Mum, dad and three kids in one bedroom apartment overcrowded? Your thoughts?

[Leah5678]

Just out of curiosity but what with the current high prices of buying a house and renting and the long council waiting lists. How crowded is your home (number of bedrooms, children etc)

I know the average mumsnetter is wealthier than the average person but I also know a lot of you lovely ladies on here do a lot of work helping the less fortunate. Do you find overcrowding like three children in a one bed to be quite common or is it rare?

Ps I do not have three children so no personal attacks lol

Absolutely. They'll want 3 months bank statements so will be able to see how much you're paying in childcare if you have 2 in quick succession.

I have a 4 bed house. I rent one room out to help pay the mortgage. I have a room and each of my sons have a room each. I have 2 sons. One son is only home for weekends/ holidays as he is doing an apprenticeship so he has the box room.

2 adults + 2 kids = 3 bedroom house. Pretty standard where we are.

3 kids and 2 adults living in a one bedroom is definitely overcrowded to me. I personally wouldn’t have anymore children unless i had a bigger home but you do you.
I dont know anyone who lives like that so to me its a rare occurrence but depending on where you live in the UK it can be the norm. We live in a 4 bed, 2 adults and 2 children.

I’ll be blunt. It sounds like you can’t afford 3 children.

Chill out with the comments about shitty parenting and "spawning" (although I do find that word funny lol) I only have one child and I'm far from the only person with one child in a one bedroom apartment there's quite a few other families in my apartment block living the same way.
I made the thread merely to gauge whether it was common to have two or more in a one bedroom and to hear other peoples experience etc and I got my answer, thanks for all your comments everyone

It's not common no.

Having said that, I would rather have a small house that I owned than a large house that was rented.

Honestly with regards to food and clothing and everything else I could it's only space that's the issue but don't worry I won't be spawning till I've moved somewhere bigger

I don't know anyone who lives in a home as overcrowded as you describe. I don't personally know anyone who doesn't have a bedroom, whether they share it with siblings or whatever.

I have three bedrooms and only one child still at home so currently a spare room albeit pretty small.

Another factor is that many landlords won't rent where there's overcrowding or even just a family that isn't overcrowded in a small space. If you have 20-30 applicants for your flat (as I have had), why would you choose 2 parents, 2 kids, over one single person? The wear on the property is so much more. It's a shame, I don't think morally that's right, but fewer landlords want to squeeze families into smaller spaces for pretty obvious reasons, which is why having social housing is so important as the market doesn't favour those with children/those wanting to save money by having smaller properties.

I don’t think it’s common for parents to be sleeping in the living room while three children share a bedroom. Personally, whatever about two children sharing a bedroom while their parents sleep in the living room, I think it would be extremely unfair to plan a third child while living in that situation.

The lack of space would be awful, no privacy for anyone, no-where to decompress and relax by yourself. Everyone would be stress.

2 parents and 3 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment, of course it would be overcrowded. I can't think many people could live like this.

Of course it’s overcrowded!

I knew of families with 5 kids or more who lived in very small 3 bedroom houses (council houses where the bedrooms are generally small) and the DC all ended up in dead end jobs or in prison. The kids who were from smaller families in same houses did better, so eg where they did or didn’t have to share, or had more space.

I don’t know anybody living in circumstances as overcrowded you describe.

I personally don’t know anyone with 3 kids who lives in anything smaller than a 3 bedrooms house.

A colleague of mine, the oldest child, at 23, in a family with 4 children, youngest 8yo, has just succeeded in getting her family rehoused from a 2 bed flat to a 3 bed flat

Op I can’t get whether you own or rent? Can you not move further out to a cheaper area (you asked how people afford bigger places, we live as rurally as you can nearly live in the cheapest county in Ireland) I would think children would prefer the security of seeing their parents in their own separate bedroom, in fact I think there’d be questions asked if you followed the living arrangements you asked about. Best of luck op

It does apply to private rentals. Landlords can be fined heavily if a property is overcrowded, and a court will evict a tenant who makes the property overcrowded.

The flat will stink. Five people in a space intended for a maximum of two? The flat will reek, you will reek and the DC will reek. Then there's the mould issue. Overcrowding can cause mould.

If 5 people are sharing a 1 bed flat the least of your problems is the children might get bullied. There will be no private space, no space at all really, too much intrusive noise, too much laundry, nowhere to sit, nowhere to chill. It would be hard enough with same sex triplets but opposite sex kids with an 8-10 year age gap is awful. I have a friend in a 3 bed with 5 kids. Her 3 boys shared a room and so did her 2 girls. There is a 14 year age gap between her girls so an had a 17yo sharing with a 3yo. It wasn’t ideal but better than a 17yo girls sharing with a 11yo boy and an 8yo girl while their parents slept on the sofa and dad is falling over the bunk beds looking for his pants. I have 4 dc. I moved to a cheap area of the country so I could house them.

Calm down 😆

Someone I knew had a two bed house with three daughters in the big room and parents in the box room.

I had four children in a three bed so two to a room while they were growing up. Now two share and one has their own box room.

I think generally though it is a parent decision to have more children in those conditions without the means to upgrade on space although perhaps now it could be private rentals ending and parents not being able to afford a big enough house.

Uncommon but there was a handful of larger families at dc's schools, one had 1/ kids! in a 3 bed semi, go figure!

We weren't in London and there weren't really any flats apart from from retirement/sheltered housing. Council housing was most 3 bed semis

I live in a 2 bedroom flat with my OH and 3 children-not rented, I own it bought pre-children, ideally want somewhere bigger but saving for a deposit is difficult and money is tight at the moment.

My health visitor at the last appointment was being pushy about getting somewhere I wanted to tell her she could pay our deposit.
Technically not classed as overcrowded so no point applying for council housing or anything.

Why would your children be bullied?

you as adults will face judgement. There is a difference between parents who find themselves dealing with the vagaries of life and make do vs people who knowingly put their families into difficult situations.

Why would you have more children before you can comfortably house them?