Death of the bedsit marks the end of an era

Date Published: 28-Nov-2012

Long before we lost the run of ourselves with our luxury apartments and fancy duplexes, living in a bedsit was a right of passage for every student and civil servant worth their salt.

Some of them were dingy to the point that your best friend was the rising damp; hot water often came in the form of a steel unit over the sink and heat came from sitting in the broken armchair wrapped in your sleeping bag.

But soon the world of bedsits – at least in Ireland – will be no more because of former Green Party leader John Gormley’s parting gift.

And while those of us who came through the bedsit era unscathed may look back with nostalgia on the days of our youth, the reality is that there are many people who now would be able to afford a place to rent.

No matter how attached you might be to the room that trebles as a kitchen, sitting room and bedroom, if you could afford it you know you’d be in an apartment.

But there are those who have never managed to make that move – never mind found the cash for an actual house – and now they are being forced from their homes through ill-conceived legislation.

Under new rules, which come into effect early in 2013, one-room units can no longer be rented because all rental accommodation must have a separate room with ‘sanitary facilities’; or a bathroom in plain English.

But not just a toilet and sink – you must also provide a fixed bath or a shower with hot and cold water. The fact that there is just such a facility but it’s shared between four or six isn’t good enough.

Of course, we’d all prefer our own bathroom in an ideal world – especially when one of your fellow bedsitters returns home late from the pub and falls asleep in the one convenience, leaving the rest of the house holding onto their business until they made it into work.

And without a doubt, there are ‘flats’ out there that shouldn’t be used to house farm animals let alone human beings. But supply and demand dictates that some people cannot afford the lap of luxury – and in those circumstances, a shared toilet isn’t the worst inconvenience that could be bestowed on you.

I have lived in basements, attics and garages in my time – I’ve been so cold that I’d wear most of my clothes while cooking the sausages and toast that used to constitute a balanced diet.

I had one bedsit that seemed to have been selected by the mouse world as a Dublin base for all of their activities and I had a place in Cork where the floor sloped alarmingly from all sides towards the centre.

I had one flat where the bed had to fold up into the wall in order to make space to move around it.

I had another where a sliding door meant you could only access either the tiny bathroom or bijou kitchen – but given that when you were in one the door blocked the other, you couldn’t enter both at the same time.

Which was fine when you were on your own, but if you had visitors who suffered from claustrophobia, you daren’t use the bathroom while they were mooching in the kitchen for fear of pinning them to what was laughably called a cooker.

But early next year, the days of eight flats in a standard three bedroomed house are at an end and while there will be some who won’t know where to turn to for a new, upgraded place to rent, there probably won’t be too many tears shed for a throwback to a bygone era.

And anyway it’s not like there aren’t empty spaces up for rent or purchase just now – half of the houses in Leitrim are vacant and virtually all of Longford is empty, thanks to Albert Reynolds’ tax relief scheme.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.