These places are hard to live in. Not always being actual houses (sometimes warehouses, or commercial buildings), they sometimes lack proper cleaning facilities, such as a running hot water shower.
There is no such thing as privacy, as rooms are overcrowded in order to pay rent for the building. The flats are often very open to anyone who knows of the flat to come in and sleep for the night. Rooms are made wherever possible, for example, the side of a stairwelll may be opened, the insulation ripped out, and a person makes this their personal space.
The walls make for interesting reading. Slogan graffiti and pictures cover the walls, poking though the gig posters and flyers from previous years. The floor is covered in anarchist literature and tapes of unknown punk bands.
There is seldom any food in these flats, save a few lumps of stale bread. Any food is bound to be vegetarian if not vegan.
These flats are easy to identify from the street. Usually in small inner city alleys or dodgy suburban streets. The garden is unkempt but may have a few fruit trees, and parsley. There may be an old sofa or old cars on the front lawn. There is bound to be graffiti in the windows or on the unpainted weatherboards themselves (perhaps an anarchy symbol somewhere). Perhaps there will be some Revolting Punk Ninjas in the flat, in which case there will be ‘anarchism is reggae’ sprayed on the sidewalk in front of the flat.
There will probably be many guitars with missing strings around the place. The only treasured material possession in the flat will be the stereo, which will be in constant use, very loud. On garbage collection day, a whole lot of empty beer and cider bottles are put out.
These flats are the best places to live however, if you don’t mind slight squalor, noise, and stupid drunk people. There is always something happening, and people do look out for each other. They are good places to meet interesting people