When you think of a typical housemate, what comes to mind? Perhaps a young student renting on a budget? Interestingly, the once-established image of house sharing is evolving in Australia. An increasing number of older Australians are embracing shared living arrangements. Dive deeper into this trend by watching the episode ‘Housemates’ on SBS On Demand’s Insight series.
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Take Charlotte, a 26-year-old university student. She once shared a home with a man who was also her landlord.
Initially, Charlotte had a good impression of him. However, she admits she moved in “without being fully aware of what that individual was like”.
“He came across as very easy to get on with … relatively nonchalant, had a good job, communicated well,” she told Insight.
Her perspective changed in a matter of days.
“I noticed that there were belongings that weren’t present when I had viewed the property, such as Bibles, that were being left around the apartment.
“And then he placed a cross on my bedroom door.”
She explained that, although she likes to think he was motivated by “good intentions”, his placement of the cross made her uncomfortable; it felt like an invasion of her privacy and imposition of his beliefs onto her.
Charlotte says the final straw came when the landlord’s family visited the apartment.
“They said: ‘We’ve heard so much about you. We can’t believe that he’s found someone.'”
At first, she thought they were pleased he’d filled his vacant room — but that wasn’t the case.
“He had informed his family that I was his fiancée.”
Charlotte says that later, when she raised this issue with the landlord, he shut down and stopped communicating entirely.
Shortly after, she returned to the apartment to find the locks had been changed.
“I noticed that, in the hallway … there were boxes, piles of boxes.”
She’d been kicked out of the home.
Luckily, Charlotte was able to call a friend who put her up until she found a new place.
“But it was certainly a moment of extreme, extreme stress and uncertainty.”
“And also, just complete violation …”
‘I’m not going anywhere’
Charlotte isn’t alone in prematurely trusting a housemate.
When one of Holly’s housemates moved out of their four-person share house, a friend-of-a-friend replaced them as a subtenant.
While Holly admits she wasn’t always the perfect housemate and was probably “very naggy”, she says they “should have vetted [the new subtenant] a little bit harder”.
“He would leave pee all over the toilet seat consistently,” the 25-year-old says.
“He let his ceiling get, like, 70 per cent black mould coverage, going, ‘Oh, sorry, I thought it was a shadow.'”
Holly says the subtenant was unresponsive when she raised concerns about pulling his weight in the house.
“If someone says, ‘Oh, yeah, no worries, I’ll do it’ and then they don’t do it, there’s only so many times you can kind of ask them before you just start to feel crazy.”
But the frustration of the share house started to affect her health, so she crashed on her mum’s couch for about a month.
Soon after returning to the share house, Holly gave the subtenant notice to move out.
But that date came and went.
“[It was] about a week after he was supposed to have moved out and he was just saying, ‘Nah, I’m not going anywhere.'”
Holly says he also stopped paying bills — and even rent. Feeling desperate and unsure about her legal rights, she tried reaching out to her housemate’s family.
When that didn’t work, she turned to the police.
It wasn’t until Holly threatened to have the authorities escort him from the property for squatting that he finally moved out.
“And magic, he cleared his room out.”
‘He made me feel very unsafe’
Margaret, 57, has also had difficulty sharing her space with others.
After years of rent rises, and her adult children moving out of the home, she did the maths.
“Fifty to 60 per cent of my wages went into rent … I was working to pay to live in a house.”
She felt that, due to limited work opportunities and owning multiple pets, it wasn’t possible for her to relocate somewhere more affordable.
So, she decided to get a housemate.
Margaret initially advertised her spare room as being for women only, but she couldn’t find a serious candidate.
A male subtenant then moved in, which she says turned into a “horror story”.
“He made me feel very unsafe … I felt I couldn’t go anywhere without answering to him.
“It got so bad that I had to put surveillance cameras up because I couldn’t trust him.”
The subtenant eventually moved out, and Margaret has had other subtenants since then to help cover the rent.
Her friend recently put her in contact with a mutual acquaintance who moved in after a 10-day trial period.
“She’s someone I’ve known for ages. And it’s such a relief just to have someone there that I can be myself [with] — and she’s respectful of my space.
“So far, so good.”
The rise of shared living in Australia
Emma Baker, professor of housing research at Adelaide University, says shared living is no longer thought of as being only for university students as the first step outside of the family home.
She says there has been “quite a shift”, with people living in share houses “not just [in] their young adult years but moving into their mid-adult years”.
Baker says it’s been a gradual change, and she attributes much of the rise of shared living to affordability and supply pressures in the Australian housing market — although she says some of the shift is about choice.
“[Shared living] is evolving as one of the housing solutions to the problems that we have with supply and affordability.
“And for some people, it becomes a housing solution not just in their youth but in their older ages. So, I would expect the next census will show us that the average age of people in share houses has gone up.”
[Shared living] is evolving as one of the housing solutions to the problems that we have with supply and affordability.
Emma Baker, professor of housing research at Adelaide University
Baker, who is also founding director of the Australian Centre for Housing Research, says one’s sense of security in a house is important for wellbeing — and many living in share houses face greater insecurity.
“People in share houses have this kind of much more complex relationship because how do you deal with someone leaving the house or coming in?
“And you’re kind of at the mercy of landlords and agents and the way that they deal with that.”
She says that, while Australia is making good progress with rental protections, having a good agent and clear guidelines about the rental contract are helpful for one’s sense of security in a share house.
“Clearly knowing that you’re allowed to be there — making everything formal.”
Voted out of the share house
Joslin’s first share house experience made her never want to try it again.
She moved into a six-person share house when she was 23 years old and thought she was a “great” housemate. She paid her rent on time, contributed to cleaning, and kept to herself.
“I thought that might be the best way to, um, to live with other people was just to mind my own business and keep to myself.”
But three months into living there, the now-52-year-old found out this was not what her housemates had in mind.
“Ultimately, they voted me out,” Joslin says.
“They had a house vote and decided to get rid of me. And they asked me to come in and sit with them and said, ‘Look, we’ve had this discussion, and we all want you to leave.'”
They explained they wanted someone who was socially involved with the house, which Joslin admits she wasn’t.
“I was devastated. I was really upset,” she says.
“I just thought, ‘I need to be out of here as quickly as possible.'”
Joslin soon moved out and has not lived in share houses since (apart from a brief stint years ago).
Housemates to lovers
Unlike some, Sarah and Billy had a very positive experience going from strangers to housemates — so positive that they’re now more than housemates.
Sarah lived with her parents while her first home was being built; and when it was ready, she decided to look for a housemate to lighten the financial load.
“I had advertised for women only … roughly my age and working full time and no-one really suitable had applied.”
So, when Billy applied, Sarah decided to give him a chance — even though he didn’t fulfil the gender criteria.
“When I met him, I just got a good vibe from him, so I thought, ‘All right, I’ll give it a shot.'”
Despite this, the pair enjoyed each other’s company immediately.
“We were, you know, staying up till one in the morning most nights … just chatting away,” Billy told Insight.
Late one night, after a few weeks as housemates, Billy drummed up the courage to confess his affection for Sarah.
Sarah says the transition from landlord to girlfriend was a little unconventional.
“I think I was sort of dubious at first.
“There’s no ‘coming home from a date’ … We just went from the day we met to chatting every night, to chatting every night for the rest of time.”
The couple are now engaged and have kept their own bedrooms, which they believe helps to avoid conflict; and Billy continues to pay rent.
Billy says he was apprehensive about dating his landlord at first but “it was worth the risk”.