Hunting for a house in Durham is an inevitable disaster

Durham’s house hunting season is underway – with the potential to destroy friendships, wipe out finances and render Daddy’s second home in Oxfordshire a distant memory. 

Dreaming of a life of sunshine and rainbows where you all sit down together and bake cookies every Sunday night is frankly a waste of time. Something will go wrong. Trust me. Even those of you who are organised enough to get ahead of the game and secure a clean, spacious property for a reasonable price are doomed to face inevitable drama. You might not have a rat infestation, but your student home will never be completely free from vermin.

Take letting agents, for example. Even after they’ve convinced you that Gilesgate is both a convenient location and a desirable place to live, they still find ways to take advantage. Extortionate rent prices and mouldy sofas are pretty much standard in Durham, but if the bank of Mum and Dad is willing to shed out £120+ per week then you have every right to expect more than a barely functional shower. After suffering for days without hot water, Collingwood third year Milly Jones resorted to impersonating her mum. She told The Tab: “When my letting agent took forever to sort out our broken boiler I called pretending to be a parent. They fixed it the next day so we do it all the time now when anything goes wrong.”

The horror stories don’t stop there. A Grey College third year told The Tab: “I moved into my second year house to find black mould all over my room but the landlord insisted that he could just wipe it off and it would be fine. It grew back worse, so after weeks of pestering he finally agreed to replace the roof on the property, but not without four weeks of noise and workmen all over the house.”

Trawling around grotty student houses is soul-destroying enough, but choosing housemates is even worse. If it’s a tossup between the fragile soul who insists on whacking the thermostat on full for 24 hours a day and the stereotypical catered Hatfield student who can’t tell an oven from a dishwasher, then frankly you’re digging your own grave.

Friends now, but not in nine months

In case you haven’t already realised, one month of drunken fresher nights out isn’t really enough to get to know someone. The person you thought might be easy to live with could quite well turn out to be a nocturnal nightmare, and three months, seven arguments and two catastrophic nights out down the line, you might wake to take out an advert for their room on the Durham Find a Housemate page.

Durham has it all when it comes to potential housemates, but above all else, couples are a complete no-go. If feeling like a guest in your own home and spending half your life sandwiched in between PDAs is your idea of fun then by all means go ahead. If you value your sanity, however, then steer well clear. But even if you’re smart enough not to sign with a couple, there’s no guarantee you’ll escape completely. You might well be a generous soul, but providing free accommodation and unlimited showers for a flatmate’s other-half when bills aren’t included in your rent is testing that Mother Teresa spirit a touch too far.

Plain-sailing house signing just does not exist. Be it mice, mould or maddening house mates- Durham has it all, and if your degree doesn’t drive you crazy, then they certainly will.