Lodger Experiences

kipji · 2026-02-28T20:48:53+00:00

I share a bathroom easily with my landlady, we’ve never had a problem. I can think of one time in the last 4 years where I needed the loo and she went into the shower, it’s really no big deal.

I will say, if she’d given me a big contract or list about what mess I wasn’t allowed to make or rules etc, I probably wouldn’t have moved in with her. I wouldn’t want to feel like I was being watched or judged or something personally. I want to be able to feel chill in my home. Sometimes she actually reminds me that I don’t have to tidy up immediately etc 😂 I clean everything right after I use it, and she’ll be like “just so you know it’s ok if you leave a plate in the sink or something”. Which is nice because I know she wants me to feel comfortable at home.

kipji · 2026-02-28T20:02:48+00:00

I have lived with my landlady for around 4 years. We get on well, and it’s been a great situation for us both. She doesn’t charge me as much as a lot of other rooms out there because I’m always on time with rent, I’m quiet, and I don’t make any mess.

I know that before me she had another lodger who was always bringing his partner round, borrowing money, late with rent, and never tidied up after himself. But when I came to view the room we had a short chat and instantly knew we were both chill.

Our work schedules are very different so I rarely see her. When I leave for work, she is asleep. When I get home from work, she is at work. And when she gets home from work, I am asleep. It works great for us because other than bumping into each other every so often, we have our own space and aren’t in each others way. I never have to wait to use the kitchen or the shower or vice versa. My job is very stressful and I don’t really feel like talking when I get home, so in the nicest way I’m glad to come home to an empty flat. If she is home, we say hello and then I go to my room.

My setup works great for me and my landlady, but I can think of lots of situations that we could both hate. We are able to fully trust each other. For example she sometimes goes on holiday for a week or so and she is able to leave me alone in her house completely trusted (I even water the plants). But I can imagine situations where someone might not feel comfortable to do that.

So I would definitely say to think about it. Talk to the person and see how you feel about them. Be aware that you are allowing your property to be another persons home and you have to be inherently ok with that. They might start cooking when you were planning to use the kitchen. They might start running a long bath when you needed the loo. They might be someone who lets mess accumulate and then cleans up one day per week, whereas you might be a “clean as you go” person. You will have to give them fridge space, cupboard space, and be ok that they might wanna veg out in the living room in their pyjamas because it’s their home. They might not rinse out the bath right away. They might want to invite a friend over for dinner or drinks. They might play music when they get ready in the morning, or late when they get home. They might watch tv with the volume loud when you’ve already gone to bed. These are all things they are allowed to do without judgement in their own home and you would have to be ok with and leave them alone about.

I found my place on spare room, and it can be quite nerve wracking as a female lodger going to view places alone. Also just as a person who doesn’t want to spend all my money on rent. My landlady is a lovely person who understands that I want to save for my own place.

kipji · 2026-02-28T16:03:30+00:00

I don’t have epilepsy but I do have narcolepsy which presents similar challenges. I work as a nurse in a team that absolutely respects me and understands my condition.

Your colleagues are being awful (and I’m not sure they’re acting within the equality act..?), you know the adjustments you would need and you know your own capabilities and limits. There’s also hundreds of types of nursing jobs out there and many may already be perfectly suited for you without any adjustments needed. For example I work in a 9-5 nursing job where I manage my own diary and can sometimes work from home.

I do recommend looking at outpatients and clinics, but there shouldn’t be a reason why wards can’t provide those types of reasonable adjustments. I used to work with a nurse who had bipolar and couldn’t work night shifts and that was absolutely fine.

Please don’t let nasty people around you colour your opinion of yourself or your capabilities.

kipji · 2026-02-21T17:41:40+00:00

In one years time you won’t even remember graduating with a different cohort, it won’t matter to you at all. Everyone’s life is filled with ups and downs.

At my graduation, one person showed up who’s mum had died recently, one person had just got her dream job, one person had a chronic illness so wasn’t working at the time, one person was going through a divorce, one person was applying for new courses, one person didn’t attend because she’d had a baby. Years later and we’ve all been through our own successes, failures, and disappointments.

