When her relationship broke up at the end of last year, Leena Taylor found herself living with her mother again at the age of 35. “It was like going backwards 10 steps,” she said. “There is something very depressing about having to go home.”
Life in Romford, Essex, wasn’t ideal for Taylor because she needed to be in the City for work part of each week and the commute was a long and expensive nuisance. But when she started looking for places to rent she hit a brick wall. “A flat in east London cost £1,500pcm, minimum. Even a studio cost £1,200,” she said. “That was going to be three-quarters of my income, just on rent. It is just extortionate.”
Taylor also looked into house shares but the only places she could find were either too studenty for a woman in her 30s or “dodgy and creepy”. Then she stumbled across Kindroom.com, a unique, newly launched house-share website. The premise is simple: Londoners with a spare room to offer can trade it for skills and services from babysitting to DIY, coding to companionship. Tenants get a room at low rent. In some cases they pay nothing at all.
Taylor felt that if something sounded too good to be true it probably was — “but I also thought there was no harm in finding out a little bit more”. She registered on the site in January and began searching for vacancies in east London.
This led her to Philip, the owner of a three-bedroom house in South Woodford, who was looking to trade lodgings in return for help caring for his labrador, Cariad. Emails were exchanged and Taylor checked Philip out online as best she could, making sure he did own the property and work where he said he did. In February she moved in.
Since then she and Cariad have become firm friends and Taylor has learnt that she is not getting something for nothing. Philip travels frequently for work and caring for a pet is hard work. “Its like having a baby,” she said. Luckily she was already a dog lover and when she does go out, Cariad is content to be left home alone.
Taylor is also getting on well with her new landlord and with no rent or household bills, Taylor is saving up for a deposit to buy a place of her own. “The only thing I do, and this is voluntary, is when I know he’s coming back from a work trip I do a food shop,” she said.
Kindroom is the brainchild of Bernard Darko, who came up with the idea when his previous venture — a childcare website — failed to find funding during the pandemic. “People weren’t going into other people’s homes and that really messed us up,” he said. “The rent was very expensive and I was skint.”
Struggling to pay rent in Kilburn, Darko, 36, began to wonder if he could offer his skills in marketing and business in lieu of rent. Looking around online he realised that this sort of barter was happening on websites like Gumtree. “But there was no structure,” he said. “I thought it was a huge opportunity.”
Kindroom differs from other low-cost house share organisations as it does not involve helping support an elderly resident. Instead it allows Londoners to offer their skills to property-rich/time-poor homeowners.
Darko will eventually start charging people to post adverts on the site and make contact with other members, but right now it is free. Hosts and tenants are vetted, including a check to see if they have a criminal record. The site also hosts a Zoom facility so they can “meet” online before doing so in person. “There is always going to be an element of risk, that is humanity,” admitted Darko. “But we do the best we can.”
So far about 900 people have registered, mainly in the UK and mostly through word of mouth. Before agreeing to take a room, Darko recommends signing a contract. A sample is available on the site, which can be adapted to individual circumstances.
The launch of Kindroom comes at a critical time for the rental sector. According to Rightmove, the average monthly rent in London has topped £2,500 for the first time, while flat-share portal SpareRoom reports that it now costs £1,000 or more to rent a room in almost a third of London postcodes.
When Victoria Vajda’s marriage broke up she fell foul of another shortcoming in the rental sector — tenancy periods. Her family home had to be sold and although she would then have the funds to buy a smaller property for herself and her three-year-old son, Oliver, there was the question of where she would live in between. “It was really difficult to find any kind of temporary rental solution,” said Vajda, 34. “All the landlords wanted a fixed contract and I just needed somewhere for a few months.”
Salvation came in the form of a pop-up advertisement for Kindroom that Vajda saw while scanning rental advertisements. “I registered on the website and got in touch with the owner of a two-bedroom flat in Croydon,” said Vajda. The landlady, a novice motorist, was looking for someone willing to accompany her on drives to help her gain experience.
“We talked on the phone and then we met for coffee,” said Vajda, who works part-time as a building surveyor for a property developer. “In return for about six hours a week of driving, she offered me her spare room. It was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.” Vajda moved into the flat in January, while Oliver stayed with his father. “It was very comfortable,” said Vajda. “The room was beautiful and the location was great — right by the station so I could travel back and forth to see Oliver.”
In March, the mother and son were reunited when Vajda completed the purchase of a flat in Clapham Junction, but she is full of praise for Kindroom. “The whole concept is revolutionary, it is unreal,” she said. “My landlady refused to take any money for rent or bills, although I did offer. But I suppose if she’d done a driving refresher course it would have cost her a lot of money, so it worked out well. We are about the same age, so we had lots to talk about, and as well as somewhere to live I have made a friend.”
