|
Because she is living on her own, she insisted
on a female tenant. “I was very nervous indeed, and knew I had to be
extremely careful with references. I had to make it a condition that I did
not want somebody in a relationship, as I did not want boyfriends staying
the night.
“As the flat is part of my home, even though it
has its own front door, the whole thing had to be geared around my own
circumstances. As such, it could have been extremely difficult to find the
right tenant.”
But Sally had the most amazing stroke of
beginner’s luck. An ideal tenant was found right away, a quiet, almost
invisible 24-year-old Japanese student, who took the place for a year, at
£600 a month rent. Then she renewed for another four months.
“So far as I know, my tenant hasn’t had one
visitor, ever,” Sally says. “I often don’t know whether she’s in or not.
When she comes in, she shuts her door, and that’s it. And she never makes a
sound.
“Although I had to have a student because of the
council tax complication, I didn’t want an 18-year old I would have to
mother. Now, sadly, my ideal tenant is leaving, and I shall have to try and
find another one equally ideal, which could be hard, as the conditions have
to be so specific.”
Sally’s loft conversion
cost under £15,000, and will definitely add value to the house. “The job was
made possible by the fact that manufacturers are now producing miniature
units,” she says. “The bathroom came from the Ideal Standard Studio range –
full-size units would never have fitted – and I went to Ikea for the rest of
the furniture and the mini-kitchen.”
Ikea have started to specialise in
furniture and fittings for tiny spaces, for just this type of market. Their
spokeswoman said: “To meet a growing need, we are now designing furniture
that can adapt, change, fold away and stack. We are focussing on the
multi-function room.”
The study, Britain Towards 2010, by
Richard Scase, shows that the single-person household is rapidly becoming
the predominant type. As such, we are living in ever-smaller spaces, but
most people nowadays want to be self-contained.
Could it be that we’re giving the Parisian
artist’s garret a modern twist, with scaled-down furniture to fit, and Ikea
units replacing bohemian squalor? After all, a new French law says that even
artist’s garrets must be self-contained.
|
