Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 101 posts

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#81

Post by antihero »

bitL wrote: post #29
darrenf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my entire career (I'm a lifelong Londoner) I've been bemused by newcomers to the city who essentially refuse to even consider living beyond zone 2. I grew up on the border of Z3/4 and now live in Z6, but have worked either in zone 1 or beyond it (in travel terms) since late 1996. My gut feeling is that the horrific prices in the centre are very much tied to what seems to be a perception that the outskirts suck.

I knew a woman in her 50s in London that was commuting daily 6 hours from one of the outskirts to another outskirt on the opposite side for a low-paying SWEng job. Frankly, why do people even bother moving to London/UK? Unless you are a finance person, a money-laudering crook from abroad or a top-school PhD in a hot field, your prospects are slim.

Well the sensible option there would be to move which outskirt you work nearest? If she was going from outskirt to outskirt, why not like, go and live on the outskirt she was working in?

Luckily there's a lot of tech work is in or close to the East (Shoreditch, City), so I can live in the South East.

If I had to commute to west, I'd probably look to move to the outskirts on the west.

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#82

Post by bitL »

antihero wrote: post #81
bitL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew a woman in her 50s in London that was commuting daily 6 hours from one of the outskirts to another outskirt on the opposite side for a low-paying SWEng job. Frankly, why do people even bother moving to London/UK? Unless you are a finance person, a money-laudering crook from abroad or a top-school PhD in a hot field, your prospects are slim.

Well the sensible option there would be to move which outskirt you work nearest? If she was going from outskirt to outskirt, why not like, go and live on the outskirt she was working in? Luckily there's a lot of tech work is in or close to the East (Shoreditch, City), so I can live in the South East. If I had to commute to west, I'd probably look to move to the outskirts on the west.

Unless you have a mortgage in one of those opposite outskirts and can't afford to switch...

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#83

Post by antihero »

corobo wrote: post #12

Three grand a month for a cage! You can almost rent six 3 bedroom semi-detached houses for that where I am! (~150 miles north of London). Sublet or rent with others if you need the company Don't embrace the cage, embrace remote working

£2,200 for a 4 bed semi detached in SE19 (Crystal Palace) which has Overground and National Rail https://www.openrent.co.uk/property-to-rent/london/4-bed-sem...

The area has loads of bars and pubs and restaurants and shops and a beautiful park and is green and friendly and it's piss easy to get up to central.

The people in this article are doing it wrong.

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#84

Post by dbbk »

corobo wrote: post #64
williamdclt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people (me included) hate remote working

Enough to live in one of these co-cupboards though?

It's not necessary to live here. No one has to live here. As has been discussed there are far better options in central London with more space for the same price.

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#85

Post by mavdi »

isostatic wrote: post #74
mavdi wrote: post #35

This is just depressing. A lot of the people here can get a remote job for perhaps 10% less income, move to somewhere cheap but with great internet and spend 50% less housing/food and leisure. My internet connection in Brazil is 10x better than what I had in London. My apartment is at least 3x bigger and 100x nicer. Food is awesome, people are nice, weather is lovely and if you're not acting like a dumb gringo, it's…

> it's pretty safe too if London's latest murder spree hasn't convinced you yet The London murder rate is projected to be 180 this year, about 2 per 100k Rio's murder rate is 18 per 100k - about 10 times worse than London.

That statistic in skewed because most of the murders happen in the favelas within drug gangs. City areas are ripe with petty crime but murder is perhaps as widely seen as London.

Plus... it's not infested with security cameras.

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#86

Post by corobo »

pjc50 wrote: post #47
corobo wrote: post #12

Three grand a month for a cage! You can almost rent six 3 bedroom semi-detached houses for that where I am! (~150 miles north of London). Sublet or rent with others if you need the company Don't embrace the cage, embrace remote working

Where's the HN-preferred route to finding good remote jobs?

Sorry remote comes up so frequently on HN I wouldn't know where to start as a comment

There was a recent discussion here on where to find a remote job https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16875868

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#87

Post by corobo »

dbbk wrote: post #84
corobo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough to live in one of these co-cupboards though?

It's not necessary to live here. No one has to live here. As has been discussed there are far better options in central London with more space for the same price.

Well I was responding with a context of my comment "work remotely over living in these boxes" and had the response "I don't like working remotely"

Other comment chains (that didn't exist in the comments at the time I posted my comment!) have indeed pointed out there are other options that keep you in the London area

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#88

Post by vrbelli »

MistahKoala wrote: post #77
vrbelli wrote: post #52

I lived at The Collective. Horrible, horrible place. The price is ridiculous for a small cage in a crappy industrial area. Facilities are so-so, everything is made to a very low standard. For the same price you can get _so_ much better close to the city centre. When I lived there the place was infested by young people doing tons of drugs and partying in the common areas. It was well known that several dealers lived i…

> When I lived there the place was infested by young people doing tons of drugs and partying in the common areas The impression I get is that these are living arrangements for people who enjoyed shared accommodation at university and would quite like to continue it. Not so much living without loneliness, but continuing and/or maximising their youthful capacity to live as they'd like. I don't necessarily have a proble…

For sure. I was initially attracted by the idea of living with creativea/entrepreneurs with a similar mindset.

What I found was mostly late twenties/early thirties "entrepreneurs" and "consultants" that in reality had achieved very little. To make up for their lack of achievement they adopt a holier-than-thou attitude and talk a lot about how they have escaped hamster-wheel society and are now living as nomads and free-spirits, most likely subsidised by mom and dad.

Amusing to observe but annoying to live with.

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#89

Post by vrbelli »

nelsonic wrote: post #67
vrbelli wrote: post #52

I lived at The Collective. Horrible, horrible place. The price is ridiculous for a small cage in a crappy industrial area. Facilities are so-so, everything is made to a very low standard. For the same price you can get _so_ much better close to the city centre. When I lived there the place was infested by young people doing tons of drugs and partying in the common areas. It was well known that several dealers lived i…

@vrbelli I would love to read your " Top 10 List of Improvements " if you were able to re-build "The Collective" from scratch . I have no connection to "The Collective" I'm just curious how it could be "fixed".

Not really sure. I think in many ways it's a pipe dream. Without a shared purpose I think it's impossible to foster a real "community".

Re: Co-living in London: Friendship, fines and frustration

#90

Post by [deleted] »

vrbelli wrote: post #89
nelsonic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@vrbelli I would love to read your " Top 10 List of Improvements " if you were able to re-build "The Collective" from scratch . I have no connection to "The Collective" I'm just curious how it could be "fixed".

Not really sure. I think in many ways it's a pipe dream. Without a shared purpose I think it's impossible to foster a real "community".

[deleted]
Post reply on HN