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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Original poster

Cousin's daughter has ended up with the box room in shared house at university

24 replies

mrsjavierbardem · 15/09/2014 12:03

She's paying the same rent and her mates won't budge on anything: Won't rotate the room, won't pay more.

She did agree to have the room a year ago - but now sees that it is almost impossibly small and feels she should at the very least, pay less rent.

I guess that's that but I do think they are being vile to her and so aggressive in their refusal to discuss it at all.. Oh well you see people's true colours over this kind of thing, a life lesson for sure.

OP posts:

TranmereRover · 15/09/2014 12:08

don't sign the lease, say she's walking - unless they're completely stupid, they know they won't find someone else who's prepared to pay an equal amount for th eworst room. It also suggests that the others will be a nightmare about things like cleaning / food costs, so she may be better off finding some people she doesn't yet know and share with them instead.

batgirl1984 · 15/09/2014 12:13

Its a hard one to fix once you've moved in. Little hope of them agreeing to pay a higher share after the event. Is there any chance she could just lay claim to a larger share of the communal space? Not ask, just start using it? I had a house share where the person with the smaller room had their desk in the living room, but we agreed prior to moving in. Do students still use a bookcase? Could she stick one in the hall or lounge?

Original poster

mrsjavierbardem · 15/09/2014 12:30

good point batgirl, there is room for negotiating preferential space in the rest of the house perhaps... at least, I think these girls should show some generosity in response to hers.

OP posts:

FrozenAteMyDaughter · 15/09/2014 16:09

Is she actually prepared to move out somewhere else, and is it realistic? If so, this is probably the best idea. A year is a long time to feel resentful.

If she does move out she should probably get some advice on what her responsibility for the lease is before she does so though. If it is a lease for the whole house rather than individuals signing a lease for their individual rooms, the landlord will presumably claim the rent from whoever is left. However, they may try to claim back her share from her if they all signed it (not sure how this would work).

lauren222 · 15/09/2014 16:18

It's quite a difficult situation. If there is no prospect of a rent reduction she should try and negotiate some other perk like top shelf in the fridge or claim a storage cupboard to store her belongings.

hollowhallows · 15/09/2014 16:20

If she agreed to it then they will feel they have all settled in and may not want to move rooms. It will cause bad blood if they are unwilling to change the status quo and she alone pushes for it to change. Best thing would be to move out. If no one is willing to compromise or lower her rent then it doesn't sound like they are a great bunch of friends anyway. I had a hard time with some housemates at uni and moved out. I found someone to take over my part of the tenancy agreement through gumtree and the estate agent drew up a new tenancy agreement that the new person signed with my old housemates. Was so happy to see the back of that house!

hollowhallows · 15/09/2014 16:23

I don't see it as possible to negotiate preferential space in another part of the house. It is difficult to implement that type of thing in a uni house share.

moggle · 15/09/2014 16:31

If she agreed, while it would be nice for them to let her have a rent reduction, obviously it means the rest of them have to pay more which they won't have budgeted for.
This happened to my (then) BF (now DH), when they moved into a house share in year 2 he drew the short straw for the box room (same rent, I think) under the proviso that in the next year they would redraw and change round. However that year came around and the others just refused to move rooms. But they were boys so they just got on with it and there was no lingering resentment which seems more likely with girls. They're still all best mates. I hated the girl who moved into our house in the third year, insisted on having a big room and again by drawing straws dumped me out into a tiny room. Stupid stuck up cow! :-P

Sorry, there's no good answer here. it is a life lesson and the year will be over before she knows it. I can't remember all the ins and outs but if they've signed a joint lease she can't just move out without having some responsibility for finding a replacement; plus it's probably far too late for her to find anywhere potentially better now.

TheOpaqueAndJelliedTruth · 15/09/2014 18:51

By and large I agree that if she said she'd have it, it is unfair to turn around now, when the others have budgeted, even though it's a tough lesson.

But how did she come to agree? She hadn't seen it - so who had? If someone saw it and told her she could fit more in than she can (eg., desk and bed when it's only a bed, or whatever), then she has more of a case to be cross. Unfortunately, if they just said it was small and she didn't follow up, again, it's a lesson.

She could surely insist that some extra storage space in the shared space is hers - is there a living room? Or even at a pinch, can she be allowed to put stackable boxes of stuff on the landing? Her flatmates are unlikely to nick/mess up books or clothes, I would have thought, in the way they might help themselves to food/valuables.

NorthWitch · 15/09/2014 19:00

Is it a nice room? I stayed in a box room years ago which was oddly shaped and shady being at the back of the house but I preferred it to the bigger sunnier rooms and when one became available I knocked it back and stayed where I was - pretty sure it was the same cost or not much cheaper as well. Bigger isn't always better.

