Student Accommodation

Here's where I used to live

Hmm.... year 1 = decent and pretty large newly refurbished room looking over the sports ground on Iffley Road. Due to the proximity of numerous nutters on the Iffley Road numerous chivalrous gents would offer to walk me home OH HANG ON they weren't being chivalrous at all but preying on innocent young first years.

Year 2 = icky room but nearer my mates and the centre of town. Nice view of a wall. Upstairs was a rowing freak who would wake me up by getting up at 3 am to go rowing and playing loud music. Downstairs was a basketball freak who would constantly bounce his ball against the ceiling grrr.

Year 3 = 2 bedroom flat in Spain to myself.

Year 4 = Fantastic long thin room with wooden beams in a little nook of college with a great view of the Nun's Garden. I wuvved that room.

Year 1 - residence hall, 120 residents to start with, 84 evictions by end of term, myself one of the first of those. There wasn't a Year 2

Year one, a tiny room with bars on the window. Big windowsill. Very dark. Like Dave Q - no year 2.

first year - nice room in college overlooking courtyard with tennis courts in the summer and lovely willow tree and windowsills that we would sit on and drink BEER. mmmm. second year - horrible box room in horrible box building allegedly designed to Swedish Mental Hospital specifications, but much nearer to town. third year: EXCELLENT tiny wee cottage in college grounds near the orchard, so loads of apple crumble parties during the winter and loads of other parties at other times of year... had a spare room in which RickyT practiacally took up residence during the weekends.

1st year: tiny wee thin room with stupidly narrow bed looking out onto trees and new wing which looked like Miss Cackles Academy for Young Witches. 2nd year: see Katie's description. 3rd year: newly decorated fuck off great big room under the eaves above Katie's 1st year room. It had two beds and a big ass fridge as well. 4th year: smaller, but still sizeable room overlooking second hockey pitch, hard courts and orchard.

(All Glasgow)1st Year;student village. Quite nice and next to Ruchill Park which was great for tea tray toboganning (sp?).2nd year;Lovely flat in Anniesland. It was formerly an old man's flat (we think he died there and his ghost inhabited the bathroom) and so had the coolest doorbell, no sound just flashing lights when someone pressed it.3rd year;horrible cold flat - the toilet froze over at Christmas.4th year; lovely renovated flat near Kelvingrove Park.It was very spic-and-span.5th year;Horrible house with very dodgy landlord. My ceiling used to leak.

Stayed on campus for my UG. First year, breeze block cube with uninteresting views and not wide enough bed on long breeze block corridor. Next year newly refurbished breeze block cube in 4 person flat with ok furniture and cat swinging not an option. Nice views towards trees and lake though.

Last year in 7 person flat - 6 of us friends and one stranger, now good friend. At far end of campus meaning, hills, fields, the occasional deer, many wabbits and the lovely smell of manure in the morning. Paper thin walls through which you could hear everything leading to arguments and bitterness amongst certain neighbours. Although building 5 or so years old already starting to subside. We reckon what once was a 3 floor bulding is now probably a one level.

Postgrad year, scarily expensive Uni accomodation about a mile and half from campus. Heating constantly on too high with no way to turn down - but - en-suite bathrooms a godsend after years of sharing and back to thick breezeblock walls. Local kids continually smashing living room windows leading to glass showers whilst watching tv.

All Bournemouth: First year= hotel room in Westover Gardens hotel, room was nice food was atrocious and there were cockroaches in the dining room and all the other long term guests were retired servicemen.

Second = Lovely flat above a sandwich shop on Westover Road, owned by flatmate's friend recently decorated too.

Third = Room in big house in Winton, originally with strangers (including landlords daughter who was mentalist and strange girl in next room who once tried to pull me despite me having a girlfriend at the time by "seductively" rubbing her foot in my crotch at a restaurant, someone should have told her to remover her Doc Martens) then with chums, that was a great summer.

Fourth = Holiday flat on the Eastcliff, dark and very cold but bloody great in the Summer as it was only 3 minutes from the beach.

