Housing
051 Wendy Godden
click to read >
1. Mary: So Wendy, I understand that you've had to move many times and you've lived in lots and lots of different types of accommodation, how, how many different times have you moved?
2. Wendy: I've.I counted it up as, as sixteen.
3. Mary: Sixteen.
4. Wendy: At one time but.
5. Mary: .different times, right.
6. Wendy: it's a probably few times since then.
7. Mary: And why, why have you had to move so often?
8. Wendy: Well I grew up in Essex and I moved to Leeds to come to university. So there was the university accommodation when I started as a student. And then in the second year I moved into privately rented accommodation.
9. Mary: Okay.
10. Wendy: And then I just seemed to move every coupe of terms due to different problems with the accommodation, or with the landlord asking us to move because he wanted to move in different people, maybe more people who would pay more rent, or the landlord would be not paying his mortgage and so his house would actually be repossessed, and so we might be forced to move. So, it wasn't my fault, but we did end up moving a lot.
11. Mary: Right, okay, so, so you lived with your parents, then you moved to university accommodation, then after a year you moved to private.
12. Wendy: Privately rented.
13. Mary: .privately rented accommodation, and there it sounds like there were a quite of problems with landlords. You said, houses being repossessed?
14. Wendy: Hmm hmm, yes, well that was actually when I was teaching, that wasn't.I wasn't a student then.
15. Mary: Okay, right, so the landlord hadn't paid his mortgage?
16. Wendy: That's right.
17. Mary: And so you lost.
18. Wendy: And so we had to move because.
19. Mary: You had to move.
20. Wendy: .he lost the house.
21. Mary: Right, and sometimes you said he asked other tenants to move in because they could pay more than you could?
22. Wendy: Hmm hmm, yes.
23. Mary: What, what other problems, what other problems?
24. Wendy: Just bad housing, so maybe a basement kitchen would have very bad floors and earthworms and things would crawl in.
25. Mary: Right, okay.
26. Wendy: .things would grow in the bathroom, like mushrooms.
27. Mary: Okay, so the house wasn't, wasn't fit to live in?
28. Wendy: Not really, no.
29. Mary: Right, was that the same house or was that two different houses?
30. Wendy: That was the same house.
31. Mary: That was the same house. Did you have any other problems with the houses themselves, for example noisy neighbours or maybe did you share with people and were there problems there?
32. Wendy: I did move out of one house because I was sharing a house with my friends and it didn't seem to work, it's hard to share household jobs with your friends because some people don't like to do as much as you do. And so I thought wisest to move away.
33. Mary: Right, okay.
34. Wendy: No, I think those were the main problems with the houses.
35. Mary: Right.
36. Wendy: But it just seemed to be that landlords would only want you there for a short time and then you'd just kind of move on to another place the next year. But I also moved down to Berkshire and then moved to Huddersfield, and had various houses there.
37. Mary: Tell us about those, what kinds of accommodation did you live in?
38. Wendy: Well in Berkshire, when I was a teacher, I had to live in three houses.
39. Mary: Right.
40. Wendy: And the first time the landlord asked me to move out because his girlfriend moved in and didn't want any more lodgers.
41. Mary: Okay.
42. Wendy: And then we had the problem with the repossession, and then I had a room in a.one of the other teacher's mother's house for the rest of the year. Then I moved back to Huddersfield, which was in a row of farmhouse cottages.
43. Mary: Okay, a farmhouse.
44. Wendy: .which was lovely.
45. Mary: Right.
46. Wendy: Had a two bedroom house all to myself for £16 a week.
47. Mary: Wow, that sounds extraordinary.
48. Wendy: .which was extremely cheap, and beautiful scenery and very nice. So I lived there for a while.
49. Mary: Right, okay, and when we were talking before, you mentioned something about a cooperative.
50. Wendy: Hmm.
51. Mary: .what's that?
52. Wendy: Yes, that's.that was after the farmhouse, I moved to Leeds because I was working in Leeds and commuting was quite bad.
53. Mary: Right.
54. Wendy: And I had a friend who had a room in a big old Victorian house which had been divided into flats. And she had a place at university in Scotland and offered me the room for three years while she was away, so I sub-letted from her and it was part of the co-op.
