So you’ve nearly got through the first term of Uni, made your friends, and are looking at houses to move into for next year. But how do you choose your new accommodation in a city which has more students housing than students? Here are a few surprisingly important aspects that you may not have thought to look at while house hunting:
Location
Are you close enough to a supermarket? Is there a takeaway on your route back from Ocean? This all comes down to having the prime location, and, thanks to popular T.V. shows, we all know the importance of this one. It might seem okay on the one off time you go to visit the house that you have to walk 10-15 minutes from the nearest bus stop to reach it. After the first week of living in the new house, however, the decision will be instantly regretted. Depending on whether you are planning to spend more of your time walking to Uni or into town for a night out (and I won’t judge on the answer to that) depends on which side of Lenton you should be living.
Kitchen space
Assuming you have the money for, and ability to carry, more than a few days worth of food shopping, you are going to need somewhere to put it all. Stuffing shelves, packing fridges and squashing things into your small freezer space is okay for the first week, but you’ll soon get tired of having to finish off 2 tubs of Ben and Jerry’s in one evening because they won’t fit back in the freezer… okay, maybe that one was a bad example, but you get the picture.
Bills included?
Students are stingey. That’s pretty much fact. Having bills included in your rent avoids the tense conversation with your housemates over how many hours of T.V. you’ve watched today, or how many times you’ve put the dishwasher on this week, because ‘electricity isn’t cheap’. It’s easier to have bills pre-paid for or before you know it you’ll end up wearing 3 jumpers and a scarf but you can’t have the heating on because ‘it isn’t that cold’ (in case you can’t tell, I have been in this situation, and yes, I am still bitter about it).
Comfortable Sofas
Assuming your house has sofas at all, at some point you will be sleeping on them; a procrastonap, laziness or as the side effect of a big night out, falling asleep on the sofa is inevitable. So ensuring there is a comfortable sofa to crash on is a good idea- the only problem left is how to stop your housemates taking and uploading pictures of you asleep with your mouth open.
Edited by Mackenzie Orrock
Image source:
http://blogs.susu.org/sabbs/2014/06/23/what-has-our-vp-welfare-done-for-us-this-year/