Rents and property costs are going up and up in the UK. It would be nice to get at least something in return. But that's not the case - not in the case of most flats and houses, and certainly not true of most neighbourhoods.
OK, we lived in a council building from the 1960s, that shouldn't be representative, right? True, but not as you think. Our flat was often superior to other housing I was allowed to visit; in our neighbourhood anyway. Let’s take a closer look at infrastructure.
First of all, flats and houses are not big in the UK. How much I became aware of while searching for new recipes. A British food blog presented a revolutionary idea: Why not just cook many times the amount that is needed at the moment? You could freeze the rest!
The author reported that this is a common method in the USA, but is rarely practised in this country (UK) as there is no room for a freezer in many homes. Apparently there are so few freezers that the strategy of pre-cooking is not known at all. The author had one, but it had never occurred to her to use it for this purpose before her visit to the US. (What did she use it for then?!)
The longer I lived in the UK and got to know the living conditions of friends, the more I appreciated the advantages of our flat. Not only did we have a freezer in the kitchen and a bedroom where I could stretch out at night, but we also had two small storage rooms. There was space for a washing machine as well as all the stuff you don’t want displayed in your living room.
Storage rooms are also a luxury that is no longer provided for in modern British dwellings: During our property search, we came across a new construction project outside of London. The houses(!) had no cellar, attic or storage room. Where would the hoover be stored? Not to mention boxes or suitcases.
Our bathroom was also quite good by British standards. The water pressure on the pipes was neither too weak nor too strong and could be regulated in reasonable steps. The fittings were halfway "normal", i.e. at the washbasin there was a separate control for hot and cold water, in the bathtub one for water pressure and one for temperature.
I think back with horror to a hotel stay a few years ago. There was only one regulator for pressure and temperature in the shower. The water flow was either weak and cold or strong and boiling hot. The "strong" water flow corresponded to a trickle. The pressure got a little higher when I put the shower head on the bottom of the tub. Now it turned out many people have a similar issues at home.
Furthermore, the small air vent in our bathroom (almost) always worked perfectly. In my experience, this is not standard in many British bathrooms either. And there are usually no windows, because bathrooms are located inside the building to make the best use of living space. The layout of the flats also prevents almost any possibility of indirect ventilation by opening windows. If the bathroom fan fails, the air in the flat is particularly humid for hours after a shower. A paradise for mould.
To make matters worse, the concept of ventilation, especially cross-ventilation, is almost unknown to the British. A fact I only became aware of during the Covid-19 pandemic when the Guardian published an article about this strange German habit and its essential role in the fight against the virus.
I shared the article with my wife. After reading it, she was almost relieved. She finally understood why I tore open all the windows of our flat for a few minutes several times a day. Her husband wasn't a weirdo at all, he was just German. (Since then she has a new nickname for me: Lüftwaffe...).
Finally, our bathroom had a linoleum floor. I could have been annoyed that the floor was not tiled. Instead, I rejoiced at the lack of carpet. Carpet in the bathroom? Yes, I came across a few of them. None were clean, most stank and dripped with dirt.
Brits love carpet, not only in their homes but also in stairwells. There is, of course, hard-wearing carpet for heavy-duty environments, but I'm talking about the fluffy, soft version that Germans would only lay in the living room or bedroom. Usually, the fabric is light-coloured, too, so even the smallest amount of street dirt can leave a lasting impression. Fortunately, the floor in our stairwell was made of stone.
Of course, our flat was not entirely devoid of its British nature. Despite the working fan in the bathroom, it was hard to get the humidity out of the rooms. The windows were less insulated than I would have liked. Not only did we hear street noises almost unfiltered, in combination with the humidity, the windows were constantly covered with water drops during the winter months. Also some of the wallpaper was also affected. Winter was mould time in our flat. I went on a mould hunt once a week.
However, one of my worries before moving to the UK remained unfounded. I had often heard that British water pipes would freeze in winter. But there was no danger for that. According to our friends, it hasn't snowed in London for at least ten years, "thanks to climate change".
But climate change also had direct negative sides for us. Our building was designed to store as much heat as possible and release it slowly. Even one day with 25° Celsius was enough and we had to spend several nights in tropical heat.
It got worse when the temperature reached 30° Celsius for several days: Fuses blew, even without any appliances plugged into the sockets. Somehow the power grid in our neighbourhood became unstable. A particular problem for the supermarkets. Their refrigerators failed by the dozen.
In winter, on the other hand, a rainy season sets in. Water comes down from the sky almost every day. Water pipes in the sewage system can burst then and entire streets can get flooded. A burst pipe from my London days went viral. You can find a bunch of videos of the resulting river system on the internet. Our street was spared a flood. But due to bursts nearby, in my first year alone, our pipes were shut off several times and the bus station in front of our house was not served because of the resulting construction work.
I was not impressed by the infrastructure of my new home. On the contrary, I had the impression that London was wearing out its substance. There was only one area where I was spoiled compared to Germany: my internet connections at home and on the road were fast and trouble-free.
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