Renters of Vancouver: “There’s no separate bedrooms. There are no walls at all.”

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      “Renters of Vancouver” takes an intimate look at how the city's millennials are dealing with the housing crisis.

      “A studio apartment is where you have a single room for everything—your bed, kitchen, dining area, living room, and bathroom. They’re definitely built for one person. I share mine with a roommate.

      When I first moved here from Saskatchewan, I lived in a two-bedroom basement suite with a friend. Our place was not great. The landlady lived above us. She was an old woman, and I don’t think she actually wanted to be renting out part of her house, but she had no choice. We shared a laundry room, and I would run in and out of there so fast to make sure I didn’t accidentally bump into her.

      One day, I was putting my clothes into the washer when she was standing next to the furnace, and I didn’t notice. She popped out of the dark really quickly and I literally fell to the floor in shock. She was about three feet tall and she terrified me. Plus she was pretty much displeased with everything we did—which was funny, because we were pretty much displeased with the basement.

      There was definitely mould in the bathrooms, but I think there was also probably black mould inside the bedroom walls as well. We were both sick all the time.

      Eventually our lease ran out, so we had to leave. I was looking for new places on the Internet, and I found a spot within my budget in the West End, which was not what I expected to see. The ad had these really cute panoramic pictures of the apartment, but it was called ‘English Bay Roomshare,’ and I couldn’t figure out what it meant.

      After a while, it dawned on me that it was literally a studio apartment—there’s no separate bedrooms, no walls at all, and you’re living there with another person that you don’t know. Honestly, I thought it sounded supremely weird at first. But my options were pretty limited, so I went to check it out. And then I took the place.

      It was a gamble, but it’s paid off really well—and that’s all because of my roommate. I literally couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. The person I was living with before for instance—that would never work. I would have murdered him in a second. But my new roommate and I both work and sleep at the same time, we’re out of the house at the same time, and in the evenings we both like to be doing things.

      Sometimes we’ll hang out together, but often we’ll do our own thing. She’s really clean and chilled, and she’s never really upset about anything. And she came up with the great idea of putting the compost in the freezer. Which is actually the smartest thing because it never smells and we never have bugs.

      Our beds are on facing sides of the room. Her bed is where you would probably put it if you were living there alone, and her nightstand and dresser blocks us from being able to look at each other at night, which is good because I think that would be a little bit weird. Having two beds means that we don’t really have a living room though—just a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping area. We each pay $540, so altogether its $1080.

      It makes romantic relationships pretty tough. If one of us wants to take somebody home, we have to go to our partner’s houses. Or we’ll trade weekends sometimes—if she’s away for a weekend, I’ll bring someone over then. But we definitely have to plan that in advance. It’s not like we’re in college and we can just put a sock on the door as a ‘don’t come in.’ There’s no doors inside. You could put it on the front door, but our neighbours might be shocked.

      I love living here, but there’s always a bit of uncertainty too. Our situation works really well at the moment, but if my roommate doesn’t get renewed for her work permit in August, we’re screwed. Then I’ll have to start looking all over again.”

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