Until I started looking for a flat to rent in London, I saw myself as fairly lucky — these were the halcyon days of 2021 and I had just graduated from university. Fast forward two years and I’m at my childhood desk at my parents’ house wondering whether the universe has it in for me. Or are months of frozen nights, mouse infestations and police raids now a standard rite-of-passage for renters in the capital?
I hope not, but it’s certainly easy to feel that way after the 24 months I’ve just had. Recently, like a fifth of all adult-age children, I’ve had to move back in with my parents. But it’s not down to the cost-of-living pressures that force most young people back. Yes, it’s a relief not to be paying the pressurising £1,200 a month I’ve been forking out over the last couple of years, but cash wasn’t the reason I had to hightail it home. For me, it was down to the dire conditions of renting in London in 2023. And I don’t just mean the odd mouldy bathroom.
According to a survey by the Resolution Foundation, 16 per cent of us are renting substandard accommodation, defined as homes that are “not in a good state of repair, where heating, electrics or plumbing are not in good working order, and where damp is present”, though the first flat I found in the city wasn’t so bad. Other than the fact that there was no shower. Each morning I’d have to draw myself a bath like Queen Victoria did — it took at least 40 minutes to fill and was ruinous for my water and heating bills. The landlord had promised that a shower would be installed before I moved in, though of course it wasn’t, and after six months he eventually said if I wanted one, I’d have to pay to have it installed myself. I decided to move.
I scoured Rightmove, Gumtree, OpenRen and eventually booked in a stack of viewings. At the time — 2022 — the market had become more competitive than ever before but I was optimistic.
The first place I saw was a studio flat with an electric blue carpet and a pull-out bed, listed for £950. It would eventually go for £1,100 pcm after a bidding war which saw the winner pay six months rent up front. This would set the tone for the rest of my search: whether a place was high-quality or sub-par, it was snapped up for above the asking price, in the blink of an eye.
After a few weeks (and one panic attack), desperation had kicked in — and, like wolves, estate agents can smell desperation as soon as you walk through the door. Even for the most unsuitable properties, they piled on the pressure. I came to realise that in London if you do actually like somewhere, you simply can’t afford to call their bluff. This culminated in me taking a property that I didn’t necessarily want but really did need.
I should have seen the red flags the moment I set foot in my flat. What I thought was an officially let property turned out to be a no-bank-account-necessary private rental. My landlord requested that I pay my rent (the aforementioned £1,200) in cash each month.
As the days got colder I soon found that I wasn’t the only resident: mice had made a home for themselves in my flat
This rather unusual demand would be the start of a rather unusual experience. As the days got colder I soon found that I wasn’t the only resident: mice had made a home for themselves in my flat, living the London dream life I was chasing, free of charge. Obviously, I was horrified. I’m very scared of mice — the first one I saw darted from beneath my wardrobe while I was on the phone to my sister, and I felt my soul jump out of my body. As soon as I saw it, I couldn’t even put my feet on the ground, because I was too petrified of receiving a nibble.
I quickly told my landlord we had an infestation, and that I had a crippling fear of rodents in hopes this would spur him on to hire an exterminator. His response was infuriating, though in hindsight, quite funny. “I can’t come and help you,” he said, “I’m scared of mice as well.”
I entered a protracted negotiation with him, eventually threatening to take the cost of an exterminator out of the next month’s rent and in the meantime took to sleeping with shoes on and loud white noise sounds playing out of my speakers (I wanted to protect my toes and thought the noises would scare the mice away).Each day I’d wake up, look down at my trainers and wonder whether living in the capital was really worth all this.
Then came the cold blast of December — which is when the boiler stopped working. In a panic, I called my landlord, begging for a solution. My urgency got a rather subdued response. He told me, sorry, he didn’t know how to fix a boiler. We entered yet another protracted negotiation where I tried to get him to send someone and in the meantime I slept with a hot water bottle as my pillow.
I should have seen the red flags the moment I set foot in my flat
I took to YouTube, scouring DIY videos of how to fix boilers and actually managed to do it myself. This would open quite the Pandora’s Box of issues, as I came to realise that the boiler I’d fixed was the only one for the building, powering no less than three other flats, with their warmth in my rather cold fingertips. I became accustomed to knocks on the door from shivering neighbours begging me to turn my heating on.
There was also the problem of police raids, as I found one quiet work-from-home Friday which turned into a scene from Channel 4’s 24 Hours in Police Custody. I excused myself from a work Zoom call in the afternoon to answer the door to a barrage of specialist officers looking for a wanted person previously linked to my address. Try explaining a police raid to a bemused colleague blinking back at you through the screen. I told the officers, who were, to be fair, very nice, that no such person lived at the address. They took my word for it until a week later when they came back and insisted on “having a look around”. I had nothing to hide but I’d been in the flat for almost a year and had come to the conclusion that my time there was probably cursed. I decided to move home.
Now I’m left wondering whether this nightmare is just what living in London is like, or if I was just very unlucky. The fact is many of these stories — and worse — will ring true for renters, especially those of us in our twenties, trying to find our feet in the city for the first time.
Settling into my life as an “adult child” or “boomerang kid”, I’m enjoying the stability, of no longer fearing what the next knock at the door could mean. But I do find myself at a crossroads. I tried independent living and it led me back home — now I’m working on the same desk that I revised for my A-levels on. How will I ever move on?
