Happy House Sharing Anniversary to us.
It’s exactly a year today that two arguably sane females took a leap of faith and decided to share a house together. One of them was me, and it could all have gone horribly wrong, but thankfully it didn’t. And I’m here to reassure any ‘mature’ female, who through either choice or circumstance is thinking of doing the same thing, that house sharing ticks so many boxes for so many reasons.
I found my housemate on a website called http://spareroom.com. She had recently bought the house that we now share, and with plenty of space, it seemed a good financial idea to advertise her……well…. spare room!
After our initial website contact, we began texting, a phone call followed, and then I popped round to see her one Saturday afternoon. She was friendly and easy going, but obviously needed to be sure that I was someone she would be happy to share her space with. Not only that, but I had baggage in the shape of a large 4 legged, scruffy pooch.
But a deal was struck and a year ago today, while she was at work, I moved my life into her house and we’ve never looked back.
Our neighbours have commented that we are always laughing, which is true, and there is also a lot of swearing. Always nice to have a living life balance!
House sharing with anyone is all about consideration and being flexible. My housemate and I are very different, but it is those differences which makes us compatible. We dance around each other in the kitchen, she drinks shite Chia tea, whilst I make a proper brew. I make one pot dinners affectionately referred to as ‘coddles’, while she faffs around making home made turkey burgers. TURKEY BURGERS, I ask you, what fresh hell are those?
We oversee each others laundry, clearing radiators and folding up as we go. I load the dishwasher and she unloads it, we play to our strengths. She kindly turns a blind eye to the trail of clothes and shoes I leave laying around and she regularly hoovers up a Dyson’s worth of spare dog hair. Whilst I smile to myself at the way she uses the biggest baking tray in the history of cooking, to bake 10 sweet potato fries. I’ve introduced her to ice cubes, she’s converted me to Molton Brown.
The one thing we are totally united on though is my dog Buddy. I couldn’t wish for anyone to be more loving and caring towards my dog than my housemate. She looks after him at weekends while I go to work, and from being a complete stranger to me a year ago, I now trust her implicitly with my most treasured possession.
So if you find yourself without a roof over your head, for whatever reason, house sharing might just be the answer for you too.