I'm loathe to admit it, but I am a first timer, what poster Mark last week called a "Mummy's little boy". My current share house is my first and when I went out last year in search of the perfect first digs I was very, very green. I looked for something charming, quirky, maybe even a little divey. Something completely other than the brick jigsaw suburbia from which I came.
So Saturday mornings looking at properties for rent were somewhat befuddling for this amateur. Why were my competitors turning on taps? Why did some carry a tape measure? Why was that bloke going through people's cupboards? Famished? Restless? A klepto?
Turns out he was experienced. The quirky charm of the place mattered less to him than did functionality, running water, well-built pantries, things like that. The place I ended up with isn't bad but with each new quirk I discover, I'm beginning to wish I had gone through a few more kitchen cupboards.
Steve Erkel, Screech, Robin Williams, my apartment: things I once found charming are beginning to grate. The front door's "cool haunted house squeal" now wakes me every time my flatmate comes home. Our sleek minimalist stove has no markings to say which dials start which hotplates. And that wallpaper isn't Florence Broadhurst, it's just mouldy.
Hindsight is more than 20/20 - it's x-ray vision - and here are some things mine has taught me.
Inspect, inspect, inspect. The longer I share my flat the more I realise it's not dissimilar to a crime scene. When first on site, a good detective might ask: are all the power points in logical places? Are the wall-aerials well positioned? Will the shower door fall off once or twice a day? Cupboards, carpets, windows, faucets - leave no stone unturned, unexamined, un-fingerprinted.
Prepare to share. Functionality means more than running water; your home has to be "share proof". Tiny cranny flats won't do at all. We all need our space, but the space should be divided - walls (thick, brick, noise-proof walls) are a plus. Open plan homes look good in Vogue Living but offer little respite from your roommates. After a great plate-thrower of a brawl, you need a good door to slam. The hedge maze design of my little flat suits me fine.
Ask questions. Not of the real estate agent, but of your neighbours - your witnesses. Ask them about crime rates, noise, and each other. Consider as a warning the ordeal of the incurious Lutz family. The subjects of the book and film The Amityville Horror moved into a house in New York only 13 months after a mass murder was committed there. They moved out after 28 days. Had Mr Lutz asked a few more questions, he may have avoided a levitating wife and the ghostly marching bands parading through his living room at all hours of the night.
Spot the obvious. For my first property inspection, I went to a terrace that was little more than a front wall. It had the "charm" the ad had promised: the front gate was dangling from its top hinge and a too-steep staircase had no railing to speak of. What it didn't have was a kitchen. When questioned on this, the clipboard-carrier in the corner flashed me a real estate smile, pointed to a porcelain sink on a patch of lino and said, "you've got a wok, don't you?"
I have a George Foreman Grill too, love, but that ain't the point.
With a life of house sharing to look forward to, I'm going to need direction. How does one avoid marching bands, thieves and, of course, their flatmates?
