Housing! Now look up and watch all the freshers scatter about you in a frenzy of paranoia. Yes, it’s that time of year again – not only do these winter months signal the start of a plague of runny noses and an epidemic of inbred germs circulating the air, it also marks the beginning of the great student house-hunt. For those needing residences/lodgings/shacks/hovels for the next academic year, it appears to be the time to start searching. But seriously, chill out kids!
It seems to start earlier each year. Our calendars hadn’t even been turned to December when I started to see people carriers emblazoned with our favourite student letting agents’ logos ferrying students to and from various abodes around Cathays. But really, this great rush to get a house early on, and the hysteria that seems to surround it, is actually quite unnecessary.
Consider case number one. Eight flatmates from Tal-y-bont sit around their inadequately small table and discuss living arrangements for the next academic year. It’s just before the Christmas holidays and already we’ve got flyers posted under our door from letting agents – minor terror sets in and we were convinced that if we didn’t discuss this now we’d be sleeping rough for the whole of our second year.
Come January we’d put down deposits and paid agency fees. Hooray! We weren’t going to be homeless. Anyway, to cut a long story short, relationships began to fray and we were left with the prospect of having to live with people that we didn’t actually like for a whole year. It was hell. Not only this, but the house we had was also falling apart (thank you, Savers, for cheap duct tape) and basically, it was rubbish. We rushed into things that we weren’t sure we wanted to do, and paid for the consequences. Literally.
So consider this a warning – some friendly advice, if you will. Do not start looking for houses as soon as the clocks go back, do not assume that who you live with in halls will be your housemates for life, and do not consider the first half-decent house you see the mansion of your choice.
So, to finish with the words of Nelson, our favourite TV bully, “Ha ha!” to all those who were “sorted” for houses before Christmas, and a wholehearted good luck to you all.
