What to do if you don't like your accommodation

It’s never ideal to move into accommodation that you don’t like. Unfortunately this is a realistic possibility for many students so it is worth knowing what to do if this happens. This blog aims to provide you with some ideas for tackling this issue.

It is important to establish WHY you don’t like the accommodation and whether it’s something you can actually live with or not. It could be your housemates, your location, the aesthetics, the landlord or a whole host of other things. If you can’t live with the issue it’s worth looking for an alternative, even if it costs a little more than you’d like. You can never put a price on your comfort. Check out our main website (https://www.accommodationforstudents.com) or check local house hunting Facebook pages to search for something that suits you better. If you’re in halls, speak to the university about this and it should be easy for them to move/swap you to another hall.

Sometimes feeling unsettled in a new place can make you feel as if you don’t like it. Make sure you give yourself at least a couple of weeks to settle into the place, develop a routine, get to know the area and make it feel like home before you start panicking about it.

If you don’t want to move, here are some ways you can tolerate your accommodation:

Try and make your accommodation feel as homely as possible. Buy yourself flowers, keep your spaces tidy & clean and make sure you have some home comforts around you.

If there’s tension with your housemates, although easier said than done, try to address it early on and establish boundaries early. Create a space where everyone is open to express themselves freely but diplomatically so that that house dynamic can be as tension-free as possible. Try get the house to do activities together in the house such as movie nights, takeaway nights, spa evenings or boardgames to give you all a chance to spend quality time together in the house.

If the landlord is causing issues/not fixing problems, make sure you send them an email early on. Even if they don’t address the problems you will have the emails as evidence that you attempted to address these issues if needed in the future. If this becomes very serious it could be worth contacting university or the local housing standards office about this to see if they can find a way to put pressure onto the landlords.

Invite friends over. Hosting your friends in your house will make it feel more like yours. You can laugh at the issues with it together and they will probably tell you that they also have similar problems.

Remember that you’re only there for a year of your life and it’s never going to feel like your actual home. You can still have a great time at university and fall in love with the city, regardless of where you’re living. Make sure you use our website (https://www.accommodationforstudents.com) to find better accommodation next year!

Hopefully this has given you some insight into what you can do if you don’t like your accommodation.