My First Place in London (a Retrospective)

After staying in hostels for about two months, I was pleased to find just about anything. Even a shared room in a terrifying council-owned high rise building in Bethnal Green was a step in the right direction.

For those unfamiliar with the borroughs of London, Bethnal Green is approximately 90% Muslim. Or at least thats the impression I got in my 3 months there. And these were the sorts where the women wear the full body and head coverings with only the eyes showing. And even the men wear some kind of Muslim-based uniform.

But the apartment itself contained no Muslims. Instead, it was full of Eastern Europeans. There were two girls, a guy from the Czech Republic (who I shared the tiny room with), and the actual owner of the lease was a 33 or so year old drunk from Lithuania.

The two girls moved out within the first week I was there over disputes with this drunk.

As for the apartment itself...oh man. Just unbelievable. Black mold was all over the place, particularly on the walls facing the outside. It was particularly bad in the bathroom. That entire room was covered with mold. I sneezed constantly, probably as a result of this. I also got some kind of strange eye infection from it. Like conjunctivitis.

The kitchen also flooded regularly.

So when these girls moved out, there was some swapping of rooms and this guy from the Czech Republic (who worked in a coffee shop) ended up in another room with a gay Polish student who moved in. And I shared the other room with an Italian guy who was studying computers or something. The drunk Lithuanian had his own room, of course (a common state of affairs for people who hold the lease, I would later learn).

I believe that this drunk Lithuanian (who worked as a waiter) paid absolutely nothing in rent. I'm quite sure that he was able to live in this palacial estate for free because he was charging the rest of us enough cover what he owed the landlord and then some. As I said, this is just the way things are done in most places in London.

So yeah, the room was big enough to fit two single beds, a closet (which I shared with my roommate) and little else. I eventually bought a tv and managed to fit in there, using the box that it came with as the tray.

The roommate would regularly have guests stay over for days at a time which did not help the cramped conditions. These would be friends of his from Italy. Not always terribly friendly sorts either. Though one of them was thrilled to be in London during a three day Godfather marathon on Channel 4. So we watched the three films and he critiqued them for their brilliance. The tv reception was horrible in this place, by the way. I think its because we lived right next to elevated train tracks.

There was also construction going on for the first month I was there. And chain linked fencing was all around the building. It was like living in a prison in many ways.

I wasnt working at the time, so I didnt bother looking for another place to live. I spent all of my free time looking (fruitlessly) for work and going to the Job Centre every other week to sign on.

The drunk Lithuanian was also a highly unpleasant person. The guy from the Czech Republic later told me that he was in prison in Lithuania. And he did have some tattoos on his hands that were reminiscent of prison tattoos (as seen in the movies). He also claimed to have a 16 year old girlfriend back in Lithuania. And that he only dated young girls.

One time, I was going out to the post office and he asked if I could bring back some vodka and a frozen pizza (which he pronounced as "pisa") on my way back. He was drunk at the time of this request (as he virtually always was) and I reluctantly agreed.

He called me twice while I was waiting in the post office asking how much longer Im going to take. Actually, he called three times but I didnt answer the third time.

So I stopped at the grocery store on my way back. I didnt see any alcohol so I just got the pizza and came back.

I told him there was no alcohol. He was pretty pissed off. I went to my room.

A few minutes later, he knocks on my door and asks if I could go back out and get the vodka. I couldnt fucking believe it. This was also winter, I should point out. The guy was pretty scary though, and he was drunk (as always) so I went to the nearby liquor store and got him the vodka.

Also, speaking of winter the Italian roommate constantly opened the windows in a pointless effort to get the mildew smell out of the room. He didnt actually CLEAN the cause of the mildew smell (all the mold) he just kept opening the window. And this was in January. The room was freezing.

Our neighbors were the only white English family in Bethnal Green. The couple would argue loudly. Constantly. Day and night. Occassionally, the adolescent daughter would also chime in.

These were absolute no-class cockney English inbreds that one typically only sees in period dramas of life in 18th century London. The husband was probably a chimney sweep.

One day, my Italian roommate had enough and started banging on the walls. Then the wife came out and started banging on our windows and door screaming for us to come out. Nobody did.

A couple weeks later, the Muslim slumlord (who also owned the place that the English family lived in) kicked us all out. The reason was that I was trying to get him to sign a form so I could get housing benefits ever since I moved in (three months earlier). The drunk Lithuanian also tried to get him to sign this. But he never signed it because he owned the place under different names in order to avoid paying taxes. So that was the reason everybody was kicked out. He didnt want to sign this form because that would be proof that he owned the place and the housing people might find out that he owes a lot of back taxes.

I was paying £50 ($100 US) a week for this experience. Plus gas and electric bills. Every week or so, the drunk Lithuanian would come in and say "can I have £10 ($20), please". This was (allegedly) for the bills.

I didnt know it at the time, but its extremely rare for shared rooms like this to be non-inclusive of bills.

This was the first, but not necessarily the worst (if one can believe that) place that I had in London.