This was all in Stirling by the way

My 3rd year room is (apparently - I've not seen it) featured in the opening sequence of THE SAINT except when the camera zooms into 'my room' there isn't me sitting around drinking lager and listening to Scott Walker or Pulp, but instead some amazing science lab.

It was really big and had a separate bedroom. My 2nd year was in a shared house, I had a biggish room with french windows which opened onto the conservatory. My 1st year I had a tiny but neat room and then upgraded to a nasty one with orange walls which was bigger and nearer my friends.

First year - university flats. One evil girl, but by some miricle of fate or good planning by Univeristy of Sheffield admissions, I'm still very close to the other three. Small room, but there were squirrels outside and the shower was nice. Second year, two houses of four next to one another. Paper thin walls, and rising damp. Nice to be able to wander between houses Neighnours style though. Third year, big crumbling Victorian four storey house with big sash windows. My room was bright orange which sounds foul, but was lovely and it had a walk in wardrobe built into the space under the stairs. The house was a death trap and the landlord was barking, but I loved it.

Uniquely on this thread (and quite unusual generally) I actually lived in hall for all three years of my course. Not only that but I lived in the same room, no. 107 in Unit 2. If you go here, position your mouse on the tennis court and move it to the left, you will see the very building in question. I suspect the pic was taken during the vac when a conference was on, because during term there were always plastic bags suspended from the windows to act as fridges to foil the thieving magpies who would raid the fridges in the pantry. Other techniques to foil the thieves included notes saying "Scientific research in process" on food items and putting green food colouring in the milk, although I would imagine that the latter would be as off-putting for the owner as to any potential thief..........

Ah, stealing food from communal fridges. I used to love leaving teeth marks in other peoples cheese.

I think the thing which made me stay when I could so easily have moved out was the fact that the hall was situated in a very pleasant leafy suburb of Bristol called Stoke Bishop. Like most of Bristol, it was a very hilly area, the hall being situated on the brow of a hill with splendid views across the Bristol channel to Wales. It affected my radio reception quite drastically. I got zero reception when trying to tune to the Bristol commercial station GWR but received Red Dragon FM loud and clear.

I also loved the sense of community which resulted from sharing the place with 440 other people. It was an ideal situation: if I wanted to be sociable there were always loads of people to talk to/sit in the bar with, but if I wanted some solitude I could just shut the door of my room and be by myself. Each year was very different in terms of the mix of ppl on the corridor. The bizarre thing was that in the first year when the most vandalism was committed (e.g. someone setting fire to my door) I actually got some Caution Money back at the end of the year, but in subsequent years when no-one broke anything I didn't get any back.

Shared house with 8-10 other people (who I've described elsewhere). Small-ish room with a bed only 2 feet wide and leaves me lusting after Mark H's sofa (the most comfortable thing I've slept on in months), right next to the bathroom, ahem.

There are no locks on the kitchen cupboards but I've never had any problems. I may start drinking vegan milk to foil the robbers (we're meant to be sharing it, but I'm usually the one who cracks first and buys some). I haf foiled people stealing my cheese by wrapping it in a plastic bag. Unwrapping it appears to be beyond their theft vs laziness threshold.

The Sorting Hat put me in Hufflepuff, hee hee hee.

Actual college apartment house briefly visable in crappy film "Patriot Games".

crumbling pile on dickenson road manchester, ostensibly a shared house. Irish Charlie (the Landlord) had illegally attached us to the mains gas supply hence no gas bill hence fires on all year round. Should have housed eight people, but assorted drugdealing types moved in. Biker couple took the living room for a while, along with their bike. Seances in the seller resulted in Tim's soul being sold to the devil. He was hypnotised so that whenever anybody said weasel he would pass them whatever was in his left hand. He left soon after his nervous breakdown. Highpoint for me was finding Dan's porn stash. Jesus there was tons of it. Acid Acid Acid. Karl subsequently killed someone and went to Strangeways. Briege lost her marbles.

