Accommodation General Question(s)

hi guys, gonna start uni next year and have some questions about accom, please answer where you can!

1. If I take a September to July contract, can I renew it and stay or is it likely to star in the following September? from what I'm reading, you gotta move every year.

2. How are the walls in your accommodation? Are you able to have some privacy? or can you always hear what goes on in the other rooms?

3. How good is the relationship with your flatmates?

4. Do you let everyone else know when someone is coming over?

5. how do you get deliveries?

6. (for the people that have vehicles) how do you manage to afford one while staying in accom?

thanks for answering if you do!

hi guys, gonna start uni next year and have some questions about accom, please answer where you can!

1. If I take a September to July contract, can I renew it and stay or is it likely to star in the following September? from what I'm reading, you gotta move every year.

2. How are the walls in your accommodation? Are you able to have some privacy? or can you always hear what goes on in the other rooms?

3. How good is the relationship with your flatmates?

4. Do you let everyone else know when someone is coming over?

5. how do you get deliveries?

6. (for the people that have vehicles) how do you manage to afford one while staying in accom?

thanks for answering if you do!

1. If you're referring to uni halls, yeah you have to move every year unfortunately.

2. It varies from accommodation to accommodation, but in general (in my experience) you can't hear each others conversation unless you're talking very loudly, but they're not soundproof so you can hear it when people shout or play music or have sex.

3. It depends on your compatibility with them. I was close with one of my flatmates (and his gf who was a part-time flatmate lol). I was friendly with 2 others, but I only really hung out with them in the kitchen. I barely saw 2 of them and the other was rly nice and friendly but I think we hung out once. Other friends of mine on the other hand became best friends with most of their flatmates.

4. Always make sure that your flatmates are ok with you inviting ppl over to pres or dinner. And yeah it would be nice to let them know if you're having people over, but hopefully they shouldn't have any problems with that.

5. You order them to reception (at least in my case) and you go collect them there. They might require you to wait for an email from them saying that they've received your package and that you can go collect it.

6. N/A

I hope that was helpful

Hi there,
I can answer your questions from personal experience and what it's like at Student Roost.

1. If I take a September to July contract, can I renew it and stay or is it likely to star in the following September? from what I'm reading, you gotta move every year.
This depends on the accommodation but most of the time, I'd say you would be expected to move out and then back in come September. However, it's worth checking if your accommodation offers summer stays or even summer storage (we do both at select cities at Student Roost) which means that you wouldn't have to move your belongings out. If not, it may be worth considering accommodation that offers 51-week tenancies rather than September to July.

2. How are the walls in your accommodation? Are you able to have some privacy? or can you always hear what goes on in the other rooms?
At uni, I could hear other students but only when they were making lots of noise. For example, when my flatmates had friends over, I could hear them laughing but I couldn't hear them on the phone to their parents. Accommodations tend to have some kind of quiet policy where students are expected not to make excessive noise during the night.

3. How good is the relationship with your flatmates?
I got along with my flatmates at uni. That's not saying you won't ever have disagreements but setting boundaries and knowing what you expect of each other (especially in regard to keeping the flat tidy) helps stop these becoming bigger issues.

4. Do you let everyone else know when someone is coming over?
It is common courtesy to let your flatmates know. For example, if you're having friends over for a game night in the flat living space, you might want to let your flatmates know so they can vacate the space in time for your friends arriving.

5. how do you get deliveries?
This will vary depending on the accommodation but at Student Roost, we have 24/7 reception staff. This means we can accept deliveries and then notify you when a package has arrived. This does exclude food deliveries, so if you're ordering an online shop I would recommend putting your mobile number on the delivery so the driver can ring you when they arrive.

6. (for the people that have vehicles) how do you manage to afford one while staying in accom?
As with anything at uni, budgeting is key. I didn't bring my car to uni but I did keep paying for it so that I could use it when I went home. I worked part time jobs at uni to supplement my student loan and that worked for me.

Hope this helps!

- Sophie

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