One bathroom, two years, three of my best friends, four bedrooms and (at least) five rodent sightings. My lease at Mina Road is up.
I’ve referenced my housing situation throughout my time writing this column—lamenting the sporadic lack of hot water and venting my frustration with skyrocketing rents. I’ve complained a lot, living up to the entitled “snowflake” stereotype that is often applied to my generation.
But now that the rats of southeast London and the chaos of the Old Kent Road are almost behind me, I look at our terraced house with a little more fondness.
My three housemates and I have spent our formative years here in Walworth, building new adult lives. We’ve gained jobs, lost jobs, fallen in and out of love and ridden the highs and lows of our early twenties—all with the reassuring glow of the big Tesco to light the way.
Like all good things, our tenancy must come to an end—partly because we’re ready for a change and partly (to be honest) because our landlord is raising the rent. When we moved in it was £3,600 a month, and the property has now been listed for £4,100.That’s an extra £125 for each person a month. With the rising cost of literally everything else, that feels untenable.
Our beloved home on Mina Road is not the only property to have “gone up in value” (in a way that benefits landlords, not tenants). There are so many houseshares across London being listed for more.
Part of what’s driving this (beyond what I would dub “capitalist greed”) is the fact that there are fewer rental properties available.
Landlords have been relinquishing their rental properties in London for fear of capital gains tax hikes, mortgage increases and the looming Renters (Rights) Bill. Presumably, many landlords have realised that the properties they “generously” provide for young people like me—in exchange for roughly 50 per cent of our monthly income—aren’t going to survive much state scrutiny. One study has found that more than 20 per cent of all newly listed homes for sale in inner London were previously rental properties—a 10-year high, compared with 15.6 per cent in July 2023 and 12.9 per cent in July 2019. The result? “Rents hit new record, as average property receives 17 enquiries,” reported Rightmove—to widespread groans.
Fine, I always knew that London was going to be an expensive city to live in; my dad moved to the capital when I was 10, so I quickly became familiar with the disparity between the cost of living in the East Midlands and the southeast. I knew I would have to get a decently paid, relatively stable job to live here. But I didn’t realise quite how cut-throat the rental hellscape would be.
In our desperate search for a place to live during the summer of 2022, we were worn down by crooked estate agents and ruthless over-bidders to the point of almost putting in an offer for a mould-riddled four-bed in Bethnal Green, wherein the only garden access was via the bathroom. We called it the “shit-portal” house, a nickname that sat alongside others such as “cursed basement bathtub” and “Hackney Barbie dreamhouse” (a beautiful five-bed which was wrenched from us when three other groups outbid our offer of £4,500).
I know I sound like a petulant toddler, stomping my feet, huffing and puffing, but it really doesn’t feel fair.
As far as I’m concerned, a house is a place to live—not a commodity or an “investment”. Mina Road was a wonderful home, soured only by the knowledge that our living there was essentially a means to another, more privileged, person’s end. We were merely paying customers in the economy of existing, of being alive. We were paying the price for the “cost of living”.
But it did feel like home. I will miss the community of our shared bathroom—the conviviality of brushing teeth alongside one another before bed. I will miss the way we regularly convened in our tiny lounge to watch New Girl, The Bear, Taskmaster and cheesy films from our childhood. I will even miss taking off my shoes before opening the front door, so as to avoid waking my housemate (a light sleeper, whose room was unfortunately placed next to the entrance) after a big night out.
Most of all, I will miss our neighbour’s cat, who would regularly crawl through my ground-floor window and into bed with me. Peaches, if you’re reading this, please come and find me in my new home.
