The Metropolis

Five things hip young urban professionals think are good about their new rented place which are actually rubbish

Mike Pollitt | Thursday 31 May, 2012 12:15

_{An outdoor couch is never really this much fun}

If you’re lucky enough to have a job which pays enough for you to exercise some choice over where you rent, then you’ll find yourself making some agonised decisions. Is it more important to live close to a good pub or a tube station? Does it matter if there isn’t room to walk around both sides of your bed? How far away are you from the nearest available hummus?

Here are five things people think are good about prospective houses or flats when they see them advertised on gumtree, but which are, once moved in, a bitter disappointment.

1. A roof terrace – “for parties”

The ideal: There’s this roof terrace, yeah, with amazing views of the London skyline. You can see Canary Wharf/The Gherkin/The Shard and at night the city lights up before your eyes. We’ll take a couch up there, somehow, and have parties and through the haze of alcohol, for a special moment denied to people whose homes don’t have roof terraces, we’ll feel at one with our city, our neighbours, and ourselves.

The reality: The couch won’t fit up the stairs, and the pouf you took up there instead now rots, rain-soaked, in the corner, lending the whole terrace a grim abandoned air. You can see the top eighth of The Gherkin poking out above the concrete tower block opposite. It’s freezing up there. Shall we go back downstairs?

2. An open kitchen/lounge – “for dinner parties”

The ideal: We’ll have dinner parties and invite all our friends round and it’ll be great because I’ll be able to keep an eye on the roast peppers while still talking to everyone. It’ll be like cooking as a form of theatre, yeah?!

The reality: By day, a flotilla of flies buzz round your three-week old washing up, distracting you from watching Pointless on BBC1. By night, friends judge you for your poor chopping technique and lamentable pan management.

3. A balcony – “for growing herbs and shit”

The ideal: We’ll have rosemary, and thyme, and tomatoes – we’ll grow tomatoes from seed. They’ll feed us all summer! And in winter we’ll grow winter vegetables, whatever they are, and they’ll all taste so much better because we’ll have grown it ourselves on our own little piece of outdoors right in the heart of the city.

The reality: It faces north, up against the wall of a warehouse/exhibition space. It’s so dark the only thing that will grow there is cress. Who likes cress?

4. Other young urban professionals as neighbours – “for a really cool vibe”

The ideal: Our current friends are alright, but wouldn’t be great to have some new friends? Meet some different people? Not people different from us, we don’t want to mix with those. People that are like us but new. You know? We can have them round for dinner and have parties on the roof terrace and swap herbs with them and it’ll be like our own little village community, except on the 5th floor of a gated apartment complex.

The reality: What is with those people upstairs playing drum ‘n’ bass at all hours on a Tuesday night? And what about that couple next door who stay inside the whole time like weird recluses and complained when I left my bike in the communal entrance? What’s wrong with all these people? They aren’t like me at all!

5. A dishwasher

The ideal: It washes dishes.

The reality: Actually this one is pretty great.

See also:

The 5 best places in London to break up with someone
The five best frozen pizzas on the London convenience store market, ranked by value
The 5 best places in London to drink alone
Five filthy, dirty, obscenely sexual poems from the past
Annoying habits of Londoners #8: Keeping spreadsheets of their dates

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