is you get to take the memories with you wherever you go

Thank you. I think that's a great idea

You’ll make the new place home too. But I know what you mean. I moved to a postage stamp sized craphole when I left my first husband. Mould problem. Barely room to swing a cat. It was on divorce alley, there were 4 of us in a row of tiny cheap ground floor flats all there because we’d left our exes.

It felt like mine more than the place I’d bought with my ex. I bought a lamp shade with a twee bow on it, a floral duvet cover I’d never have been allowed before, some baking scales. I grew to love it, I felt content and safe there.

I moved from there into a still very cheap pretty crappy place with DH when we’d been together a while and we made that home too but a bit of me missed my tiny craphole as I had a lot of happy memories of my single life there where I lived on my own for the first time and put myself back together.

Completely understand. I bought my first house this year as a single parent. Before that we were living in a shitty rented flat above a takeaway. I love having a nice house to call my own with a garden. But I miss the flat sometimes. It was the first place I lived after separating from my ex husband, and I remember the day I got the keys and walked through the door and feeling free.

You will love your new home but you will miss the old place at times! Congratulations.

Not ridiculous at all. It looked after you when you needed it and you looked after it in return. The new house will be your home soon enough but you're allowed to be a bit tearful now OP

😢 I'm such a sook, I'm crying for/with you.

So many memories...

The good thing is you can take them with you!! Take lots of photos, especially of daft things, like the Bath!

If you can make a shitty flat 'HOME', you can certainly make the new place home! & you're taking the fairy lights & artwork with you!!

Be proud of how well you've done & try to look forward!

Thanks everyone. Loved reading the stories about your very own "shitty flats"

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m moving into a shitty flat soon, in one of the most polluted parts of the UK with my two kids. Sounds awful but I’m so looking forward to having my first home without an abusive man in it. From when I was a kid to adulthood - abusive men have ruled the roost. Wish it had happened a lot sooner. I have bigger dreams tho, we won’t stay there too long. I‘d love a three bedroom small Victorian that I can extend one day. Gotta keep dreaming.

I still miss my awful shitty flat I lived in for two years at uni. I used to sit on my bed and look out of the window at the burnt out building opposite and hear the goods trains go past in the night. I remember sleeping with my duvet on the bathroom floor, how every cupboard and skirting board was wonky and how we still had a very small, very rubbish telly. I still miss sitting on the tiny roof outside.

@Bonnieonthelam

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m moving into a shitty flat soon, in one of the most polluted parts of the UK with my two kids. Sounds awful but I’m so looking forward to having my first home without an abusive man in it. From when I was a kid to adulthood - abusive men have ruled the roost. Wish it had happened a lot sooner. I have bigger dreams tho, we won’t stay there too long. I‘d love a three bedroom small Victorian that I can extend one day. Gotta keep dreaming.

Good luck to you

We have wonky cupboards too

Your feelings are absolutely normal. I still feel nostalgic for the first flat that DH & I rented. It was tiny and drafty and we had the noisiest neighbours, but so many important and happy milestones happened during our time there. I love looking back at the photos from those years. BUT I feel like where we live now is our "forever home" and we are making memories here too. You'll always have the memories & it sounds like it's time for the next chapter!

I get what you mean. My first rented house with my partner was an absolute shithole, we were dirt poor, the neighbours were horrendous, the street/area was filthy from flytipping and crime-ridden. We lived there for 4 years, things slowly improved (even after having a baby) and we finally got enough together to buy our own place. The house was falling down around us and I still felt sad! We'd 'grown up' so much in that house, it was our eldest's first home, it was the place of many firsts and lasts.

I got over it quite quickly though, mostly because after a few weeks of no mould or wet feeling walls, no drafts, no need to chase landlords about the boiler not working and not being allowed to call anyone they didnt approve of (e.g. not their dodgy mate Dave), no neighbours screaming obscenities and blaring music all night long, I realised that memories are nice but a good home is priceless

There is literally a book written on this exact subject, called the L shaped room, about a nice girl who gets pregnant and moves into a crappy room in a Fulham boarding house in the fifties. It’s brilliant. By Lynn Reid Banks who also wrote One More River.

Disclaimer, it is also full of the values of the time, she moves into a house with a struggling Jewish writer, a black musician, an old lady, two prosittues in the basement. It was I think very progressive for its day (1950s) but eye-opening when you read back how openly sexist/racist/anti Semitic society was!)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_L-Shaped_Room_(novel)

I know exactly how you feel, I rented a littlw shitty house when dd was tiny. It was a big old 1900s terrace, was absolutely fucking freezing as no insulation, damp as a mermaids minge, I had to bleach the walls on a regular basis, the cellar used to flood and I had to top up the gas and electricity meters down there, the fuses used to blow regularly (probably because fuse box was in cellar) and it was an absolute nightmare to decorate with blown vinyl wallpaper everywhere covering up the fact the walls were fucked underneath.

But I loved that little house. It was my home, then mine and dhs and dds and then ds. We moved to a swanky new build the other side of town. As soon as I got the keys to new build it felt like home tho, and it was lovely painting and decorating, chosing new furniture I knew wouldn't end up mouldy. By the time moving day came I actually couldn't wait to leave.

I'm drinking coffee in bed tearing up remembering many shitty flats. All in lovely big old buildings. They were run down but fab. I made them cosy. I shared a couple with some great girls and we had the very best of fun.
All were in fantastic cental locations.
Only brilliant memories.
We were all too mean to be bothered renting a smart apartment.
Too busy travelling on great holidays, buying gorgeous clothes and eating out all the time.
Something had to give!

I can absolutely understand your emotion.
It's 30 years since I was lived in one and I can remember them all so clearly, there were about 6 of them.

OP, it sounds as if you are a fantastic woman who should be enormously proud of all you have achieved.

Every success going forward.

I felt like that when we moved from a flat to a house; there were so many problems with the flat (over crowded, mould, too many stairs etc) but it was still the place I’d brought my baby home to, found out I was pregnant in, got married while living there, had our baby’s first Christmas and birthday and it had a special place in my heart. It took me a good couple of months to settle into my new place as it just didn’t contain the memories of the my previous one.

Cried my eyes out when we left our first crappy flat. It was draughty, cold, noisy, the landlord was awful, you'd get woken up every night by people leaving the pub on the corner, drug dealers had moved in upstairs and we'd regularly find addicts asleep in the hallway. Can't say I miss it at all now but at the time heartbroken. Good luck OP.

I get sentimental about things as well. When I've left previous flats I've always gone round taking pictures even if I've hated it there, there are always good memories. A part of it might just be anxiety about moving as it's always very stressful. Once you're settled in your new house and have everything sorted regarding bills, broadband, furniture and everything things will be so much better

So pleased that you are moving on, but completely get where you're coming from over the flat. Sounds like it's really made you who you are now. Enjoy your new place and I'm sure you'll have lots of good times there x

You're bound to feel sad about leaving a place where you put yourself back together, made a home for your DCs and flourished. But now it's time to let the little flat do the same for someone else. If you can afford it, leave one nice thing of yours behind for the next person and wish them well - you are passing the sanctuary on to someone who needs it. for you and your new home.