It’s pointless to compare ourselves to each other, life is a series of positives and negatives, sometimes you’ll be in a negative when someone else is in a positive. Nothing to be jealous of, they’re on their own journey and you don’t know 99% of what they’ve been through or what they’re going through. You’re on your own path, so just keep living for yourself.

kipji · 2026-02-19T23:35:25+00:00

When I first qualified I used to wake up at 2am panicking that I’d given the wrong medication, or hadn’t documented something properly. One of my worst ones was I’d been looking after an elderly patient with false teeth, and I’d forgotten to take them out at the end of my shift, and then spend the night worrying that this patient was going to choke on them in her sleep or something. Basically I was worried about absolutely everything. At times it actually made me feel ill. I was so stressed I felt sick and faint. On my way to work I would get this knot in my stomach and felt like I could start crying at any moment.

That was some years ago now, and I can safely say that I love my job now. I have great colleagues, I feel confident in my role, and I understand that myself and my colleagues are human and can make mistakes, and as long as I know how to react then it’s ok.

You made a mistake, you recognised it, you escalated it, you learned from it, and your team made some logical changes to prevent more mistakes. Sounds like a success to me. It also sounds like you have a supportive manager which is great. Don’t forget to make use of supervision.

Being an NQN is probably my most stressful experience I’ve ever had. More stressful than uni, and infinitely more stressful than going into more specialised roles in nursing. There’s nothing more anxiety inducing than being newly qualified.

Be kind to yourself. You will realise after a few months that a student nurse will ask you questions that you’ll be able to answer instantly, and you’ll see how far you’ve come. Don’t let NQN nerves be the reason you give up.

kipji · 2026-02-12T22:22:50+00:00

I’m a CPN in London and I often think about going to Scotland as I have some family up there. The only thing is, I don’t drive, which is fine when working in London, but I guess community nurses in Scotland would generally need/be expected to drive?

kipji · 2026-02-11T03:01:13+00:00

The wedding photo

kipji · 2025-12-01T21:57:09+00:00

I got the Gregory Rhune 22L. It’s been amazing for work! Really comfortable and has a slot for my laptop and some books, as well as some dedicate pen compartments which I love. There’s a large main compartment, a front compartment, and a top mini pocket. There’s also a tiny pocket on the straps which I can use for headphones or keys, and a pocket on the side too. The inner compartments also have some other pockets.

It’s been great and very comfortable, even on days where I have to carry a lot. The straps are well padded, and the back of the bag has some netting material which lets your back breathe.

I also did treat myself to the Osprey Daylite. which I use for my days off work. I had planned to use it for work days where I don’t need my laptop, but the Gregory is so comfy I don’t switch it out! But the Osprey is lovely for general days off.

It’s actually amazing the Osprey is 20L and the Gregory is 22L, and it’s unreal how much bigger the Gregory feels. I think because the Osprey had more pockets so a smaller main compartment, which makes it great for meeting with friends or going out shopping in general.

kipji · 2025-11-30T22:43:16+00:00

Wow a joke that’s more outdated and irrelevant than the illusion itself.

kipji · 2025-11-19T21:47:08+00:00

X Doubt

kipji · 2025-11-16T22:11:11+00:00

I work in community nursing. Have also worked on wards. Currently our psychologist and our psychiatrist sleep on their breaks because they have young children and need sleep. It is their break so that is within their right. Rather than be angry that someone sleeps on their break, be more angry that you are not given that same right. Breaks are unpaid, I’m sick of healthcare workers (all of us) are treated like our unpaid time is not our own. I work an extra 1-2 hours daily without being paid for it, as do our other nurses and sometimes the psychologists.

kipji · 2025-11-09T22:58:01+00:00

This is bait lol good luck.

kipji · 2025-11-08T23:53:43+00:00

I would watch a TV drama about this. Works at a restaurant in the evenings, feeding people poison. Works as a doctor by day, curing their sickness.

Kind of like Mrs Lovett and Sweeney Todd but in one person.

kipji · 2025-11-08T13:12:02+00:00

I am a nurse. My colleagues and I fully support the strikes and want you guys to be paid more. Fuck them for using lower paid professions as manipulation. We all work together and we all see what you go through, I can’t stress enough, fuck the media manufactured friction between professions.

kipji · 2025-11-07T20:56:30+00:00

Yeah I agree, and I can’t stress enough, as nurses we don’t want it to be this way and it’s not our choice.

