Housing Crisis - 5 in a two bed flat

[Westcountrygal]

I was flabbergasted to recently learn about so many people sharing incredibly cramped living conditions. A Scottish MP saying on the radio that he grew up sharing with his two brothers, effectively three kids to a bedroom.

A colleague living in a two bed flat with her three kids, older ones sharing and baby in with the parents- where will they all go as the kids get older?

I live in an incredibly expensive city and coming across so many people living in very cramped living conditions must be so difficult. Where do people even keep all their clothes/ endless washing/ belongings?

Growing up I shared with both my siblings in a smallish double room, I don’t think it’s ‘incredibly cramped’ but it was a squeeze. Other two bedrooms were my parents and my my nan. We had one bathroom/loo. Downstairs was open plan which was difficult as really nowhere I could be alone or have privacy, that was more difficult than storage we had a couple of built in cupboards and a couple of dressers. You just do what you have to do, there was no money for a bigger property 🤷🏼‍♀️

It's not unusual. I had 3 kids ( 2 teens and a 5 year old) in a 2 bed flat.

Luckily no partner to squeeze in so the girls shared and the little one was in with me. When the eldest left I moved into biggest bedroom and divided int into 2 with a stud wall to give DS and I a room each.

As for stuff , well we just didn't keep much of it. Always been minimalist anyway but IKEA have some great storage solutions

My friend as a teen lived in a 4 bed maisonette which sounds good but she had 2 sisters, 4 brothers and neice as well as her mum and stepdad.

Parents and youngest brother had a room, 3 brothers in another room with bunks and a single , she and one sister had a room and other sister and niece had obe

It sounds horrendous to me. I know a woman living in a small two bed flat with her partner and two children...then she had another baby. So now five of them between two bedrooms... utter insanity to me.

Some of it is what you are used to

if you grew up in a smaller home you were not necessarily less happy than friend with bigger homes

but you may be astounded at the expectations of others - room per kid plus a guest room and an office seems like luxury whereas to others it seems a bare minimum

One of my colleagues, in her early 20s, has just moved into a shared house. Prior to that she was living in a 2 bed house with her parents and her younger brother. She shared a room.with her brother - he is 3 years younger. They had bunk beds. It happens

Not that unusual. Growing up I shared a bedroom with my two sisters, it held a set of bunk beds and a single bed. My brothers shared another bedroom, parents the third.

My SIL lives in a three bedroom house.

two adults and seven kids.
they have now got a sofa bed in the living room that the adults sleep on, but they only have two downstairs rooms - the kitchen/diner and the lounge.

it’s a squeeze.

only one bathroom aswell.

if a person chooses to have more children than they comfortably have space for then I don’t think they have any right to complain about it.

I’m sure plenty of people are happy with their children sharing bedrooms or to not having any personal space themselves l but I wouldn’t be, so I stopped at two children.

It's neither that unusual, nor that big a deal. I wouldn't describe it as either 'horrendous' or 'utter insanity'.
Poorer people (like me) tend to live in more cramped conditions. It's our lived reality, so we just get on with it.
It may not be what others would choose - or people like me, but I'm bloody grateful to have a safe, warm home to raise my DC in (which I didn't have as a child).
So, we don't need your suppurating snobbery, or judgement.

When I was a child I knew a family with 6 kids all in one bedroom. There were 3 sets of bunk beds and not much else, it was a standard 2 bed council house so not huge by any stretch.

Each to their own but I do think people should prioritise their existing kids welfare instead of warehousing kids they can't adequately house whilst demanding help they only need because of their inability to make adult choices.

Overall living conditions are was cramped, people generally live in larger homes and have less children than they did a generation ago.

Up until recently, I had 4 children in a 3 bed. None of the bedrooms were big enough for the 3 boys to share. Ended up with eldest (15) having the smallest room to himself, the middle two (boys aged 13 and 11) sharing and my 6 ywar old daughter co slept with me. Husband slept on the sofa. He had to get up in middle of night for work 6 days a week, so I woukd be in my room with 6 yesr old from 7.30 onwards and hated it.

We now live in a 4 bed so have the eldest with a room to himself, the two middle ones share a (big) room and daughter has her own room, and husband and I have our own room finally.

See before I had my 2 bed flat I was in a 4 bed house with 2 reception rooms. But a relationship breakdown screwed that up and I couldn't afford to but similar on my own so I had to downsize. So not always a choice

Only have the amount of children you can house… problem solved! We have one and can afford him and so we stopped!

My daughter (7) and I have a small one bed flat. Until I can afford decent bunk beds, she's in my bed with me.
I shared a room with my two sisters until I left at 18.

There was 4 of us sharing a bedroom when I grew up 60s/70s. It wasn't unusual.

People now seem to think that children need a bedroom each. They don't.

What when circumstances change?

There is obviously a difference between choosing to squeeze too many bodies into one house and circumstances changing.

People lived in waaaay more crowded conditions until just a couple of generations ago. I personally think people shouldn’t have more kids if they don’t have room for them. And yes I know, people’s circumstances change. But a lot of people choose to keep having kids when they don’t have the room or money for them.

How old was the Scottish MP-makes me think as my gran used to get mad at Billy Connelly for saying he grew up in poverty, saying he lived near her and had pretty much the same, and that they were the first lot not to have outdoor toilets (not sure if that's true, but they did have lots of kids in 2 bed tenements). When they built the high rises, everyone wanted one thinking they were luxury.
So depending on his age, I can believe it-looking back I don't know how my grandparents put up with things, and even thought they were lucky.

Tell that to the people on here saying that others should only have kids they can house then. At least 3 posts stated that

Our s21 ( we were served before 1st May) ended on July 17th so we are supposed to be out of our property by now. We haven’t found anything suitable and the council have only just accepted us. There are currently 8000 people on our local register waiting for a house.

its absolutely crazy.

I think if you have 4 or more DC you should probably think about how you would cope if circumstances change before planning to have that many children

I’m currently living in a one bedroom flat with my two children (DS and DD) 5 and 2. 2yo is outgrowing the cot and I have one bed in the flat while we wait for a house. I fled domestic abuse and was put here. I’m still so far away I worry about what living conditions will be like in a few months. It is dreadful. I must say I have heard of some horror stories where people have had rats etc. count ourselves lucky we only have mould, damp and silverfish! 🤢

I’m sorry….but this is the reality against the super wealthy having 4-5-6 huge homes all over. There is no housing shortage ANYWHERE. The housing is just in the wrong hands. Certainly in developed nations, this should absolutely not be the case. Tax the assets of the wealthy. No one NEEDS more than one place to lay their head.