“Isolated and anxious” are just some of the emotions 33-year-old Jenn Castro has felt over the years of living in shared homes.
An HMO (house in multiple occupation) is where at least three tenants who are not part of a family live together and share a toilet, bathroom or kitchen facilities with other tenants.
Jenn is currently living in her fourth HMO in London and says she has experienced bullying and poor living conditions, while paying hundreds of pounds a month to do so.
Jenn is not alone in her experience. Recent research by community union and rental campaign group Acorn found only 6 per cent of renters it surveyed saw privately rented housing as their ideal living situation.
Jenn is one of the majority doing it out of necessity. She hopes to be able to rent on her own one day but describes this as an “impossible” feat given the rising rent costs in London.
She’s secured extra freelance work to take her income to £50,000 but says this still isn’t enough to allow her to live alone, despite earning far more than the national average wage.
Jenn says, although she’s had some good experiences, in one particular property things got so bad that she was willing to entirely forgo her deposit to move out quickly.
“With the first few cycles of tenants, there were smaller, mundane issues such as taking the rubbish out and cleaning the kitchen after use,” she said.
But then she says it escalated to personal issues, and she faced bullying.
As well as the bullying, Jenn, who has at times paid over £900 a month for her rent, says she’s encountered numerous issues with the properties she’s rented.
She recounts having an ongoing issue with a leak, which caused a spike in water usage, leading to the landlord wanting to increase the rent until the bills were eventually contested and the leak fixed.
Jenn also said dealing with maintenance issues in all of her HMO’s was a “hassle” and shares an instance where a broken lock resulted in her getting locked in the toilet.
“I was locked inside for over two hours in the dark as the handle stopped working and the light switch happened to be on the outside of the toilet. I ended up having to break the door, which damaged the lock and frame,” she explained.
Jenn said the door was not repaired for a further two to three weeks, which left her and the other tenants having to use the toilet without being able to lock the door.
In another experience, she recounts a “horror show” in which bailiffs turned up outside her door.
“Me and the other tenants were living in a sublet which we had no knowledge of, and the bailiffs had turned up because of unpaid council tax and water bills,” she said.
The number of people Jenn has lived with in the various HMOs has varied, with the most being six others.
According to data from SpareRoom, 26 per cent of flat sharers in the UK live in a rental property consisting of five or more housemates, while seven per cent live in a house share of seven or more housemates.
Jenn added that over the years, she has had some great moments with tenants and has managed to build some friendships along the way, but there were times when her mental health was impacted because of her living conditions.
She said: “The burden of living with people whose lifestyle is completely different to mine really affected my mental wellbeing. While it can be a fantastic experience and you get the chance to meet and make friends with people from all walks of life, it can very easily and quickly turn into your biggest nightmare.”
Dunya Ali, communications officer at Acorn union, said: “For most people, renting privately, especially in HMOs, is something they are forced into by a housing system that is failing them.
“The Government cannot seriously tackle this crisis without bringing down the cost of renting. That means introducing meaningful rent controls to stop rents rising beyond what people can afford, alongside a mass programme of genuinely affordable social housebuilding so people are not forced to compete over a tiny number of affordable homes.”