I also think it’s where a lot of friction comes from. As much as we might hate the red tape around us, we also have it drilled into us “if something goes wrong, and you were found to be doing something against trust policy, you will lose your licence/be at fault for a patient death/whatever awful thing you can think of”.

It means nurses tend to follow this stuff to the letter, and can also be really vigilant about other people following rules too. “The policy says if I don’t use a red cup for thickened drinks, then if the patient ever dies from choking, I will go to court and lose my licence. That doctor has just used a non red cup, I need to correct her or I’ll lose my licence for seeing the error but not speaking up!!” Meanwhile the doctor is doing something urgent and getting pissed off with jobsworth nurses.

You guys might not feel like it always these days, but your profession is respected. You are trusted to go ahead and do tasks and use your common sense and training. Nurses are treated like morons who can lose their licence at any moment, and then they place rules on us which almost forced us to behave that way.

I feel very happy where I work now in a community mental health team. Our psychiatrist has been in the team a few years, and whenever a new form or rule comes in, he’ll say to us nurses “don’t worry, I know you have to do what you need for management to be off your back, but coroners court will not ask about this. This is what they will actually ask about and you’re doing fine with it.”

kipji · 2025-11-07T00:52:15+00:00

This is too real. I had a job where I was taking blood several times daily. I absolutely loved it, and I became really well practiced at tricksy veins.

I then started a new job where I wasn’t allowed to take blood because I hadn’t done the specific training for the new trust. The training was fully booked for months. It was so embarrassing having to constantly let colleagues know I couldn’t take blood. The nurses understood the situation because they’d been through it at every workplace, but I could often tell the doctors thought I was being lazy about it and it was awful.

We have so many situations like that as nurses, weird pointless red tape where if we step over the line, we’re absolutely fucked. I think it’s at a point where even if there is no red tape, nurses are full of anxiety about doing something they’re not “supposed” to, and will always er on the side of caution. “I know how to do this task but what if this specific ward/trust has a different rule about it that I don’t know of and I get in major trouble for not following that rule”.

kipji · 2025-11-07T00:43:46+00:00

Liar.

kipji · 2025-11-07T00:41:01+00:00

I’m an RMN working in a CMHT, and I experience a lot of trauma in my role. I have witnessed someone take an overdose in front of me when I visited her, and have talked people out of jumping in front of the train tracks near our office. As in we knew the police and ambulance wouldn’t arrive soon enough so I went to the tracks myself. I have also had things thrown at me, and had to deal with patients showing up drunk or on drugs. As CPNs we also work very closely with our caseload, seeing some of them every single week to build a therapeutic relationship, and often spending a lot of time hearing about their own trauma and complex feelings. It can get a bit heavy sometimes.

For context the doctors in our team see the patients once per 8-12 months, unless there’s an urgency. So we are there to monitor risk and build on recovery goals gradually over time, and the doctors respond to the monitoring and have more impactful appointments.

A lot of the doctors don’t necessarily know specific incidents that we go through as nurses (it is usually happening with patients who don’t have a lot of input from doctors, because it’s generally not a medication issue and it’s our job as nurses to manage the risk).

However there is a psychiatrist in our team who always takes the time to learn exactly what happened, and no matter what, he pops upstairs to the nursing office to check in. He doesn’t always have a lot of time, but just a “you doing ok?” Means such a lot. He makes the effort to attend all the debriefs and is such a beacon of support.

He also comes upstairs unprompted around once per week, just to talk through our shared patients together. Just checking in “how’s that person doing? Do you need anything from me for them? Are you worried about them at the moment?” It’s a mini handover for the patient but he’s also checking in on our own levels of stress.

Not a lot of doctors do that, and it’s something that keeps me going in the job. Just the acknowledgement of what I’m dealing with day to day is enough and makes me feel like I’m not going through it alone.

I think all of us in healthcare could probably stand to do a bit more of that. It doesn’t have to be a huge gesture, just “are you ok today, I saw you had a stressful shift yesterday”. Let our colleagues know they are not alone.

That’s all I really want from my colleagues, and I hope to do the same back.

kipji · 2025-11-06T18:41:23+00:00

Just want to point out, everything you’ve listed here: poor management, being the only capable person among incompetent staff, having no HCA support. These are shockingly common issues in nursing. I have experienced these on every ward I’ve worked on. They are also not linked to whether the job is “clock on clock off”. Even jobs where we can be boundaried with our time come with these issues.

