I’ve been flatting on and off for the last 12 years. I moved out of home at 18 like many teens with inconveniently placed parental homes. And like most people I’ve ended up back there a couple of times too. After having some massive changes at our current flat, and with the prospect on owning my (our) own home looming I thought it would be interesting to work out how many people I’ve flatted with over the years. The number is 44. That’s quite a lot of people.
Now that number isn’t taking into account people I’ve liked so much I’ve lived with them twice (Mindy, Steph, Josh and now Sam). It also doesn’t take into account when I lived with my boyfriend Vincent and his family (which would add 7 people to the tally). It doesn’t include moving back home with Mum and other family members or the times when you stay at your boyfriends flat a whole lot but you don’t actually ‘live’ there. It does take into account the flat in London, but only because I realised I’d lived with those guys for longer than some of my actual flatmates and I cleaned that house so it counts.
I’ve been living in Kiwi Road in Pt Chev for about three and a half years now. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere for since I left home. In this house alone I’ve lived with 15 people over the years. Some folks have lived here for the long haul – Tien and Terry were here about a year and a half, and some of the young un’s, like Prabu, only stayed about a month. I now live with my husband, my friend Sam has just moved in, and soon a new number 45 will move in.
This number might terrify those in older generations who never experienced ‘flatting’, or even those in my generation who got married or kidded up early on. To be honest though, for folks like me that have been flatting for a while, it won’t be the largest number floating around. Murray reckons his number is close to 30. What might terrify some people even more is that people like me are now so used to living with others, that the idea of living alone with a partner is a pretty strange concept.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m really looking forward to it. It’ll be our house so we can do what we want to it. We’ll only have to clean up after ourselves. We won’t have to listen to loud annoying music at weird hours. But Murray feels differently. He’s already asked about getting a boarder in and we haven’t even found a house yet. He’s so acclimatised to living with other people, having other noise in the house, having someone to converse with if you feel like it, that not having those people around seems a bit odd. He’s always lived with other people. I haven’t. I lived alone for a year when I was 20 and loved it. I also spent much of my childhood on an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere. Murray grew up in the suburbs. Although I’m the ‘social’ one of the two of us, I love me some space.
My favourite thing about living with so many people has been seeing new ways to eat food. I’ve lived with people from so many places; England, the US, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, South Africa. Even other regular Jo Bloggs Kiwi’s have taught me a thing or two new about food. Living in the Sunnyside road flat I learned that I LOVED roast parsnips and garlic. I’ve learned how easy it is to make a Thai curry, which was quickly added to my cooking repertoire. I’ve leant about salting eggplants. I’ve learnt about the joy of rice cookers. It may sound banal, but without flatting with so many people I’m sure my culinary skills wouldn’t be quite what they are now. And I love food, so this is quite important to me.
I’ve also enjoyed being exposed to so many different types of flats. The Pirate Flat in Surrey Cres where Darcy had a wood turning workshop under the house and a living room full of plastic animals, paintings and chairs hanging from the ceiling. I had a friend stay over once and he was too scared to sleep in the lounge because the animals were 'looking' at him. Sunnyside road, where there were always at least 6 wonderful people over for dinner, even though only 4 of us lived there. Sara’s place at Keppell street; the crash flat from ‘Nam. And Kiwi Road, which has seen such a wide array of people from art students, to Monday night DJ’s, IT geeks, engineers and a blacksmith. The diversity of flatting means your life is always altered in interesting, unexpected ways.
As you get older though, flatting does get harder. When I was 20 I didn’t really care when I went to bed, who was staying over or how much washing there was to do. Now I’m 30 I have a job, a husband, a budget and a need for some semblance of routine. Now if someone keeps me up until 1am on a ‘school night’ I get a bit cranky because I have to wake up in 6 hours time for a 9 hour work day. Many folks still flatting at our age are looking for that party flat. We are not a party flat. We’re like many in our generation who are still flatting as it’s the most financially viable option while we save for our independence. We had the ultimate flat balance for a while, but the thing about flatting is that balance is always fleeting; flats are in a constant state of flux. Once you’ve got used to balance, it’s extremely tricky to go back to 1am wake up calls from noise-some flatmates, or to anal flatmates that require constantly pristine cohabitation conditions. This is why I am really looking forward to finally finding a home of our own.
I can completely understand Murray’s desire to live with others. And I’ve said that after maybe six months of ‘just us’ we can think about it. The thing is, with not needing anyone financially to fill the gap we can wait until Mr or Miss Right comes along. There’s no rush. And MAYBE after six months of living in quiet time where there are never any dishes that aren’t ours, bedtimes of our choosing, and the potential for late night living room Playstation romps which disturb no-one, he might change his mind….
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