To think 1 bathroom for 5 bedrooms is ridiculous?

[Sashacolby]

Been looking at houseshares as a way to save money, I'm looking in the North West. What I have found is that several properties only offer one bathroom between 5 tenants (or more if they have guests over), not even a separate toilet.
AIBU to think that's terrible? The rooms are anything from 320-400 pounds a month including all bills.
It's more cost-effective but should be 2 bathrooms as a minimum. How on earth do people cope in the mornings and such?
I'm sure some people live in even worse living arrangements than this, in more deprived/vulnerable situations, and that's not acceptable either.

Not sure if it's similar in student halls? I never lived in them as I went to a local university.

Just had a look at some in Liverpool. Many advertise the amount of showers and most have at least another toilet. But the ones around hospitals have only one bathroom. If you are after Nurses etc I suppose they can shower at work.

It's because they're basically family homes turned HMOs rather than purpose built with many features. It's not right to me, I couldn't share a bathroom with 5 family members let alone strangers!

Sounds hideous. I would want more than one bathroom if I was only sharing with one person, but expecting 5 people to share one bathroom is completely grim. I'm amazed anyone would put up with it.

I shared one bathroom with 7 others when I was a student. It wasn’t ideal but we coped! Just part of being a student, isn’t it?

My oh and I lived in hoseshared before we moved in together. There were 14 of us one Christmas and that's one kitchen and one bathroom. We went out for Christmas dinner it was impossible to cook and we ate so many takeouts. It was £800 a room ten years ago

When I was in halls I shared one bathroom with 4 others. We did have a 2nd toilet though. In halls at least we all had class at different times, so whereas some would be up at 7, others might not get up until 9. Other than that, you just work around it. Shower when you get home/in the evening instead of the morning and so on.

Uni lets are often like this, I rented one in my early 20s, my son was in similar last academic year. It's not much fun, but is generally cheaper.

Yeah I suppose you just have to work around it if you've no choice! It was bad enough growing up sharing 1 toilet as a family of 4!

https://seekersproperty.co.uk/about/advice-hub/landlord-hub/how-many-bathrooms-should-an-hmo-have don't know if relevant but I thought there were some basic rules about this...

I think it's illegal, in a HMO you need 1 bathroom per 4 people. For 5 people you need as a minimum, a bathroom and toilet in 2 separate rooms. For 6 or over you need 2 bathrooms with 2 toilets.

This is so funny, I often think how this used to be the norm (3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, although usually the toilet was separate) and now it's almost unheard of.

Good point about it not even being legal. I lived in a bedsit in my mid 20s with an absolutely horrendous bathroom shared with 2 men, full of spiders, big ones, and someone who for whatever reason liked to put newspaper down the toilet
I used to take my showers at the gym and go to the toilet in the pub downstairs. Thank god I was only there for 6 months, spent most of the time avoiding it.

For family homes it's still relatively 'normal' to have 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom including the only toilet. DH grew up in a 3 bed semi with mum, dad and 4 siblings and that set up. There were 4 of us in my childhood home and 1 bathroom with sink and bath only-loo was separate and we had a downstairs loo as well- bit posh back in the day.
For an HMO it's horrible though. Who cleans it if someone leaves a mess? If you don't 'know' your housemates- it must be so difficult. As others have said it sounds illegal as well. There are a few HMOs advertised near me and a lot of the newer conversions tend to have a tiny ensuite to all the rooms although they are more expensive.

Our halls of residence was fun
14 of us
1 shower
2 baths
4 toilets

Same. I think it was one to eight in my halls.

Its probably why its relatively cheap though, especially if it includes council tax, gas, water and electricity. I was paying similar 15 years ago at university!

Ok for a student, but would you want to do it now? OP didn't indicate they were a student.

Oh you’re quite right @jc12689! I totally misread. Yes that is pretty shocking, a professional houseshare should certainly be better equipped.

Ds is at uni and has an on suite (cheapest room), at home he has 1 bathroom to 3/4 of us!