Jesus. Best years of your life.

crumbling pile on dickenson road manchester, ostensibly a shared house. Irish Charlie (the Landlord) had illegally attached us to the mains gas supply hence no gas bill hence fires on all year round. Should have housed eight people, but assorted drugdealing types moved in. Biker couple took the living room for a while, along with their bike. Seances in the cellar resulted in Tim's soul being sold to the devil. He was hypnotised so that whenever anybody said weasel he would pass them whatever was in his left hand. He left soon after his nervous breakdown. Highpoint for me was finding Dan's porn stash. Jesus there was tons of it. Acid Acid Acid. Karl subsequently killed someone and went to Strangeways. Briege lost her marbles.

Jesus. Best years of your life.

there were always loads of people to talk to/sit in the bar with

misread this as "talk to/sit in the bath with". was going to ask what sort of Uni you went to!

You are not unique MarkH as I lived in college halls for 3 years (year tarting about on the Costa del Sol pretending to teach English does not count as I was clearly not studying in any way shape or form).

If I ever go to collect my contract I'll be in halls for all 3 years to, though I hope not in the same room.

actually the bar was the worst out of the five in Stoke Bishop (with the possible exception of Wills which certainly *wasn't* the cheapest bar in Bristol when I was there, that honour going to either the Dentistry School or the Catholic Chaplaincy). Looking at the pic of Badock bar it doesn't appear to have changed at all save for some new curtains. Still, it was bigger than any of the Oxford ones I've been to (Wadham, Somerville, St John's, St Cross and Wolfson).

Ditto. Year one second floor above Queen's Lane Coffee House, Second year first floor above QLCH. FInal year a set of two rooms very similar to Tom's (diagonally adjacent - but different time reference).

Interesting difference bewteen Bristol & Oxford...in Bristol, all people want to do is move out of hall at the end of their first year and I was considered a freak for not wanting to, whereas in Oxford people seem to want to stay in college accommodation. The high rents in Oxford are undoubtably a factor and I'd imagine that the collegiate system gives you more of a sense of belonging, too. What's the name of the Queen's accomodation in St Clements, off the road near to the Angel & Greyhound? That looks pretty dire to me, though I've never been inside.

Hot contender in the Stupidest College Accommodation Names Competition.....at my girlfriend's old college here in Ox. (Lady Margaret Hall) there is a New Old Hall....to distinguish it from Old Old Hall, of course!

1st Year - Double Room with evil roomate from hell. I was so happy when he got hit by a car on his motorcycle. I actually laughed at him and laughed even harder when his swing with his cruch missed. For a few brief moments I believed there was a god after all. The place looked like a hospital but the rooms were huge, the lounge nice and had an underground connection to the meal hall. It was the first year it had been co-ed so not having mirrors over sinks for a month made things difficult and I came to treasure urinals.
2nd Year- Same Hall but one of the largest rooms in the single beds. Behind a linen closet, with coffee table, bar fridge, perfect room for my computer, beautiful view of the Bay of Fundy in the distance, two neighbours who were never ever hoom, stuck into a wierd little corner and the only room with carpet.
3rd year- I called it The Dungeon. No windows, no windows in the three rooms I had to walk to get to it. Aside from one roomate who I would live with again next year the other ones were complete idiots who I made a living off selling them pot at inflated prices cause they were stupid enough to buy it at that rate. Thank God for the gfs great 100 year old house even if it was falling into the Beaver Lumber yard.
4th Year - a giant blue box. A friendly drunken landlord who never remebered our names despite beind the only two guys out of 24 tennents. Probably the best apartment I've lived in.
5th - A bachelor apartment in the nonstudent area of town. Too many silverfish and only a bath but otherwise its bright, its warm and it has all sorts of junk in it that I should probably throw away before moving wherever.

Queen's building on St Clements = the legendary Florey Building which was designed by some quite famous Italian architect and is regularly visited by architecture students. I never lived there so never experienced a) its falling into the river b) its radical under floor heating, hypercaustastic or c) its deceptive blinds /roundish layout which would always catch out some first year prancing round their room naked.

