Ensuite room in Brixton Houseshare

**please read to the end for updated viewing information**

About the room
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It is a compact room with its own ensuite shower. It's got a nearly-double bed, which technically makes it a nearly-double room. Two people could sleep in it, but not live in it - so it's not available for couples.

There's hardwired broadband internet and a desk with an office chair in your room, so it's good for WFH; it's full fibre to the front door of the house.

The House
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But you only sleep, WFH or watch your lonely netflix in your bedroom: you live in the whole house, which is spacious and comfortable - ideal for a sociable household.
You can hang out round the kitchen table and share meals, tea, wine and chatter. In summer, you can spread out into the small back garden (and try to make yourselves heard over the noise of the planes); in winter use the shared living-room more - which has a giant home cinema screen, ideal for shared netflix/movie nights or house karaoke.

The kitchen is well-equipped and designed for shared cooking and eating of proper meals rather than for five people each heating their own instant noodles, although inevitably microwaving a ready meal from Getir tends to predominate... It has enough kit for serious cooking and baking (big Kenwood, Magimix etc). The dishwasher is probably the easiest domestic dishwasher in South London to load and unload, so there is no excuse.
Cleaners come in once a week to do the deep cleaning, which can only be done properly in the time if the place isn't ankle-deep in dirty dishes...

Upstairs, just outside your room, there's a laundry area with washer, dryer and ironing/hanging space.

Although you'd have your own shower, there's also a separate bathroom for those days when only a long soak will do.

Guests are welcome - your guests are our guests and vice-versa. There's a sofa-bed in the front room for guests with whom you are not that intimate.

Working from Home
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There's a desk with a modern office chair as well as wifi and wired internet in your room so working from home doesn't mean Zoom calls from your bed.

Brixton
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Brixton's reputation has recovered a bit since the 1980s when it was a byword for riots. Its Caribbean links are still evident but gentrification has taken its toll. We're hoping the post-corona normal will keep it fun and that those who only lived here because of its good transport links to work in the City and West End will go back to the burbs. Flat rents however aren't showing any sign of coming down.... Its famous market isn't anywhere near as busy as it used to be so please make use of it - it's cheaper and much more fun than buying from Tesco... Anyway, living here you will get a place that's well set up for WFH with a multicultural community right on your doorstep..

About us:

We, Edward and Lydia, own the house and lived there and shared it for over thirty years. We were grown-ups when we bought it - go figure. We're now retired and our primary home is in France but still have a room in the house and we still think of ourselves as Londoners, indeed Brixtonites.
We started sharing because we had to, and carried on because we like living with other people. We've made lots of friends and we're still in touch with most of the people who've lived in the house over that time. Chances are that the visitor sharing a pot of tea - or a bottle of wine - with us round the kitchen table used to live here.

We have been called hippies, but that wouldn't be strictly accurate.

We like food, music, dancing (in the kitchen or the middle of a hot sweaty dancefloor - hot sweaty dancefloors being what we missed most in the pandemic), London, the company of friends and outdoorsy country things. We like to go to at least two festivals every summer....

Our main home in Northern France is where we now spend most of our time. You'd be welcome to come and visit for a weekend, - we often have space in the car when we go and it's only an hour and half from Calais, so it's ideal for a weekend trip. For the best part of twenty-five years we made the trip once a fortnight, out on Friday after work, back on Sunday. It's an old farmhouse with about an acre of orchard and a developing forest-garden including a camping-meadow and it's very relaxing; we also have the occasional micro-festival there with music and camping.

Besides the two ageing owners who will not be present most of the time but will want to know all about you and meet your friends, you will be sharing the house with Nikki, Nicos and Sophia who all moved in during the pandemic.

The room is available because Rob is moving out to live with his girlfriend just round the corner...

There are also two cats - Megan, who is 19 and is therefore the senior full-time resident, and Phil who is not yet 1 and is officially Nikki's cat.

It's inevitable that the house dynamic has changed from when we first moved in and everyone was much of the same age, and it's changing again now as we aren't around so much. It will be up to you what you make of it and we're fine with that so long as you don't trash the place, and recycle accurately. We'd be much happier if you made it your home, had friends round and joined in with everyone else. It's up to you all to make your own rules between you so long as you avoid too many bossy notices around the place (send a passive-aggressive WhatsApp message to the house group instead....);
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About you:

We like living with all sorts of different people (diversity doesn't stop at the front door), so there's no stereotype ideal person - but we'd definitely rather have people who are around and do things with us all than ghosts we never see.

Ideally you're someone a bit political, with fire in the belly, who's also up for a late-night rant or two with a spliff and/or a glass of wine but who's still got the energy to drag everyone out for a dance, a house outing to a gallery, the pub or a march or demo. Someone who will share their passions with us (as well as showing at least a token interest in ours!). We're looking for someone who'll be part of our lives, not just someone who pays rent. Someone who will make our home their home. Probably likes to party a bit, but not to the exclusion of everything else yet understands that work that pays the rent and bills gets priority for quiet time.... Hopefully also enough of a gardener to know when the plants, inside and outside, need watering...

Someone for the medium to long term - a stay measured in years rather than weeks or months. There isn't a fixed minimum, but don't bother if you're just looking for a short term let.

If you're new to London, you might be able to make the most of the network of friends and former housemates you'd meet by living here.

You should have a profile on SpareRoom - post a "room wanted" ad - and it'll probably say something more original about you than "respect and expect privacy and like to chillax with the occasional glass of wine with flatmates".

We're looking for the right person, not necessarily the next person to see the room. One of the reasons we've enjoyed sharing all these years is that we choose carefully - and take our time.
It is definitely NOT a case of the early viewer gets the room.

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The rent

is £675 pcm all-inclusive - it covers all the bills and broadband. You pay the first and last month's rent when you move in; there's no deposit. It might be negotiable, up to a point, for the right person.

It's up to you all how you organise the food and drink: when we were there full-time everything was shared and it's obviously sensible not to have multiple open bottles of ketchup or cooking oil... We, Edward and Lydia, sometimes bring back home-grown provender including eggs from our hens and lots of home-made jam.

VIEWING DETAILS:

UPDATED

First viewings will be on Thursday, 6th October, when you will get a chance to meet the existing household (Nikki, Nicos, Sophia); they will then make a shortlist of interested and interesting people they would be happy living with, and there'll be a final
viewing and meetup with me and Lydia on either Monday 17th or Tuesday 18th October before we decide who gets the room.

Please create a SpareRoom profile (post a "Room Wanted" ad) before replying, anyone replying without one will just get an instant refusal.

I've now paid for the ad so you don't have to pay to reply.
I'll reply to your message when I can with more viewing info.

PS If we've already arranged a time for you to come and view on 6th, you don't need to do anything, nothing has changed.