55. Mary: Right, okay. Can, can you explain what a cooperative is?
56. Wendy: They held meetings and would look after the house altogether and the gardens, very big garden.
57. Mary: Right.
58. Wendy: And.
59. Mary: So you had lots of people living in one big house taking.
60. Wendy: Yes, there were sixteen flats.
61. Mary: .Sixteen flats, but those people met together to take kind of joint responsibility.
62. Wendy: Yes.
63. Mary: .for the.
64. Wendy: For looking after it, yeah.
65. Mary: For looking after it.
66. Wendy: Although it was actually owned by a Housing Association then, so they were kind of managing the rent, it had kind of evolved from its origins as a co-op, but was still partly.
67. Mary: Oh right okay, which.
68. Wendy: And after that I bought a house.
69. Mary: You bought a house.
70. Wendy: After all those experiences.
71. Mary: And have you moved since then or.
72. Wendy: Yes, I've had two houses.
73. Mary: Right.
74. Wendy: A small back to back and now I've moved into a larger house.
75. Mary: Right, which was the best accommodation and which was the worst accommodation?
76. Wendy: I'd say the best was the farmhouse.
77. Mary: Right, right.
78. Wendy: Because it was just so lovely being in the country, but is extremely cold, there was.the only heating was a coal fire.
79. Mary: Right.
80. Wendy: .and the toilet actually froze in the winter. The water in the toilet froze.
81. Mary: Right, okay.
82. Wendy: So it was kind of the best and the worst.
83. Mary: Best and the worst, okay.
84. Wendy: Oh probably the worst, some of the ones in Berkshire, because I didn't like the city as well, it was.
85. Mary: Okay.
86. Wendy: .just very modern.
87. Mary: Okay, so you've obviously had lots of experience of having to find accommodation and often maybe at quite short notice. So how, how do you go about finding accommodation?
88. Wendy: I think the most common way was looking at adverts in newspapers or in estate agents' windows, to let signs, but also word of mouth, if friends were moving from one house, or had a room in their house, then you could join them.
89. Mary: Right, okay, so word of mouth and finding adverts and usually that was through newspapers, you said?
90. Wendy: Yes or, yeah, or estate agents, and then you'd go and view the houses and meet the landlords, sometimes they'd want to interview you to see if they.
91. Mary: Right, so you'd meet them and check out the property and they'd make sure that you matched what they were looking for as well. Did you ever, did you ever use the internet to try to find.
92. Wendy: No, it was before the internet.
93. Mary: Before the internet, okay, thank you. Okay, so before you move in to a property what kind of things do you have to do?
94. Wendy: Well you need to check that the gas and electricity bills are in your name.
95. Mary: Right.
96. Wendy: And that they've been cancelled from whoever was in the house before otherwise it's going to be difficult paying your bill. So you, you have someone come round to read the meter, so that it's from the day that you are in the house.
97. Mary: Okay, how do you arrange that?
98. Wendy: I can't remember very well, I must have phoned.
99. Mary: The gas company.
100. Wendy: The companies.
101. Mary: Right, okay.
102. Wendy: And the same with the telephone, as you don't want to pay someone else's bill, you want it from your.in your name from the start. And changing address with all sorts of family and friends and organisations that you associated with.
103. Mary: Okay, so you're needing to make sure that the money's sorted, that the bills that you're paying are your own bills and not somebody else's, the previous occupant's bills, and then obviously just informing family and friends of that move.
104. Wendy: Yeah, and you often had to pay a deposit, which could be a month's pay in advance, so you need to make sure you've got enough money for that.
105. Mary: To do that.
106. Wendy: And then they should give it back to you. It's often a bond, so they give it back to you at the end of your time staying there, if you haven't broken anything.
107. Mary: You haven't wrecked the property.
108. Wendy: Yes.
109. Mary: And, what about the actual process of moving, was that difficult to do, moving your.
110. Wendy: Belongings?
111. Mary: .your belongings?
112. Wendy: Often used friends' cars or occasionally hired vans.
113. Mary: Right.
114. Wendy: .and removal people, so a mixture of things.
115. Mary: Okay, thank you. Just coming back to some of the things when you were talking about the different types of accommodation, you used some really interesting words there, you talked about sub-letting, you talked about the co-operatives, you talked about basement flats and so on. So, the basement flat, that's down at the bottom?