The would be the Florey Building, much prized by Italian archicture students who would wander around its Thunderbird-esque design. Its a horseshoe shaped section of a cone which meant the top floor was also the largest floor. All rooms faced into the horseshoe with one completely glass wall hence vv hot in summer, vv cold in winter and someone always forgot that everyone else can see into their room and danced naked round it in the first week of term.

I spthe bath there on many occasions.

This monobrain thing has gone TOO FAR.

I lived there Mark, it was great. I also moved in after the first term so didnt fall for the naked thing, doubtless to the relief of my peers.

I agree Tom. Tell you what Pete, you keep the brain and I'll have the good looks, OK?

ha ha ha laugh? I nearly paid my council tax!!!

Freshman year: 3-room suite on the top floor of a dorm smack-dab in the middle of Harvard Square. Dark wood panelling, a fireplace, windowseats, and a claw-foot tub gave it that extra sense of style. I shared this room with two other guys.

Sophomore year: A single room on a hallway. The room itself was pretty big, something on the order of 135 square feet. There was a large shared bathroom down the hall. No roommates, but the two roomies from freshman year lived across the hall and next door in similar rooms.

Junior year: Another top-floor dorm room. The upperclass dorm we lived in had duplexes on the top floors of three of the buildings, and we got the best one of those open to juniors. There were four of us, each with our own bedroom, 1 1/2 bathrooms (full bath upstairs, half bath downstairs) and a decent sized common room (200 square feet).

Senior year: We got one of the largest rooms on campus. It was called the Bell Tower Suite; a 475 square foot common room with four bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, access to the bell tower of our dorm which gave you a fantastic view of Boston and the Charles River skylights in every room, and 20-foot vaulted ceilings. I've never lived someplace as cool as that since I graduated from college.

1st year: tiny room with small electricity sub-station thrumming away outside window. A hostel in the centre of the city though NEXT TO THE KEBAB SHOP, so hostel was hotbed of late night fun. I was exempt from fun :-(, but GREEN STREET (for that is it's name) was handy and made people in the standard 1st year block HARVEY COURT. slightly jeal (tho of course they had more inter-room shenanigans, grr)

2nd year: out in the boondocks in another hostel. Lived on ground floor above daughter of mad hostel keeper. Gave me a shouting at when i watched telly late one night, but she'd taken stuff from my room so i gave her a lesser shouting back. Nice sunny room like living in a large bay-window

3rd year: POSH OR WHAT! Lived in trad old courts. Enormous bare room though. i lived in one end of it, cos it's sheer size was quite intimidating. the other end i covered in giant New Order posters.

But sod the size and aspect, the most important and aggravating thing of all these accomodations were: BEDDERS! Yarrrooo!

So, those of you who lived in catered halls....what was the food like?

In my first year, it was pretty revolting, but I learned what to avoid. In the second year, they introduced a salad bar which meant that if the main course was something vile I could opt for a salad instead. If they wanted to make a meal sound more exciting they'd prefix it on the menu with "Chinese", there being no actual culinary basis for this, as the Chinese students were always quick to point out.

the day after the ball the catering staff were always in disarray and we would be drinking ordinary coffee from the urns out of demi-tasse and they'd be serving rubbery pizzas on paper plates.

At breakfast, people would take to supplementing their diet by drinking milk out of one of the urns which was intended for use on cereal, so those who followed them would often find that there was no milk left and have to eat dry cornflakes...ew.

the most important and aggravating thing of all these accomodations were: BEDDERS! Yarrrooo!

Huh?

Mmmm junk food day. Well days as it was Wednesday and Saturday when the KING RIB and SPICY CHICKEN SLICE made their appearances. I was very fond of the chewy cold toast at breakfast though never having been a fan of hot buttered toast.