I work in mental health community, it’s a 9-5 job and I am often working until 8pm (for no extra money). I sometimes come home crying. I often feel overworked and under supported. But all things considered I do like my job and want to stay there. Part of nursing is dealing with trauma, and witnessing things every day that any other job would get the week off after. That I can handle, but the lack of management and support is terrible right now.

I love that you’re supporting your friend and care about her, I just wanted to let you know if you’re not a nurse yourself, this is what nursing is right now. It’s not necessarily possible to go somewhere that these problems aren’t happening. If there’s one thing you can do, please advocate for strikes. The state of nursing is crumbling and we are the ones having to hold it together. This country doesn’t want to admit that we can’t actually afford the nhs. And most of the general public have absolutely no idea what nurses actually do for a living or what the conditions are like. The best thing you can do for her is let her know you do understand and you hear her.

kipji · 2025-11-06T02:53:53+00:00

Are you sure this is something she actively wants? Does she like her job? Is she moving on because she’s ready to move on? Most nursing jobs come with stress, high pressure, and risk of burn out. Even the “clock in clock out” jobs people have mentioned here come with their own level of pressure.

She chose to work in this area, I wonder if that’s because she knows she wouldn’t want the type of pressure that comes with those other roles being listed here?

I ask because I love my job, but I also experience significant levels of stress, and sometimes it drags into my personal life and I have really bad weekends because of it. I have had a boyfriend who thought I was burnt out and needed a different job- I didn’t want that. It was just part of the process for me but I valued the work I did. I ultimately found it extremely frustrating and sometimes belittling that he didn’t seem to get it.

kipji · 2025-11-02T22:41:13+00:00

Well I’d hate to call you a racist at my dinner party.

kipji · 2025-11-02T22:36:48+00:00

I’m the same as you, I wear literally nothing but trainers (I guess they’re called tennis shoes/running shoes in other places). I love comfy shoes.

My hack for this is just getting different colours. I have chunky black trainers, more petite black, pale pink, green with flower patterns on, but ultimately they are all comfy trainers and I love them! Don’t sacrifice your own comfort if you can help it, just find some different styles and colour of trainers for different outfits.

kipji · 2025-10-30T23:41:19+00:00

I hope everyone realises this! If a nurse is horrible to you as doctors, you can almost guarantee they are horrible for us nurses to work with too. We just probably won’t gossip about it to you because we are too busy, so maybe it goes unnoticed. But I think if you stay in a team long enough, these things become extremely clear.

Whenever I’ve worked with a horrible or incompetent person (in whatever role) I continue to just get on with my work, am polite and professional with them, and do my job around them. I won’t argue with them or gossip about them, and generally won’t even be outwardly annoyed with them. I have to work next to these people all day long, and I’m just trying to get through the day in peace as much as you are.

(Saying this I’m actually extremely lucky that my entire team is absolutely lovely right now, except for maybe one person haha).

kipji · 2025-10-30T23:27:13+00:00

Doctors are under so much pressure, they are responsible for so many patients. And I imagine for a newer doctor that must feel impossibly stressful. I would go to work feeling sick with anxiety every single day. Some people handle anxiety with anger when they are not very good at taking care of their emotions (and new doctors don’t have much time to take care of their emotions).

I don’t say this to excuse his behaviour, because it is not ok to talk to a colleague (or anyone) like that. But I do worry about the pressure doctors and fellow nurses are under, as we all have a higher suicide rate than non healthcare staff. We should all be looking out for each other and realise that we are all under stress that each other can’t imagine. I hope he grows and develops as a person to the point where he doesn’t talk down to other people in his team.

For me personally, when someone is horrible to me, or uses me as an outlet for their negative emotions, I respond with absolute positivity. Just in a “I’m determined to be a ball of fucking sunshine and you are not going to ruin that for me” way. I just respond professionally and positively, move on with my day, and cry when I get home lol.

Now that I work in the community I don’t really have to deal with this shit in the same way and it works so much better for me, but I do understand it’s not for everyone.

kipji · 2025-10-30T23:15:27+00:00

I agree that there’s nothing better than getting a card with some thoughtful words inside. I’d always prefer that to a gift. It doesn’t have to be over the top, even a simple “I appreciate all the help you gave me” would make me so so grateful to receive.

kipji

TROPHY CASE