House sharing - box rooms

[DeadbeatYoda]

Dear Mumsnet hive mind, i could really do with the benefit of your collective experience please.
My DS is just sorting out his Uni year 2 house share. The house is £1600 pcm. There are two double rooms and two much smaller rooms ( one quite small indeed).
Have you found that the rent tends to be split evenly, despite the room-size difference?
I didn't go to uni but I did house share as a youngster. We always paid more for larger rooms and less for smaller. What is your experience?

The 4'4" is the bathroom

in that box room dimensions he won’t be able to sit a bed if only 5’5 length

and a single bed is 3’3 ft wide

@Mikki77 that's pretty much what I thought too.

oh ok

so in that case

the box room isn’t too bad

i would totally leave up to them

split according to size or shortest straw

i’ve done both and both fair

suggest he say that

and if majority disagree - accept and move on

Where on earth is he going to uni to pay £1600/month for a box room in a small house? Rents have gone up but that’s astounding.

Early 90s we were in a 6 share, four big rooms and two tiny rooms. I don't think it ever crossed our minds to split rent according to size. I had a small room. In the winter with 2in of ice on the inside of the window it was cold. Those in larger rooms were a damn sight colder!

@SaintJuliette she didn’t feel bad enough to offer to swap though?

1600 is the rent for the whole house. But yeah, still seems quite an expensive town. Plenty of towns do have rents at those levels though.

I had a flat share in London in late 90s and we split according to room size. I paid least as smallest room with kitchen and front door next to it so also noisiest. Flatmate with en-suite and biggest room paid most. We were all allowed to use the en suite when he was out which was most of the mornings as he worked on a trading desk.

We had a 5 bed, two smallest rooms paid less. We managed to agree between ourselves who had which room h by it would have drawn straws if if we hadn't been able to.

On the measurements the small room is indeed less than half the size of the large one. Where will the box room person work? No room for a desk. Or keep their clothes?

As a student I had the box room in one house, rent was always split equally.

One hose we shared one year was actually owned by the uni, the rent was split equally for that house too, even though one of them was a box room.

look more carefully at the split

I guess uo

We always have the person in the smaller room a bit of a discount to make it feel fairer and drew straws. Not loads but something.

My DS has chosen the smallest room in two recent house shares so that he got cheaper rent (there was a noticeable difference) It's up to them to negotiate it with their housemates and decide what they all think is reasonable.

My middle one could have coped with the boxroom. Didn't study much so wouldn't have bothered with a desk and was out a lot (part time job, sport and friends). Would have hung his clothes from the curtain rail over the window and everything else under the bed (trainer collection in the hall if necessary). Only £30 pm between largest and smallest rooms too low imo.

We had 3 double rooms and a single. We pulled straws for choice rather than room so someone got first choice second etc, which worked out for me as I got second choice but the person who got first didn't want the same room as me.
We did give a discount to the person in the box room in both years I lived outside of halls

With my kids there is usually a discount for the smallest rooms.

But generally "the arranger of all things" gets to pick first, then "the clean one who does the bins/recycling" (DD21) then other rooms get divided however.

In a flatshare in London we put a sofa bed and TV in the box room and used it as a cosy snug/handy space for anyone crashinh at ours, the larger sitting room became a bedroom.

Either is fine but decide before you determine who gets which room and stick to it. I think we always paid the same though, once I won, once I lost. I think the one house I rented through uni they set different prices on. Room is only part of what you are paying for, the living spaces are the same for all of them. And beyond suggesting this back out as a parent.

When I was at uni we lived in a house with 6 doubles but of really varying size (they all had single beds in anyway). We were all laid back sorts so we just chose based on what suited us (boys on the ground floor, person who liked her own company in the attic etc). The houses with big doubles Vs tiny singles they paid different rent.

Less for the smaller room but we didn't finally decided on a house until we had, as a group, discussed and agreed the room split

In my group, it was pretty amicable as there was always someone keen to pay less and someone with rich parents happy to pay more

And yes, our parents had literally no involvement in any of it (other than financial help). Renting a house and sorting it all out is a life skill - I would leave them to it.