LIVING THE LIFE
Short of having generous parents or lottery wins, buying a first home is now well out of many Aucklanders’ reach. Emily Winstanley talks to four people who’ve found alternative ways to put a roof over their heads.
Short of having generous parents or lottery wins, buying a first home is now well out of many Aucklanders’ reach. Emily Winstanley talks to four people who’ve found alternative ways to put a roof over their heads.
ALIX WHITTAKER Film producer, 27 Lives with her husband Jordan Dodson, 29, and 6- month- old Willow, in the Candlelit Clubhouse Urban Commune
“We were looking for a place where a bunch of us could live cheaper than in our respective flats. This 13-room place came up on Trade Me, it used to be a rest home. I came and had a look at it with a colleague (at production company Candlelit Pictures) and we were like, “Yup, I think we can make this place work.” Then we had a viewing with everyone, and they were like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so gross.”
It was really grubby, it needed a lot of cleaning, but we decided it was a really good option for us. We took the lease and spent a couple of weeks cleaning it up. We painted it, pulled up the lino and carpet, sanded the floors.
The owner had bought it without even looking at it. He’s like, “I’ll never put the rent up if you never cause me any trouble,” so we just fix things for ourselves if they go wrong.
We moved in three years ago. We will leave when we find our own place to do something similar, but we’ll live like this forever.
We’ve got a waiting list of people who have expressed an interest in living here, so if someone moves out we’ll go to our favourite one of those. People usually last a year, year and a half. Most of the people who have left go overseas.
It costs people around $200 a week to live here, including food and bills. We each have our own rooms, plus shared spaces. Whoever wants to cook, cooks, but they always cook for everyone.
Cleaning we have a roster for. Everyone puts in a little bit of money and we pay one person in the house to do a weekly deep clean of all the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night it’s like a party. We don’t have to throw a party, it’s a party here already. And so our neighbours get peeved at us. When we actually do have a party it can be quite loud.
It’s so amazing living here with a baby. All of my friends from my antenatal class have hard times with needing to have a shower or something when their partner is at work. It’s completely different here, there are heaps of people around, so if I need to do something there’s always people around to take care of Willow. All her pals will come say hello to her in the morning. It’s awesome.
We’ve all been surpised at how harmonious it is. That’s largely because there are so many people, it’s hard to hold a grudge, everyone is very mature. There’s not a lot of drama-mongering going on.
Because we all make films, being able to wake up in the morning and say, “I’ve got a new version of my script do you want to come and read it?” and they’re right there, makes the work we do so much easier. We’ve all done a lot more work since being here.
We call it a commune. A lot of people would say, “I never thought I would enjoy living in a place like this, but now I‘ve lived here, I would struggle to live on my own or live in a small flat.”
We used to have weekly meetings but in a house this big, it takes three hours. It’s a dictatorship that I run, if you have a problem with anything you come to me, and I’ll help you sort it out, or tell you to suck it up. I started it, it’s my name on the lease, I do all the financials, I order the food, if anything breaks I fix it. I’m the matriarch.”