winterbadger | Entries tagged with housing

More commentary on the Tories' proposed "balance the budget on the backs of the poor" legislation. In case anyone has missed the "bedroom tax" madness, what it boils down to is this:

people in social housing with one spare bedroom will have their housing benefit cut by 14%, while those with two or more unoccupied rooms will see it slashed by 25%.

the one small detail being that

while [surveys suggest that] there are currently 180,000 households that are "underoccupying two-bedroom homes", there are far fewer smaller properties in the social housing sector available to move into. Last year only 85,000 one-bedroom homes became available.

So, in a modern version of Morton's Fork, those single people who are already so poor that they need help paying for a place to live must either move to a smaller space (which fewer than half of them will be able to do) or see their assistance cut.

Because, as we all know, it's the benefits received by the needy that government always overspends on, not tax breaks to corporations, salaries to senior leaders, sweetheart no-bid deals with contractors, or big-ticket defense items.

As a sidelight, confirmation of what I've always suspected: that far fewer Brits rent than do Americans. One of the sites mentioned in the article says that, in the UK, "over nine million people now [rent] their home from a private landlord". That means that roughly 15% of UK residents live in rented accommodation. According to the National Multi Housing Council, 32% of Americans live in rented housing. Not only are more Britons going to be looking for smaller places to live because of this ridiculous law, but there is a much smaller market in the UK to begin with for rental housing.

So, the end of the calendar year is rapidly approaching, and I'm looking ahead to next year. I want to come to some sort of closure, one way or the other, about where I'm going to live for the next year or two.

One of the options that I was considering is postgraduate study, possibly in the UK. One of the things that keeps giving me pause, though, is the subject of my cats.

I'm not going to leave them behind, even with the kindest of friends or relatives. I've taken care of the rabies issue by having them chipped, vaccinated, and tested, so they should not need to go into quarantine.

But I'm [revised: more than] a bit apprehensive about the ease of finding a place to live. With no prospect of being able to stay for more than a year or two of study, there's no point in even considering buying property (as a nonresident with no UK credit record, there's also probably zero chance of getting a mortgage anyway). And every time I look for rental accommodations, almost all of them say "no pets" (a search today on ESPC.com turned up 7 properties that the search engine claimed were "pets considered", 4 of which clearly stated "no pets" in the listing text and only one of which said "pets MAY be considered"). A search on Gumtree found nothing. And you can't even search on the subject on sites like s1homes or citylets.

This is a major issue for me. "Just turn up and see what's available" is not going to be an issue. And--as much as I long to live in the UK--I'm already having trouble justifying to myself the expense of taking a year or more off from working and moving 3,000 miles when I've no real chance to settle there. Not begin able to take the cats would cast the deciding vote in that internal debate.

Is it really totally unheard of for renters to have pets? What do people who have pets do if they can't buy a place? Live in a cardboard box? Or is there some source of information that I'm missing?

ETA: Well, this seems to answer my question. :-( I've seen a number of message boards where people ask the same question, and the common replies seem to be (a) just don't have a pet, (b) have a pet and lie about it/don't tell the landlord (that's a nonstarter for me), and (c) just call all the people who say "no pets" anyway and ask them if they will change their mind (one poster actually tried that feeble-minded advice and said they gave up after asking six different landlords or agencies).

Please be on the look out for anyone you might know who needs a roommate or will be looking to sublet a small place in the near future. A friend of mine from Boston (

rubicat) is interested in moving to the DC area and is hoping to find a small pied a terre (a bedroom in a shared flat or a bedsit) so as to be able to get here on the ground and start looking for work. Any assistance would be much appreciated!