Kimaroo · 15/09/2014 19:02

Has the room everything that a student let should have? E.g. Bed, wardrobe, desk, shelves, plenty of electrical points. If not, I would get onto the letting agent about it not being fit for purpose. Otherwise, she'll just have to get on with it. Use it for study and sleeping but use the communal area for chilling etc. Or crash at friends. Dd1 has rented some horrible rooms, but it's a case of weighing up everything else (house facilities, location, friends etc) but especially getting something else at this late stage.

TheOpaqueAndJelliedTruth · 15/09/2014 19:26

If not, I would get onto the letting agent about it not being fit for purpose.

Huh? You would call a room without a shelves/ a wardrobe 'not fit for purpose'? Good luck with that one!

Kimaroo · 15/09/2014 19:33

We have successfully contested a student room in a house 'not fit for purpose'. A 5-bed house was re-let as a 4-bed with no increased rent for the remaining students.

merrymouse · 15/09/2014 19:34

I think that if you can fit a bed, a desk and clothes storage in the room it is probably big enough and she just needs to arrange it efficiently. If on the other hand. It isn't a 'proper' bedroom - ie you can just about squeeze a bed in and nothing else - then while it may not be possible to say it isn't fit for purpose, the fact that this bedroom is so tiny will have been reflected in the total rent and the other housemates are being very unreasonable. I would be checking out rents of other houses for comparison.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 15/09/2014 19:34

We rented a student house with a box room. We drew straws, with the idea of rotating who went in it. However within a couple of weeks it became clear the room was pretty unliveable.

We moved all the bedroom stuff into the living room, stuck the telly and the sofa into the box room and turned it into the snug/spare room.

I guess that illustrates why I'm still good friends with my Uni mates 30 years on.

TheOpaqueAndJelliedTruth · 15/09/2014 19:49

kim - but you can't just say 'it has no shelves! It's no good!' if it has been let to people who've seen what they are getting. If it's been advertised as having those things or you could reasonably have expected them to be there, fine - but why on earth should a private LL have to provide all of them if students are happy to take the place?

I believe you can't advertise something as a bedroom if it doesn't have a window. I don't believe you can't advertise it because it doesn't have shelves. So my concern would be that if the LL was quite clear with whoever looked round the shared house, the daughter might really struggle to find him/her at fault.

Kimaroo · 15/09/2014 20:00

Try not to get hung up on the shelves! Somewhere to store books, papers etc how's that? The target is students. Not old people, families or couples. Students need a desk, chair, shelving. That's what the landlords round here are advised before they start converting houses for student use.

TheOpaqueAndJelliedTruth · 15/09/2014 20:05

Sorry, didn't mean to be hung up on it. Just knackered.

I think there is a big difference between what a LL is advised will make a property attractive to students, and what's 'fit for purpose'. This is why I'm asking who it was that saw these rooms, because the cousin's DD obviously didn't. If they're renting from a private LL he or she is perfectly entitled to rent out the boxroom, I would say.

If it's halls, of course, I would be really fed up.

Essexgirlupnorth · 15/09/2014 20:06

She could do what my housemate with the smallest room used to do which was turn the heat off when her room was warm but the rest of us were still freezing!

Original poster

mrsjavierbardem · 15/09/2014 21:51

She did see the room.
She said she'd take it thinking it wasn't too terrible and no one else would.
Now she's moved in she is sorry for the rashness.
It isn't unliveable it's just very small and not much room. She will be fine and has learned a huge amount about human nature this week and a lot about herself too.
She doesn't want to move out, they're her best mates, she's a bit shocked by how very nosed they have been about it.
Oh and I lived with such a cow of a Princess... There were a whole terms when some of us didn't speak!

OP posts:

TheOpaqueAndJelliedTruth · 15/09/2014 22:20

Oh, dear. That is rotten for her - but she'll (hopefully) never rent anything again without properly thinking about where things will fit.

I think her flatmates could afford to be a bit nicer, but I do see their points really. Hopefully it will all shake out (and she can be extremely kind when it's discovered one of the other rooms has mould/no soundproofing/a mysterious stench when the radiator turns on).

Or was that just my student rooms?

mrsmaturin · 16/09/2014 16:45

It's a life lesson for her, sometimes they have a price tag unfortunately.

I speak as somebody who had to get a solicitor involved to sort out my student housemate.........

Bearcatt · 19/09/2014 16:30

When DS2 moved into a 7 bedroomed house in 2011 they drew straws.
The guys who had the 2 smallest rooms were allowed the first pick of bedrooms when they moved into a nicer 7 bedroom house a year later.
The other 5 then drew straws for the pick of the remaining 5 bedrooms.
Maybe she could negotiate similar for herself in next years house.

DayLillie · 24/09/2014 11:43

I did something similar in second year - it wasn't a small room but I volunteered to have the sitting room with no sink and a sofa bed. I had to use a washing up bowl on the sideboard to get washed and use the kitchen sink (when no one was around) for my teeth. One of the other girls complained when I insisted on having one of the beds from the other rooms, because the sofa bed wasn't fit for purpose but you do have to learn to stand up for yourself and negotiate around things. It was not something I ever did again

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