Hey there
@silkypokemon96 !
Here are my answers to your questions...
1) You will have to move out when your tenancy ends, however some accommodations do offer Summer contract extensions but this would be an extra cost. Usually over summer all the rooms get cleaned by the accommodation in preparation for the next people to move in so your room wouldn't get cleaned is the only thing.
2) It depends on the accommodation. My first year accommodation had really thin walls and I could hear music being played through the walls but that was about it. There was vents in the bathrooms that I think were all connected so if someone above me was having a conversation in their bathroom, I could hear what they were saying through the vents. In my second year accommodation, the walls are a normal thickness and I can hear if someone was to bang on the walls but can't hear anything else.
3) In first year my relationships with my flatmates wasn't the strongest, purely because we were all completely different and wanted to do different things so we stayed in our rooms most of the time. I'm quite a social person so ended up having to make other friends in the building because I didn't want to isolate myself. This worked for me and I still managed to have a good first year even though my original flat wasn't the best. In second year, I opted to rebook at a different student accommodation and this year has been much better. My flatmates are social, we cook and eat meals together and go out. We also all value time by ourselves so we've found a good balance between spending time together and spending time on our own.
4) I let my flatmates know if I'm having like a pre's or something that will involve a lot of people being in the shared kitchen just out of respect. I wouldn't tell them if I was just having a friend over between lectures or just to chill. In my first year accommodation it was in my contract that we had to log visitors at reception but this was rarely checked and I didn't really do it. It's completely up to you if you want to tell your flatmates or not.
5) Both accommodations I've stayed at collect all parcels and you can go down and collect them whenever. Some accommodations will email you to say there's one there for you but others you just have to go down and find out. You will probably have a flat mailbox in reception for small letters and parcels as well. On a weekend when there's no one at reception, some accommodations will tell Royal Mail to delay parcels being delivered until the following Monday. Companies like Evri will still deliver and they just use the contact number you give to the company to contact you to let them in.
6) I drive at home but opted not to bring the car to university as there is no parking outside my accommodation and parking in multi-stories nearby is very expensive. The accommodation is quite close to the uni anyway and the city is tight-knit so I don't feel as if I'd need one. I timed my insurance to run out at the end of August in line with when I'd be moving to uni ands my mum uses it at home.
Hope this helped! Let me know if you have any more questions.
Lucy - Digital Student Ambassador SHU