Sofa Hopping

I am 27 and I share a rented flat in London, which means I have a few things to say about my sofa, which, like my flat, I lease from my landlord and have come to despise. I could talk about how itchy it is, how synthetic, but chronic back ache is the more pressing issue. I am reminded every day that comfort costs, but discomfort will too. The flat is nearly £2000 a month and in my room there’s a bed, a boiler and a bedside table, with no room for the coffee table I picked up at a car boot sale in Dalston or the record player (and records) I inherited from my grandfather. But if I hadn’t taken it, somebody else would have.

‘Home,’ Mark Fisher wrote in Ghosts of My Life, ‘is where the haunt is.’ And ‘the house always wins.’ My boiler whispers and grunts in the night. I feel the presence of my sofa creeping around behind me all day. The damp stains on the walls look like unhappy figures from Frank Auerbach’s charcoal sketches. I’ve just read Róisín Lanigan’s first novel, I Want to Go Home but I’m Already There, in which she uses the rental crisis in London as the background to a paranormal story that’s all too plausible. ‘Áine should be feeling happy with her life,’ the blurb says:

She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can't shake the sense that there’s something not quite right.

‘Not quite right’, it turns out, covers quite a lot of ground:

The entire flat emanated a kind of expectant emptiness. Waiting for her, looking at her, judging her. She stood in the middle of rooms surrounded by clutter, not knowing yet how to exist in them. For something to do, she ripped the red velvet cover off the sofa that wasn’t theirs, frowning at the stains, and then realised they didn’t have any detergent yet so threw it on the bed to deal with later. Throughout all of this, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her carry out the tasks.

Low supply and high demand. Decade-long waiting lists for social housing. Dust and damp. Ghosts aside, renting in London is a horror story, and the house always wins. I moved to the city eight years ago to study neuroscience at University College London. Since then, rents have nearly doubled but the square footage of my digs has stayed the same. As I grow up in age and out in size, I begin to see that the hoped-for upgrade that should come with time now looks impossible. My generation is running but we’re not moving.

The first five years I spent in London were in flatshares without sofas. I lived out my sixth year on sofas as I surfed my way around the city. There were a few weeks where I crashed on a sofa in a three-floor house in Kentish Town that belonged to a friend’s parent. The sofa was L-shaped and impossibly comfortable. Another time, I slept on a sofa at a friend’s in Kennington, a leather Chesterfield designed for two. I slept with my legs dangling over its arm. Then there was the sofa that belonged to a friend and her dog, though more to the dog than to the friend, and more to both than to me. The dog ran the show like some sort of mob boss at a nightclub entrance, barking at my door all night. ‘Did you sleep well?’ my friend would ask unironically each morning.

My last haunt was in a room in a top-floor flat that overlooked Hampstead Heath. The flat was being renovated. It didn’t have a sofa. It didn’t have any furniture at all. No shower, no front door. It did, however, have a balcony with panoramic views of London. I’d exhausted what might comically be referred to as my resources. So I stayed in the flat with no door for a few weeks, squeezing my inflatable mattress, camping lantern and backpack into a cupboard in the eaves before vacating each morning to avoid the builders who arrived punctually at seven. Just as I’d saved enough to pay the deposit and first month’s rent on a new flat, a flat of my own, I fell off my bike and broke my leg. I moved back to my mum’s where, unable to manage the stairs, I rejoined the sofa.

I’ve been in my current place for two years now, and I’d like to stay a third. I’ve decorated. I got an email last week: ‘The [unnamed] landlord has requested an increase in your rent per calendar month. This is non-negotiable and you have seven days to let us know if you’d like to proceed.’ When I spoke to the estate agent, he told me that the landlord was appreciative of my tenancy.

What are my options? I could try to find somewhere else for less, but I’ve dug deep into Rightmove and Zoopla and it isn’t looking good. What about a different city? Manchester? Liverpool? I work in London. I could vacate to the suburbs. Surbiton. Guildford. (Think about the cost of commuting.) Another country? I’ve heard Berlin’s quite affordable. Brexit. I could move in with my mum again. (Hello sofa.) At 27, my peer group is dividing like a cell in meiosis. We’re all at different stages of the life cycle, our circumstances non-identical. Some people are moving back in with their parents. Others are buying their first homes.

A friend recently bought a flat in South London. Her parents helped her, which is fine, but I admit I find the conversations about interior design quite difficult.

‘I’m not keen on the tiling. What do you think?’

I cling to the remnants of our youth. Perhaps what I’m experiencing – along with the chronic backache, the tussle with the sofa, the agony of rising rental prices – is a generational resistance to growing up. Is it my fault?

‘How is that guy?’ I replied to my homeowner friend. (What a designation, but it seems almost funky.) I didn’t tell her I think the tiling is hideous.

‘Something something tiles.’

‘So, are you still sleeping together?’

‘Something something Hamish. Something boyfriend.’

‘Oh, right, yeah,’ I said. ‘Do you want to go to the pub on Thursday?’

‘Can’t, sorry,’ she replied. ‘My new sofa is being delivered.’