116. Wendy: Hmm hmm, hmm hmm.
117. Mary: Yeah?
118. Wendy: The basement flat I was in, in the co-op.
119. Mary: Yes.
120. Wendy: .the house you'd go in at one level at the front door.
121. Mary: Right.
122. Wendy: .and then you'd go downstairs and there was the flat, but it was actually the same level as the garden.
123. Mary: Right.
124. Wendy: But it was right at the bottom of the, the flats.
125. Mary: The bottom of the, of the flats, right.
126. Wendy: Whereas some of the basement kitchens were definitely underground, so there might be just very small windows.
127. Mary: Right.
128. Wendy: .to get a bit of daylight, but not full size windows.
129. Mary: Right, and so there were problems with damp there?
130. Wendy: Hmm hmm.
131. Mary: And your worms, okay. And you said a, a Victorian house, so that's obviously quite an old house.
132. Wendy: Hmm hmm.
133. Mary: What about.and the farmhouse.
134. Wendy: Which would have a damp problem.
135. Mary: Which would have damp problems, and the farmhouse, was, was that quite old as well?
136. Wendy: Yeah, very old, yes.
137. Mary: Right, what about.
138. Wendy: I think that was about five hundred years old.
139. Mary: Was it, right.
140. Wendy: Was a row of cottages.
141. Mary: Right, okay. Did you live in a.what about like the university accommodation, was that much more modern?
142. Wendy: No that was an old Victorian terrace as well.
143. Mary: Right, right.
144. Wendy: And most of the accommodation I lived in as a student was old houses around Headingley and.
145. Mary: Right, so houses which have been converted?
146. Wendy: Brick houses, yeah, converted into flats.
147. Mary: Right, right.
148. Wendy: Yeah, sometimes lived in attics, not always in basements, or first floors.
149. Mary: Right, so whereabouts is an attic for me?
150. Wendy: Attic, right at the top, so sometimes you'd have just a skylight window.
151. Mary: Right.
152. Wendy: ... rather than.
153. Mary: Okay.
154. Wendy: ... side windows.
155. Mary: Okay.
1. Mary: So Wendy, I understand that you've had to move many times and you've lived in lots and lots of different types of accommodation, how, how many different times have you moved?
2. Wendy: I've.I counted it up as, as sixteen.
3. Mary: Sixteen.
4. Wendy: At one time but.
5. Mary: .different times, right.
6. Wendy: it's a probably few times since then.
7. Mary: And why, why have you had to move so often?
8. Wendy: Well I grew up in Essex and I moved to Leeds to come to university. So there was the university accommodation when I started as a student. And then in the second year I moved into privately rented accommodation.
9. Mary: Okay.
10. Wendy: And then I just seemed to move every coupe of terms due to different problems with the accommodation, or with the landlord asking us to move because he wanted to move in different people, maybe more people who would pay more rent, or the landlord would be not paying his mortgage and so his house would actually be repossessed, and so we might be forced to move. So, it wasn't my fault, but we did end up moving a lot.
11. Mary: Right, okay, so, so you lived with your parents, then you moved to university accommodation, then after a year you moved to private.
12. Wendy: Privately rented.
13. Mary: .privately rented accommodation, and there it sounds like there were a quite of problems with landlords. You said, houses being repossessed?
14. Wendy: Hmm hmm, yes, well that was actually when I was teaching, that wasn't.I wasn't a student then.
15. Mary: Okay, right, so the landlord hadn't paid his mortgage?
16. Wendy: That's right.
17. Mary: And so you lost.
18. Wendy: And so we had to move because.
19. Mary: You had to move.
20. Wendy: .he lost the house.
21. Mary: Right, and sometimes you said he asked other tenants to move in because they could pay more than you could?
22. Wendy: Hmm hmm, yes.
23. Mary: What, what other problems, what other problems?
24. Wendy: Just bad housing, so maybe a basement kitchen would have very bad floors and earthworms and things would crawl in.
25. Mary: Right, okay.
26. Wendy: .things would grow in the bathroom, like mushrooms.
27. Mary: Okay, so the house wasn't, wasn't fit to live in?
28. Wendy: Not really, no.
29. Mary: Right, was that the same house or was that two different houses?
30. Wendy: That was the same house.
31. Mary: That was the same house. Did you have any other problems with the houses themselves, for example noisy neighbours or maybe did you share with people and were there problems there?
