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Long shot: Xmas cattery nr London?
Thanks all!
ngl this is a tough ask for this late. have you tried kennels that also do cats? some of the bigger ones in hertfordshire like the barn in broxbourne sometimes have odd spaces because they prioritise dogs. also worth ringing round vets, they often know about smaller home boarders that don't advertise much. one near me in clapham has a list pinned up.
if you can stretch out to essex, there's a place in chigwell called mews manor that's usually decent and sometimes has last minute gaps because they keep a few spots for emergencies. also worth checking petsitters who do live-in care on sites like catinaflat, a lot of them are students staying in london over xmas and charge way less than a cattery. i'd ring instead of emailing at this point, people ignore emails when they're busy with the holiday rush
honestly your best bet might be looking slightly outside the m25. places in surrey or kent sometimes have last minute cancellations. i know a spot in twickenham called catnap lodge that had space last year when i was in a similar bind but no idea about this year. also worth checking nextdoor or local facebook groups, people often post about cancellations there
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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