Roommate required (From News Shopper)

Roommate required

4:26pm Sunday 17th August 2008

• Print
• Email

After four and a half years of sharing my flat with two successive friends, I am having to advertise for a new roommate.

My current flatmate is moving in with her boyfriend and now in my late 20s I have been unable to find a friend or friend of a friend who was looking to rent.

The simple fact is that at 29 most friends are either moving in with partners or struggling to get onto the property ladder.

Placing an ad for a flatmate is a frightening prospect, how much can you really tell from a half hour viewing?

What if I decided I didn’t like them, how would I tell them to leave?

Much as I love my two-bedroom flat it’s not massive and if we ended up falling out there are not that many places to hide.

A couple of weeks into my search I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I am still quite daunted at the thought of sharing with a “random” but the response to my ad has showed me there are lots of like-minded, normal Londoners who I am sure I could get on with.

And surely if I get annoyed when they haven’t cleaned the bathroom, left dirty dishes in the sink or come in drunk and noisy at 4am it would be easier to say something to them than a friend who I have a lot of history with?

Room viewings are a strange thing though as it’s hard not to feel like you are also being interviewed and I am starting to get very protective over my flat and the room.

Why would they not want to live there with me?

As yet, I’ve only had one strange telephone enquiry. One of my ads only describes the room as a double so it’s not very clear (due to the wordage) whether it’s a house share or a studio flat.

The strange question was posed to me at 8.20pm on a Saturday night from a girl who after asking a few things about the room suddenly came out with: “could I share the room with my fiancé and my brother?!”

I ended the conversation very quickly after that!

Here’s hoping there aren’t too many enquires like that and my perfect housemate is only another viewing away.