What my disastrous London experience taught me

A girl who's always lived in a small rural town moves to London for a TV internship - what could possibly go wrong? (A lot, evidently.)

The London Chapter

London. The Big Smoke.

That first night in the city was exciting - I was alone, I’d be starting this amazing internship in the next few days and I could reinvent myself if I wanted. And yes, I was nervous too and probably incredibly naïve. I had only been daydreaming about the positive things and definitely did not imagine anything going wrong. When I left my hometown of Bury St Edmunds I thought, Bye suckers. I’m off. Who knew a few months later I’d be returning with my tail between my legs.

The Move

After months of searching, and being let down, I’d managed to find a very basic and relatively cheap (cheap for London) single room 10 minutes from the office. The most important thing was making sure after rent I still had enough money to live on and also keep costs down by not having to commute every day - and so there I was in my tiny room with no access to any communal space. I’d be living on the second floor with two girls, my landlord was living on the bottom floor by himself, and his son and another lad lived on the top floor. And from the moment I moved in, I had a negative reaction to something. I thought maybe the London air? But I didn’t dwell on it too much because before I knew it, I was in the hustle and bustle of the internship. And it was incredible.

The Internship

I learnt so much during the internship and I met incredible people. I loved finding out about the inner workings of the TV industry. It was fun and every day I was looking forward to what we’d be doing next, where we’d be visiting and who we’d be meeting. And I really developed as a person during those 18 weeks. I’m not naturally out-going or extroverted but the internship forced me to network and stand up in front of heads of development at various companies and pitch TV ideas. And although I’d be trembling slightly, unbelievably I did it every time. After that experience I felt like I could do anything. The internship was everything I wanted and needed - I was challenged, taken out of my comfort zone and I learnt so many new skills.

Hell House

While I was progressing well in the internship, the problem with my living situation was bubbling under the surface. I was having some sort of allergic reaction every day. After my first thought of it being down to the London air, I thought I could be allergic to dust mites. Then I found mould behind the headboard. I told my incompetent landlord about it and the next day he did the grand task of simply spraying mould spray on it without bothering to scrub it.

After several days, obviously the mould problem hadn’t gone away. So one evening my landlord comes up to help me do a deep clean and that’s when things get incredibly worse. He mixes a solution of bleach, mould spray and water in a washing up bowl and lines my bed with a couple of bin liners. He proceeds to stand on my bed and wipe this solution all over the walls, spilling and splashing this toxic concoction over my duvet and bed. We begin moving the shelving units and that’s when we find more dust and thick mould growing up the back of the units. At this point, my landlord has resorted to using neat bleach from the bottle. We then tackle the wardrobe and move two smaller chest of drawers which are inside the wardrobe and there it is - white mould growing up the back of the wardrobe. I tried to confront my landlord about it but rage combined with bleach fumes in an unventilated room proved to be a heady mix and I began to feel like I was going to collapse. So I left the house, went to the main street and cried.

I sobbed to my (hero) older sister on the phone who in turn got on the line with my landlord and told him that I wouldn’t be staying there that night. In the background my family were looking for a close-by airbnb. When I reluctantly returned to the house, my landlord said that I’d be staying at his friend’s bnb and so at 9 o’clock at night I’m trapsing along the Hammersmith backstreets with a man I barely know to an unknown location. Honestly, I was scared a little bit. I didn’t know if I was going to be safe but I didn’t want to fork out any more money on a hotel - oh, because did I mention? I’d paid two months rent up front. Got to the bnb, landlord left, and crazily I thought, what if I’m being surveilled. I didn’t know if this was some gag and my landlord was actually listening behind a closed door. For what reason I don’t know.

I stayed at the bnb for about three days and it felt much better to be in a clean environment, although I was now further away from work and had to keep going back between the bnb and the house as no food was offered. What transpires is that behind the wardrobe was more damp and mould. The landlord had pulled the wardrobe out and was using a heater to dry up the area. And even being in that room for a short amount of time now that the wardrobe wasn’t blocking the mould was extremely difficult. It was difficult to breathe.

To this day I don’t know if the landlord actually sorted the problem. He painted over the mould, got me a new mattress and I think replaced the back of the wardrobe. But more problems were to come.

After speaking to Shelter and Citizens Advice I found out there was nothing I could do. Tenants have to let the landlord try and fix the problem, and although it was making me ill, I had no grounds to break the contract and get my money back. So I was stuck. And every day I was ill.

In the end several new problems surfaced. I had ants crawling around in my food and I had an infestation of moths - the kind that munch through clothes. When I found out, after a quick Google search, that these moths would be laying eggs and the caterpillars would be going ham on my clothes, I laid on my bed and cried. (I probably cried every other day during this period.) The moths were everywhere - on the walls, in my bed, in the drawers and the wardrobe. When I told my landlord, who really thought he was on to something, he said, This is what you’ve got to do. And crushed a single moth with his thumb and wiped it down the wall. Supposedly this was an intellectual man.

I was done.

While I was doing my research to find a new room, I got my landlord to get in pest control. But for the problem to be fully sorted, the other rooms would also need to be sprayed and no one else agreed so I knew this problem would come back.

I found another room (even more West London), told my landlord cya, booked a moving van, packed my bags, booked an Uber and got myself outta there!

(And only got half of the last month’s rent back - but it’s something.)

The Move (Again)

My second room was nice, spacious and most importantly, mould free. I was living with a family - a lady, let’s call her Sharon, and her grown up son and his fiancée. Although the room was good, I don’t think the living situation really suited me. I could hear every conversation in the house, I had to eat downstairs in the kitchen and I wasn’t allowed food in my room. I only found this last bit out, when, in my haste to catch my tube, I accidently dropped chocolate muffins on the floor, spilling crumbs (which I didn’t have time to hoover up), and when Sharon did her weekly clean of my room, crushed all the crumbs into the carpet. And yeah, I think she was annoyed.

Although I wasn’t supposed to eat food in my room, I continued to eat small snacks. And as I said before, because the walls were paper thin, I thought Sharon might hear me crunching my biscuits. So to get round this problem I would put the TV on or play music. It really felt like I was doing something criminal, like she might burst in the room at any moment and rip the packet from my hands. But she really was nice enough, if not a little patronising. We’d have long chats and she’d give me advice. And there was that time when Sharon showed me how to use a tin opener.

After all the stress, my mental health was taking a bit of a hit, especially now that I was having to commute further into London. I was now on a placement in Shoreditch. I’d always battled with anxiety and before the move to London I was in a good place, but all the things going wrong took its toll. I started having anxiety on the tube every single day there and back, like I was on the verge of a panic attack, but despite that I forced myself on that tube every day and got myself to work because the internship and placement were so important to me. I was not going to give up. And I’m proud of myself for that. I’m so glad I did it because I had so much fun and learnt so much on the placement.

The Lesson

The biggest takeaway from this experience was that I learnt a lot about myself. I learnt about my strength, resilience and once again I proved how determined I am to get to where I want to be. I learnt to trust that I will get myself through difficult times, that I can try to stop worrying and let myself go into autopilot because I will do the right thing for me. I learnt what my non-negotiables are - a social life, a safe environment to live in where I can close the door on the world, and family support. During this time I kept thinking something, some entity or the universe was trying to break me, trying to tell me that this opportunity wasn’t for me, but now I’m able to reframe and see that I was thrown all these difficulties to give me confidence in myself and my capabilities.

Have you ever had a disastrous renting experience? Or what are some lessons you’ve learnt from tough times? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading,

Tamika.

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