The way I got round this in my final year was by eating out a lot (stop sniggering Tom and Pete) with my chums which was very foolish of me and has resulted in a larger student debt than was strictly necessary. Oops.

re: bedders. i'm sure this was covered on oxbridge threads before. quick summary: cleaners. yes you read it. the belief-defying existence of people supplied by the college to come in to clean your room/change sheets/etc. madness.

Accomodation at Sarah Lawrence for the first two years was in a hideous complex called the New Dorms - designed by the guy who did Lincoln Center, the architect wept bitter tears when he saw the ND's finished. Shared a spacious freshman double with a faghag whose drag name was Claire Planet and who (bless her) wore mourning when Andy Warhol died. There was also a bullseye painted on the concrete at the end of the staircase as a handy aid for suicide attemptors. Second year I had a single in the part of ND's nearest doorway and phone...grr. Hated the whole showers thing, so was relieved to have a bath shared with another student for my last two years in older, mock-Tudor dorms with nice wood floors and big windows. The bath had doors opening onto each side, which was where the rooms were.

For obscure reasons bedders were called gyps at Girton, and did nowt apart from empty bins. We had to change our bedding ourselves, I'll have you know, Mr Caius Poshboy.

We did not have bedders but Scouts. (PS Mr T I am still recovering from that moment of freakishness, the world of telephony is OUT TO GET US.)

Our "Bedders" do little more than coat the stairs in a thin sheet of wetness.

And don't you Cambridge types call the Porter's Lodge the "plodge" as well? We originally only had one porter (called Andy) at my hall and then in my second year they employed a second one, a former docker who had been laid off when they privatised the Avonmouth docks. Bizarrely, the Porter's Lodge was staffed LESS often when there were two Porters than when there was just one. I never figured out what hours they were supposed to work. Apparently, somebody had reported mail being stolen from the pigeonholes, so they used to put this huge board with a padlock on it over the pigeonholes when the lodge was not occupied. This resulted in a huge crowd of students congregating in front of the pigeonholes waiting for the Porter to come along to unlock them. If you were lucky enough to get a parcel through the mail then this was stashed in the Lodge and there was nothing more frustrating than seeing a parcel with YOUR NAME ON IT through the glass and not actually ebing able to get at it!

Your bedders are wetters?

No scouts, gyps or bedders at Bristol, there are just cleaners. My cleaner, Anne Payne (or "Anne the Pain" as she liked to style herself) was average at cleaning, but extremely good at TALKING. Once you started talking to her it was very difficult indeed to get away. She was very proud of her son who in the RAF out in the Gulf (the war was on at the time) "on the 'ercs" (ie, Hercules transport planes) and of course Anne always greeted me with the standard Bristol greeting "Alroit my loverrr?"

actually, i'm probs misremembering. either way i'm pos i would never let a bedder change my bedding as such. confusing my memories with memories of the tv version of porterhouse blue = DUD (john sessions, yarooo!)

The cleaners always had the best stories about past students and all the gossip on the current students too. The things they must have seen!

I imagine the Things They Must Have Seen mostly include: extreme untidiness; vomit in various places; piss stains; other bodily overflowings.

our gyp was called Brenda and she was a MENTALIST. she was about 87 and the shape and SOUND of a Monty Python pepperpot lady, and covered the inside door of the broom cupboard with posters of Cliff Richard. she constantly got me mixed up with my friend Kate but looking back i suppose we were both vegans with names sounding like Kate so not v. hard to do. she would barge into yr room with no warning and if she wanted to hoover would CHUCK YOU OUT, even if you were like in the middle of sleeping or writing an essay or something! she never forgave us for spilling candle wax over the entire corridor floor one drunken Halloween. and quite right too. her arch enemy though was our friend Jonny B, who would never tidy his room or indeed let her in to hoover (how he managed this we never found out - he may have scared her away with his collection of avant-garde music though).

Jonny B once attempted to spark off a DRUG SCANDAL by putting clear plastic bags of salt in his bin, in the hope that Brenda would think they were cocaine or something. happy days...