32. Wendy: I did move out of one house because I was sharing a house with my friends and it didn't seem to work, it's hard to share household jobs with your friends because some people don't like to do as much as you do. And so I thought wisest to move away.
33. Mary: Right, okay.
34. Wendy: No, I think those were the main problems with the houses.
35. Mary: Right.
36. Wendy: But it just seemed to be that landlords would only want you there for a short time and then you'd just kind of move on to another place the next year. But I also moved down to Berkshire and then moved to Huddersfield, and had various houses there.
37. Mary: Tell us about those, what kinds of accommodation did you live in?
38. Wendy: Well in Berkshire, when I was a teacher, I had to live in three houses.
39. Mary: Right.
40. Wendy: And the first time the landlord asked me to move out because his girlfriend moved in and didn't want any more lodgers.
41. Mary: Okay.
42. Wendy: And then we had the problem with the repossession, and then I had a room in a.one of the other teacher's mother's house for the rest of the year. Then I moved back to Huddersfield, which was in a row of farmhouse cottages.
43. Mary: Okay, a farmhouse.
44. Wendy: .which was lovely.
45. Mary: Right.
46. Wendy: Had a two bedroom house all to myself for £16 a week.
47. Mary: Wow, that sounds extraordinary.
48. Wendy: .which was extremely cheap, and beautiful scenery and very nice. So I lived there for a while.
49. Mary: Right, okay, and when we were talking before, you mentioned something about a cooperative.
50. Wendy: Hmm.
51. Mary: .what's that?
52. Wendy: Yes, that's.that was after the farmhouse, I moved to Leeds because I was working in Leeds and commuting was quite bad.
53. Mary: Right.
54. Wendy: And I had a friend who had a room in a big old Victorian house which had been divided into flats. And she had a place at university in Scotland and offered me the room for three years while she was away, so I sub-letted from her and it was part of the co-op.
55. Mary: Right, okay. Can, can you explain what a cooperative is?
56. Wendy: They held meetings and would look after the house altogether and the gardens, very big garden.
57. Mary: Right.
58. Wendy: And.
59. Mary: So you had lots of people living in one big house taking.
60. Wendy: Yes, there were sixteen flats.
61. Mary: .Sixteen flats, but those people met together to take kind of joint responsibility.
62. Wendy: Yes.
63. Mary: .for the.
64. Wendy: For looking after it, yeah.
65. Mary: For looking after it.
66. Wendy: Although it was actually owned by a Housing Association then, so they were kind of managing the rent, it had kind of evolved from its origins as a co-op, but was still partly.
67. Mary: Oh right okay, which.
68. Wendy: And after that I bought a house.
69. Mary: You bought a house.
70. Wendy: After all those experiences.
71. Mary: And have you moved since then or.
72. Wendy: Yes, I've had two houses.
73. Mary: Right.
74. Wendy: A small back to back and now I've moved into a larger house.
75. Mary: Right, which was the best accommodation and which was the worst accommodation?
76. Wendy: I'd say the best was the farmhouse.
77. Mary: Right, right.
78. Wendy: Because it was just so lovely being in the country, but is extremely cold, there was.the only heating was a coal fire.
79. Mary: Right.
80. Wendy: .and the toilet actually froze in the winter. The water in the toilet froze.
81. Mary: Right, okay.
82. Wendy: So it was kind of the best and the worst.
83. Mary: Best and the worst, okay.
84. Wendy: Oh probably the worst, some of the ones in Berkshire, because I didn't like the city as well, it was.
85. Mary: Okay.
86. Wendy: .just very modern.
87. Mary: Okay, so you've obviously had lots of experience of having to find accommodation and often maybe at quite short notice. So how, how do you go about finding accommodation?
88. Wendy: I think the most common way was looking at adverts in newspapers or in estate agents' windows, to let signs, but also word of mouth, if friends were moving from one house, or had a room in their house, then you could join them.
89. Mary: Right, okay, so word of mouth and finding adverts and usually that was through newspapers, you said?
90. Wendy: Yes or, yeah, or estate agents, and then you'd go and view the houses and meet the landlords, sometimes they'd want to interview you to see if they.
91. Mary: Right, so you'd meet them and check out the property and they'd make sure that you matched what they were looking for as well. Did you ever, did you ever use the internet to try to find.
92. Wendy: No, it was before the internet.
93. Mary: Before the internet, okay, thank you. Okay, so before you move in to a property what kind of things do you have to do?
