Angela at Heathrow with a model of the queen.
You can look at where you will be working or where you or your relatives will be studying and draw a line around the distance you are prepared to travel, whether on foot, by car or public transport.
You can reduce the problem by choosing to study in a place where the first year students live in accommodation, or where the workers share accommodation, eg nursing.
You can check out the area on Streetview.
Also if you company has two offices and you are likely to travel between the two, or to be able to request a transfer, decide which venue has a better cultural sporting or social life, or live half way between the two.
If you are setting up a company look at accommodation as well as workplaces.
Typical UK Dwellings
Central London
Price is at a premium in the centre. Notting Hill and Hampstead are trendy as is upcoming Islington. Old Victorian buildings. Terraced housing. Blocks of flats. Check the frequency of trains and cost of travel.
Leafy Suburbs With Semis
In the suburbs you will find semi-detached and detached houses. Edwardian, Victorian, mock-Tudor.
Red brick, typical of London and Southern England. Edwardian and Georgian houses, with sash windows. Dormer windows. Red tile roofs. A wooden fence around the garden. Chimney pots on older houses.
More rarely, art deco, white with a flat roof.
Also flats over high street shops. Lively but noisy traffic and passing drunks and people coming out of pubs and restaurants late at night.
Art deco house in Harrow area.
The South London suburb of Richmond, and northern historic Harrow on the Hill are great to visit.
London's new Elizabeth line is being extended. This could change commuting times and house prices and rental income and rental charges.
Property Agents
What Americans call realtors are known in the UK as estate agents. Local newspapers run articles on property prices and areas and advertisements of properties to buy or rent.
If you are looking to buy a converted church, ruined castle, windmill, house of an author, or any such novelty, look at the upmarket newspapers.
Condensation and Mould
A major problem in the UK is condensation. A Finnish tenant told me that in Finland where it is too cold to open windows in winter, all homes are designed with ventilation.
In the UK, you have to open windows every day, especially if you are generating liquid. If you reckon one person generates one pint of liquid, four will generate four times as much.
So one person in a two bed flat and opening the patio door daily to go out and sit in the sun and play Scrabble would not have condensation.
After she moves out, the next tenant has a niece and two grand-daughters, four people. The windows are shut all day.
They are offered a dehumidifyer but it needs emptying and costs them money in electricity bills. They are cooking with kitchen windows shut, water generated by the kettle and casseroles. Four people having baths and showers. Four people breathing and perspiring, means lots of condensation.
If condensation forms on windows, this needs to be wiped off daily, or at least weekly, as otherwise the curtains will go black from mould. Blackened net curtains can be soaked in bucket of cold water, with a little bleach added - read the instructions. on the bleach and on the fabric to be sure this is ok.
Try a corner first. I have successfully revived white net curtains and heavier drapes. However, it takes time, effort and care.
I would not do it with pets or children in the house. You need clear thin bleach, not thick stained blue or green bleach nor strong bleach for cleaning drains. I tried it first on curtains which would otherwise have been thrown away. I reckoned I had nothing to lose except the cost of the bleach and my time. I saved the curtains. They were useful spares. Who needs spares? If you take down your crutains to clean or wash them, whilst you are waiting for them to dry, you have a spare pair to hand up.
Author
Angela Lansbury
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