Student rented houses have changed SO SO much ....

[Ta1kinPeece]

I moved DD into her 2nd year rented house today.

Landlords had put in new kettle, toaster, mattress covers, vacuum cleaner, hard floor cleaner
washing machine, fridge and mattresses are less than two years old
outside smoking area and bike locks are provided

its all so CLEAN and CIVILISED

I was a student in the 80's
when did it change from the Young Ones to Friends ?

[Iris65]

My son's student house in Oxford a couple of years ago was cold, damp and filthy. The landlords had converted the sitting and dining rooms into bedrooms so that a six bedroom house became an eight bedroom. They owned over twenty houses throughout Oxford and were basically slum lords as far as I could tell. My son had fun though - inbtween bouts of asthma and bronchitis.

[LillianGish]

Their student accommodation may be luxurious, but many of this generation will never be able to afford a home of their own - I know which way round I'd prefer it (and I think most of them would prefer that too).

[BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou]

When we went to view DDs accommodation for this year (her 2nd) we were very impressed.. beautiful house, very clean, beautifully equipped.

They had to 'take posession' in July but DD didn't move in until last week, the boys had been there for a week when we took her there last week. The house is a dirty, stinking, filthy tip! They are ANIMALS!

[elephantoverthehill]

Beatrice congratulations on your degree but I am sorry about your dogs and your Dad.

[holdthewine]

Bosswitch: That's amazing.The standard of student accommodation in Leeds when my DC left about 6 years ago was appalling. She lived in a house with iron grilles to keep out intruders and a "basement kitchen" which was basically a cellar with units in it (no window). The student area around Hyde Park had some of the most burgled streets in UK at the time. It was the worst of all our DC uni accommodation (her halls at Uni of Leeds were pretty bad too but I think were then demolished / refurbished same as another DC's at Exeter were).

But she was blissfully happy and got a good degree!

[BeatriceBeaudelaire]

Nope - I graduated last year and my dogs were disgusting and overpriced.
Your Dad is just lucky.

[cheminotte]

My dc aren't uni age yet but I see uni accommodation via work and am surprised by the high standards. I had a double bed from second year in a shared house but it was a single in halls. Surely that's part of the experience? Purpose built student accommodation is also not subject to the same building standards which I find worrying.

[goodbyestranger]

Fair enough TP :)

[Ta1kinPeece]

goodbye
I was not clear on my "Victorian" comment ...
numbers of plugs sockets
wifi transparent walls
plumbing in all rooms
non solid DPC
and all the other things that actually make most modern houses crap compared with the ones that have lasted 130 years already

[goodbyestranger]

My own uni house had a cistern which cracked one cold winter, leaving a solid block of cistern shaped ice, which dissolved - eventually.

[goodbyestranger]

Ok well even in pre-email days I can confirm that Castle was a shithole, from an accommodation pov.

Also, to TP, as far as finding some parental attitudes to Victorian houses downright weird, I'll just exclude myself: the Victorian houses my DC lived in in East Oxford were fine. Good solid building but reduced to shitholes by a combination of slack landlords and overly relaxed incumbents not by the building period itself. That's how all the uni students live in that area. Parents can't improve the student's lot short of buying a house, but few uni parents do. The college rooms which were the worst were Jacobean or Georgian or Brutalist, none were Victorian.

[skyzumarubble]

I project manage the new build student results block - they are amazing. So different from my breeze block halls.

[BuzzKillington]

I KNOW!

My accommodation was horrendous. My 2nd year house had mice, damp and rotten bannisters.

My ds is about to start his 2nd year. His bedroom has a double bed, sink, microwave and TV. The kitchen has 2 ovens and a brand new dishwasher.

Ds has already paid his year's gym membership (or we have) and is taking his newly purchased playstation (yup, we bought that too).

Very different times from 1990 when I would go to bed in layers of clothes as my room was so cold.

