Confined to your room and banned from the garden: The bizarre rules lodgers must live by

Telegraph

17 hours ago

From Rising Damp to Peep Show, the life of a lodger has long been a source of TV comedy, but the reality might be a little less funny.
Last week, data from online rental site SpareRoom.com found that the number of young people becoming lodgers has risen by 50 per cent in just three years. On the surface, the arrangement would seem a good deal for lodgers, who pay around 17 per cent less than the average renter, and good news for landlords who get help with rising mortgage costs.
But behind the financial incentives, the life of a lodger can be a lonely one, as Nicole (who wants to give only her first name to mask her identity) found out in 2021. 'I was about to move from Sheffield to London to start a master's degree and I couldn't find anywhere to live within my budget,' she says. 'I ended up taking a room in the house of a friend of my mum.'
Although at first Nicole liked the cheap rent and the fact that lodging with a 60-something meant 'having a bit of a mother figure around', she soon started to dread coming home at night.
'It quickly became clear that the casual agreement of 'helping out around the house' instead was an expectation I would cook and clean for my landlady,' she recalls. 'I'd be in university all day and come home to a list of chores, some of which had nothing to do with me – defrosting a freezer I'd never used, or pressure-washing her patio.'
'We had agreed that I wouldn't have any guests over to stay, which was fine, but on the weekends she'd shout at me if I was still in bed at 10am and call me lazy,' she says. 'I had no lock on the door and she'd often knock and walk in without waiting for a response, which felt very intrusive. If I went out for drinks after lectures with friends, she'd tell me off for keeping her up, saying she couldn't sleep if she knew I wasn't back.'
She continues: 'Things got so bad that I'd hide in my room and basically eat in there so I didn't have to use the kitchen. But even that caused snide remarks like 'If you can afford takeaways, you should pay more rent' and she would tell me I was unhealthy or that my meals smelled disgusting. I felt so lonely and isolated.'
'I was paying them to do their childcare'
For Steve, 38, from Birmingham, being a lodger was fine until the couple he lived with had a baby in 2015. 'They laid down all these rules – no guests, no noise after 9pm, no using the upstairs while they were doing the bath and bedtime for their son. My bedroom was on the ground floor but we only had one bathroom and it was upstairs,' he says.
'The whole house now revolved around them as a family and I felt like a third wheel,' he says. 'The baby would wake me numerous times at night and I'd hear them having rows about asking me to leave, but they also needed the money.'
After six months, Steve says that his landlords started to use him as a free babysitter. 'They'd often casually ask if I was staying in that night, and if I was, once the baby was asleep they'd decide to 'pop out' and come home hours later,' he says. 'The baby never woke up, but it was infuriating that I was paying them to do their childcare while living under such a strict regime. I rented my own place as soon as I could.'
But many people who rent out a room say that establishing ground rules is essential to good lodger-landlord dynamics.
Katy, 42, from Surrey rents out two rooms in her four-bedroom house. 'It helps with the mortgage but I also like to have people to socialise a bit with when I get back from work,' she says. 'I've always had some general rules, because it's my home, so the decor in your room is your own, but the communal spaces will just be my pictures and furniture,' she says. 'No one can have a guest stay for more than two nights a week. I never want to feel like I'm outnumbered and living in someone else's house.'
'The only unusual rule I have is about my velvet sofa which was extremely expensive and took me ages to save up for,' she says. 'I ask people not to eat or drink on it which I think is totally reasonable but I'm sure lots of people think it's too uptight. To be honest, even if they sit on it with a glass of water I feel quite nervous.'
But even with her clear rules from the outset, Katy says she still had some nightmare lodgers. 'One of them had just started getting into recreational drugs, and her boyfriend started staying over all the time so I had to ask her to leave,' she says.
'Another was incredibly messy – leaving toothpaste over the bathroom sink and her washing up in the bowl. She often walked around partly-dressed which made me feel uncomfortable, then when she left, I found mouldy plates under her bed.'
'I'm too old to feel awkward in my own home'
Likewise, Judith, 60, from south London, has been renting out a room in her five-bedroom semi-detached Victorian home for nine years. She says she now has 'strict stipulations' which she clearly includes in the online advert for prospective renters.
'I've had my fingers burnt with a couple of less-than-ideal lodgers because I think I was too lax with setting out the rules,' she says. 'I don't allow them to have house guests. I've learnt the hard way the awkwardness that comes with finding a procession of strangers in your kitchen at breakfast time at weekends and I don't want to come home to find my lodger and their partner getting it on on my sofa. I'm too old to feel awkward in my own home.'
The family rooms – dining room, sitting room and garden – are all off limits. 'The rental is for one bedroom in a family home and I don't really want to come in from work to find our lodgers splayed on the only sofa watching Netflix or eating a takeaway in the dining room,' she says. 'Many people are used to renting a room in a shared house which doesn't have communal spaces, so it's not as draconian as it sounds.'
Judith says that although she wants her lodgers to feel 'at home to a point', people have to respect that they're only renting one room in her house, not the entire place. 'We had an issue with a tenant repeatedly making bacon sandwiches at 2am or 3am when they came in from nights out, the smell of which woke us up. From the outset I make it clear that they are not renting a one-bedroom flat with all the space and privacy that entails. In this area, that would cost more than double the price of this, with bills on top.'
But for Nicole, the lower price of being a lodger was not enough to convince her to stay. After just three months, she moved into a houseshare. 'It was in a rough area and my room was the size of a postage stamp but at least we were all equal and in it together,' she says. 'I'd never rent a room in a landlord's house again.'