94. Wendy: Well you need to check that the gas and electricity bills are in your name.
95. Mary: Right.
96. Wendy: And that they've been cancelled from whoever was in the house before otherwise it's going to be difficult paying your bill. So you, you have someone come round to read the meter, so that it's from the day that you are in the house.
97. Mary: Okay, how do you arrange that?
98. Wendy: I can't remember very well, I must have phoned.
99. Mary: The gas company.
100. Wendy: The companies.
101. Mary: Right, okay.
102. Wendy: And the same with the telephone, as you don't want to pay someone else's bill, you want it from your.in your name from the start. And changing address with all sorts of family and friends and organisations that you associated with.
103. Mary: Okay, so you're needing to make sure that the money's sorted, that the bills that you're paying are your own bills and not somebody else's, the previous occupant's bills, and then obviously just informing family and friends of that move.
104. Wendy: Yeah, and you often had to pay a deposit, which could be a month's pay in advance, so you need to make sure you've got enough money for that.
105. Mary: To do that.
106. Wendy: And then they should give it back to you. It's often a bond, so they give it back to you at the end of your time staying there, if you haven't broken anything.
107. Mary: You haven't wrecked the property.
108. Wendy: Yes.
109. Mary: And, what about the actual process of moving, was that difficult to do, moving your.
110. Wendy: Belongings?
111. Mary: .your belongings?
112. Wendy: Often used friends' cars or occasionally hired vans.
113. Mary: Right.
114. Wendy: .and removal people, so a mixture of things.
115. Mary: Okay, thank you. Just coming back to some of the things when you were talking about the different types of accommodation, you used some really interesting words there, you talked about sub-letting, you talked about the co-operatives, you talked about basement flats and so on. So, the basement flat, that's down at the bottom?
116. Wendy: Hmm hmm, hmm hmm.
117. Mary: Yeah?
118. Wendy: The basement flat I was in, in the co-op.
119. Mary: Yes.
120. Wendy: .the house you'd go in at one level at the front door.
121. Mary: Right.
122. Wendy: .and then you'd go downstairs and there was the flat, but it was actually the same level as the garden.
123. Mary: Right.
124. Wendy: But it was right at the bottom of the, the flats.
125. Mary: The bottom of the, of the flats, right.
126. Wendy: Whereas some of the basement kitchens were definitely underground, so there might be just very small windows.
127. Mary: Right.
128. Wendy: .to get a bit of daylight, but not full size windows.
129. Mary: Right, and so there were problems with damp there?
130. Wendy: Hmm hmm.
131. Mary: And your worms, okay. And you said a, a Victorian house, so that's obviously quite an old house.
132. Wendy: Hmm hmm.
133. Mary: What about.and the farmhouse.
134. Wendy: Which would have a damp problem.
135. Mary: Which would have damp problems, and the farmhouse, was, was that quite old as well?
136. Wendy: Yeah, very old, yes.
137. Mary: Right, what about.
138. Wendy: I think that was about five hundred years old.
139. Mary: Was it, right.
140. Wendy: Was a row of cottages.
141. Mary: Right, okay. Did you live in a.what about like the university accommodation, was that much more modern?
142. Wendy: No that was an old Victorian terrace as well.
143. Mary: Right, right.
144. Wendy: And most of the accommodation I lived in as a student was old houses around Headingley and.
145. Mary: Right, so houses which have been converted?
146. Wendy: Brick houses, yeah, converted into flats.
147. Mary: Right, right.
148. Wendy: Yeah, sometimes lived in attics, not always in basements, or first floors.
149. Mary: Right, so whereabouts is an attic for me?
150. Wendy: Attic, right at the top, so sometimes you'd have just a skylight window.
151. Mary: Right.
152. Wendy: ... rather than.
153. Mary: Okay.
154. Wendy: ... side windows.
155. Mary: Okay.
The words removed below are the key words used most by this speaker.
basement cottages damp farmhouse flats floors froze landlord landlords privately problems rented victorian
basement cottages damp farmhouse flats floors froze landlord landlords privately problems rented victorian
Try to spell some of the key words used most by this speaker.
Hold your mouse over the image to see the word.
Hold your mouse over the image to see the word.
see word |
spell word |
check |
correct so far |
OK |
|---|