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Anyone else hearing the storm and can't go to bed?
Praying for the homeless and rough sleepers tonight. 😢 The storm is so Loud that's literally all I can hear.
Praying for the homeless and rough sleepers tonight. 😢
fwiw the night bus drivers are absolute legends in this weather. was on the 38 last winter during a storm and the driver kept stopping to check if anyone waiting at stops actually needed a lift or was just sheltering. proper unsung heroes. stay safe out there
honestly the noise is mental in hackney too, feels like my whole flat's gonna lift off. i know a couple of the night shelters around liverpool street station are open when it gets this bad, the council puts out extra mats in the church halls. hope everyone's managing alright out there
Same here in Bethnal Green, the gusts are rattling the sash windows like they're about to pop out. I've got a friend who works with Streetlink and she says the council opens emergency shelters when it hits level 3, so hopefully most people are getting directed somewhere warm tonight. Might be worth checking on any elderly neighbours tomorrow too, I've heard a few tiles have come off roofs around Brick Lane.
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What are some innovative ways to anonymously compare rental prices in a city?
SpareRoom's "rooms wanted" ads are underrated for this. people post what they're currently paying alongside what they want next, so you can scrape a rough sense of going rates by postcode without anyone knowing you looked. it skews young and flatshare heavy tho, so not much use if you're after 2-beds in zone 2.
Another one is just the depozit or tenancy deposit scheme data. not public-facing, but your council's housing officer can tell you median rents from deposit registrations if you email them under FOI. takes weeks, but its proper anon and nobody clocks u.
Rightmove and Zoopla only show asking rents, which are often 10 to 15 percent above what a place actually goes for, so they're a poor benchmark. The trick I've used is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which breaks things down to borough level and is genuinely anonymous since it's aggregate data, no listing or account needed. For something more granular, the London Renters Union runs a rent reporting tool where you submit what you're paying with your postcode and it maps it against others nearby, though the coverage is patchy outside the inner boroughs.
the openrent "rent check" thing is decent for zones 3-4 where the unions tool barely reaches. also worth checking the london.gov.uk planning portal for new build applications, they list "affordable" and market rent figures per unit in the viability assessments, which is basically the developer telling the council what they expect to charge. bit of a faff to dig through but its public, anonymous & nobody knows ur looking