[Anatidae]

My first degree was in a city with a lot of huge houses way too big for families - a few groups of friends had these run down palatial places with no hot water, a dozen folk living there, high ceilings etc. Bloody freezing but quite glamorous in a way.

[Ta1kinPeece]

My old room has been converted to en-suite
which just means that the usable space is much smaller
and the smell of farts pervades I stayed with DD in hall to move her to her house .... I'm too old for concrete floors

I agree totally with the Unis building lots more hall rooms
but find the reaction of some parents to Victorian houses downright weird

re Leeds Uni
a friend was a in a huge house in Headingley in the late 80's
12 people
no hot water
unhousetrained dog roaming the stairs
GRIM

[goodbyestranger]

Agree Oldie. My DC have lived in some complete shitholes, both in and out of college accomodation. They seem/ed oddly fond of all their rooms/ houses so I don't really agree with luxury add ons being expected as standard, unless my DC happen to have uniquely low standards (which I don't think is true).

[Anatidae]

God I remember the sheer grimness of our student digs (couple of decades back, so. It even that long ago, albeit last century.)

I could fill this thread 😁

We saw a house that had a huge hole in the hallway, the floor had rotted through. They just shrugged and advised us to walk around it. Upstairs one lad had papered his room with pictures of Barbara Cartland and Hitler. There was a stack of soft porn in the bathroom.
Reader, we didn't take it.

Instead we ended up in a dodgy terrace with drug dealing neighbours (or people so obsessive about salt consumption they weighed it out into baggies on chemists scales, you choose.) there was water coming through the light fittings, damp on the walls and a locked door leading to a basement that had the previous tenants stuff chucked down it, rotting and filled with rats.

Or the landlord who plumbed the washer in to the drains so that every time it rained raw sewage filled the washing machine?

Or the Tory councillor who insisted it wasn't rats in the roof, it was 'little birds.'

Happy days... happy days... it was at least cheap, and character building.

[bigbluebus]

I guess now that the student halls accomodayion is getting better, students are looking for something better in their 2nd and subsequent years when they move out of halls.

Have just dropped DS off at his halls and he has a modern en-suite room with loads of storage space - we unpacked and he still had loads of empty cupboards. 8 rooms to a flat who share a huge kitchen with dining area, 2 cookers, 2 fridge/freezers and again more storage space than I think they will fill. There is also a larger dining room which can be booked for birthday parties or 'come dine with me nights! There is a cinema room too apparently although we didn't actually go and see it.

Don't think DS will be wanting to slum it next year after that!

[GrumpyOldBag]

Wrong thread. Not sure how that happened.

[GrumpyOldBag]

My favourite phrase, which I invented, is "50 shades of awesomeness".

[Oldie2017]

Well one of my son's room looks like a film set from a film about life at university in 1920 even down to the wardrobe - not changed since than other than a radiator so I am not sure that goes for all halls...... and it's about £7800 a year.

[purpleleotard]

New student halls in Portsmouth are £500pm for the smaller rooms and £600pm for a larger, plus you have to buy internet extra at £32pm.
Really close to the uni you can get a room for £9000pa

[TeenTimesTwo]

Can't believe your DD is in her second year already!

I think students expect so much more these days, as things that were unheard of / luxury have become the norm.

So 30 years ago things like en suite bathrooms in private houses weren't common, neither were dishwashers. More people took clothes to the local laundry etc. Also people in general didn't have take out coffee every day, take-away meals once a week etc.

The current generation have been brought up to expect these as standard. So this has leaked through to their expectations of university life too. While I was doing my degree I think I went to the cinema once in the 3 years. I did have the occasional meal out, I don't remember stuff like McDonalds, occasional pastie takeaway or similar.

[ChampagneSocialist1]

Most students in my day were pretty frugal and tried to live within their means a few I knew left with a couple of thousand on their overdraft. I think nowadays students know they will have a big debt from tuition fees and student loans so the mentality is they might as well live well now and deal with it later plus this is fuelled by universities and landlords. I fear for this generation that they will never know the freedom of living a debt free life