Each one of the units had a Unit Tutor (usually a postgrad or postdoc) who lived in a flat in the Unit. Our guy, Andy, was actually the Deputy Warden and his wife Debra was the unit tutor for neighbouring Unit 3. Andy used to invite us to parties in his flat and make irreverent comments about the Warden (who, I was shocked to discover from the website earlier today, is STILL THERE). The only time I remember Andy being annoyed by anyone it was when the guy next door to me, who was a DJ, was playing his records loudly at 1 in the morning. Andy took the guy down to his flat and showed him how his decks were directly above the chair Andy sat in when he watched tv.

First year in UCLA dorms being renovated. Basic and pleasant, no complaints. Remainder of undergrad years -- two bedroom, four person apartment in Westwood nearby, also basic, also pleasant. The amount of fabric due to SCA obsessed roomates a problem.

Best situation -- grad school years at housing on campus. My own room, direct net connection, and utterly wonderful cross-breezes in summer. BLISS.

One extremely bad aspect of the catering arrangements was that you paid for your food on a termly basis as part of your hall fees. The hall was half board during the week and full board at weekends. This was quite obviously dud, coz it meant that if you happened not to be around, then you were paying for a meal you didn't get and couldn't get a rebate. Had they operated a proper cafeteria system with a till or had girovend cards, it would've been fine. Every resident had to show a meal card with their photo on and they were different colours each yr, alternating between red and green. I often took my first year one down to meals to see if they'd notice, but they never did. My friend Paul lived in neighbouring University Hall, which was self-catering, yet still came into Badock for his meals, but managed to do so on days when they weren't checking cards.

I stayed at home.

This is the campus map of where I went to school. I lived here freshman year. It was on the third floor and was an all girl floor. The rooms were small but had walk in closets. My roommate was pleasant enough and since she was on the soccer and lacrosse teams, I often had the room to myself.

I lived here for three years. When I was there it was the Wome/yn's Concerns House: it "now houses faculty offices" THE FUCKING BASTARDS. The rooms were awesome! Sophomore year I had access to a porch through the window. We had a Brady Bunch bathroom shared with another room. Junior year I had a fireplace and an enclosed porch. I had the same roommate sophomore and junior year. Senior year I had a single on the top floor. I miss my house.

Shocking. I spent two and a half crappy years in residential colleges amongst the "popular kids at school" when I could have been living somewhere that didn't make me want to bash my head against the wall constantly.. er what was the question again?

i had to move home this year for family problems and i have a huge room on st marys road in oxford(off cowley road). if any of u are interested in renting it for the rest of the year could u email me, really cant afford to keeep it on, cos i'm not living in oxford.thanks

Google is your friend, but not always useful.

I've just e-mailed you Emma, as a colleague is desperately looking for somewhere to live - she is currently commuting here every day from London.

CACKLES ACADEMY IS THE BEST SCHOOL EVER

"cackles academy"?!

My friend and I got accommodation for the next academic year sorted out at the start of January, which is pretty early for Oxford. We paid the agents their letting fee and waited while they did the credit check. This goes fine, so they called us in to sign the contract last Friday.

On Friday morning we have messages on our phone cancelling the signing because the owner would like to have another look at the contract. Alarm bells start rining.

Sure enough, this morning we get a call saying the owner has "disintructed" them from letting the property. The good news is we're getting our letting fee back. I'm so staggered by their incompetence I can't find the will to abuse them.

So it's now March, all the student property is gone, and I am staring down the barrell of another year in graduate halls of residence, which is like hell with cleaning staff.

FUCKING RENTING. Anyone want to lend me the deposit for the mortgage on a house? More plausibly, does anyone have any leads for two-bedroom places in the Cowley Road area of Oxford?

Also, I can't spell barrel. This day just keeps getting worse.

This just in: I noticed the flat was back up on the letting agents website. I called to ask WTF was going on. They said they had been disinstructed (my new favourite word) from letting it to us because we are undergraduates. I pointed out that, er, we are postgraduates. So we've got it again. Contract signing shortly. Hoorah!