Housing with Asperger's

My personal experience of living independently in housing. Some of this is on the Hurtful Experiences blog but I've expanded it to include, for example, my student experiences. This does not reflect the experience of the Aspie community as a whole, but does show what it CAN be like.

I have lived independently since the time I first left home in order to attend university at Edinburgh. However, independent living in different types of housing has been a challenge as a person with Asperger's.

At university I first stayed in Halls of Residence. From a housing point of view this was very good as an introduction to independent living. It was a good transition because not all aspects of independent living had to be dealt with all at once, for example meals were served at the refectory instead of having to be made by the student at this point. Halls of Residence did however mean close interaction with dozens of other students and having to try to fit in, which I found very difficult especially coming fresh into a student populace with people from many different backgrounds.

Halls of Residence tend to be an option for only the first year, with students normally getting together to share flats in subsequent years. But I did find the social environment at university overwhelming, with it being very difficult to fit in and make friends at university. Therefore I certainly did not know anyone well enough to share a flat with them. For the start of my second year I found myself moving into a flat where there was a vacancy to make up four flatmates, flatmates whom I did not know, indeed this was the way of things until I left university. In this new flat the other flatmates did not take to me very well, so much so that I was forced out of the flat after just one semester.

Having to share with previously unknown students did greatly increase my risk of personality clashes. For the remainder of my second year I moved into a house where there were eight students, each with their own room, which gave me a little more space to myself. Again, though, I did not fit in well with the other students and it went as far as bullying, even physical bullying at times.

My third and fourth year were spent in the same flat where although I managed to experience no serious problems with the other students, neither did I fit in well and it seemed I was tolerated as long as I kept myself to myself.

Following my graduation as a student and having independence with a career, my housing experience would become an even greater challenge in coping with the housing I've lived in and the neighbours there, because of repeatedly ending up beside antisocial neighbours. All too often indeed, they have been the sort of neighbours who get evicted or are in danger of it.

Things went well enough at the first address I lived when first working in a career. It was a bedsit, yet that was a step up in size from the sort of living space I had as a student! I really appreciated my independence there and quite enjoyed life living there. I was however looking to buy my own flat.

In the flat where I first lived as an owner occupier I settled in very well for a while and enjoyed myself. It was a studio flat, which was what I was able to afford then, but it was within a nice quiet cul-de-sac. I found however that although I wasn't sharing flats with people, sharing a stairwell with neighbours would still be very socially difficult. I had a next door neighbour who it was apparent didn't like me very much. For some reason he was always saying I was standing outside the Playhouse early in the mornings, when I was never near there in the mornings. He must have thought I was hiding something, and so I was a liar. (Given the location perhaps there was a suspicion - and intolerance - of homosexuality?)

Then one night I went to the pub across the road and said next door neighbour was there. He assumed a threatening manner of approach towards me, starting to manhandle me, causing me to fear assault, and accusing me of everything under the sun. Including a paedophile - which is what sticks out in my mind. Everyone else in the pub could see he was being out of order and was trying to stop him. But I was so traumatised I put my flat up for sale, and bought another one to move to.

At this new address, a tiny one-bedroomed flat on the high street in Dalkeith, there was only one other flat in the stair. But I'd walked straight into a situation where they were extremely noisy neighbours, with them and their friends loitering in the stair using drugs almost every day. This and other destructive behaviour went on until they were evicted. After that I lived in a period of peace, something unusual for me. But I found another major difficulty in housing, namely that getting agreement for communal repairs was difficult, never mind getting contractors to fix a job properly. This sort of thing requires social and negotiation skills which proved too intricate for me to manage. The roof of the flat had leaks in several places, something I tried for three years to get fixed. In this time there were four repairs carried out yet none of them worked properly. This situation caused me plenty of anxiety. I eventually moved on because I was trying to trade up the property ladder.

House prices at this time were rising at such a fast rate that once my flat was sold, I couldn't manage the jump up the ladder and had to rent for a while. The flat, although in an ex-council suburb, was in a good location for me. Again, extremely noisy neighbours above, groups of youths often loitering outside, my windows regularly being panned with stones. Again I was living in very little peace. That family was then evicted but replacement neighbours were not much better.

I eventually got back on the property ladder as an owner occupier, but what a mistake. The flat was on an ex-council estate, and it was what I was able to afford at a time prices were still going up and up. It was by far the most traumatic living experience I have had. Again, a neighbouring flat was home to a very antisocial family, and youths loitered beside my flat (residents of neighbouring flat plus friends) almost every night, often drinking/smoking/drug using, usually committing horrendous disturbances. Vandalism on many occasions, even urinating in stair. I have had people waiting outside the flat with a baseball bat. I lived life in a complete, debilitating fear. I suffered severe mental health problems due to living there, especially as the situation never improved in over 3 years.

On top of that family, another one lived next door to me briefly, and this led to one of two severely distressing recent incidents. At 3am one morning a gang came to the door of their flat to repeatedly knock on their door, and this escalated to disturbance over about an hour and an eventual stabbing incident right outside my flat. It appears the family left the flat straight after that. Only a month after this there was a wild party which led to an evening of disturbance and rioting in the stairwell all evening and overnight, where there was some destruction including windows being smashed, which caused further trauma.

This is how difficult it can be for an Aspie living independently, if left to find housing like most people would do. Indeed I bought some of these flats in the first place due to intense pressure from parents and/or church members for home ownership, despite my better judgment and freedom of choice (the above experiences do speak of how limited my options have been). It was up to me to stand up to such pressure and use my own judgment. Yet people have known my level of anxiety or what it would be under pressure in order to use scare tactics, making the persuasion outweigh my ability to resist, therefore I ended up in situations of distress when I did live in the flats.

Although I attempted to sell my last flat, this was unsuccessful. The fact I even attempted, by which time the property market had crashed, speaks of how distressed I was. After continued incidents, I have now rented the flat out because I just wasn't coping, while doing what I think works best for me as a living situation which is to privately rent. This gives me more choice than mainly the ex-council flats I could afford to buy and also makes me more flexible for moving if I was uncomfortable. I have been in the new rented flat for six weeks and though I did have an attempted break in on only the second day, at least so far it has been very comfortable and peaceful.

Brian Brodie