Why are some people sniffy about living in a semi detached house?

The house we brought our kids up in was a ramshackle weatherboard which is now worth close to 2 million dollars. The one we live in now is a 2 storey brick house with an in ground pool but worth about half that. Unless you are selling , which we’re not, it doesn’t matter.

When I was a newly arrived immigrant aged 10, to SW London in the 1950s I was accused of living in a semi detached house!
I can still remember the feeling of helplessness. I didn't know what it meant as I had never heard the term. Was our house being insulted? I was already mocked for my accent.
In NZ we had lived in our single story wooden house like all the others.
Yes I did come across a strange culture.

Later I learned that I was being accused of being a snob because a semi was aspirational for the families who lived in poorer areas in small terraced houses or more often, multiple occupied large old houses. the kind which now sell for millions

AreWeThereYet

mokryna

I think British people in general tend to look down on flat dwellers.

That may have been true in the past because there simply weren't many flats outside council estates - which some people did look down on - or above shops. Unlike places like Germany and inner cities in the US where many people live in flats. Now flats are being built all over the place in the UK, and many people recognise that for certain lifestyles they are ideal - no children, don't want or can't cope with a garden, don't want maintenance that comes with a house... Near us a few ex-department stores are being turned into flats. Sadly they keep turning them into 'luxury, prestige' flats that cost a fortune instead of ordinary, nice flats that the less well-off can buy.

Yes that is a UK problem AreWeThereYet. In other countries company maintenance fees have laws to keep the prices down and leasehold doesn’t exist.

We live in a detached and love it, much prefer it to a semi, which we have lived in several over the years
Nothing snobby about it.

It’s not the people my friend is attached to that have made her life hell for years it’s the ones on the other side. I feel fortunate to be in a detached house but my garden it still attached however you look at it. I dread my lovely quiet neighbours moving …

I couldn’t care less what people think and am quite surprised that some people do care.

I live in a tiny detached house for the first time in my life, (terrace house size) and I do like being free from the concern about being noisy to neighbours or them being noisy. However I'm about to downsize to a flat so am aware of being very careful how/where I choose.

But the answer to the O/P is NO, how strange. I assume the reason people might want to get a detached house is the privacy not the H bucket POV.

No.

I felt sorry for a friend when she had to down size after her husband died and she moved into a home on a caravan site. A few years later I went to visit her. Her static caravan was literally a couple of hundred yards from a beach, with a beautiful view from the living room. She had decorated it beautifully and I could happily have stayed there for ever.

For the last 24 years I've lived in a mid terrace 60s ex council house. I rarely hear any noise from my neighbours except for things like lawn mowing. I've had no complaints so I presume that I haven't disturbed them either. Apart from anything else the houses either side help to insulate mine.

MerylStreep

You can imagine the looks we got every time we said we lived on a boat. There was almost a look of, oh, poor you.

They were generally surprised when we said, yes, this one.

😁

I knew people who lived on houseboats on the Thames, very nice they were too but not as large as yours, MerylStreep!

I do remember thinking, when I was about 11, that when I grew up, I wanted a detached house, a car and a telephone.
What ambition! 😁
Not necessarily in that order but I knew I had to work hard to get them.

Doodledog
Our permanent mooring was at Tollesbury in Essex.
We were there to scrub off and paint.
That’s on the River Blackwater.

I prefer a detached but don't see it as anything to be snobby about.

I have lived in two semi detached houses they were nice the same area I live now. I remarried and we both had our own properties so we sold up and bought a detached because we could.
The only snobbery I ever encountered was from sisters who said I should move to a different area. I like it where we are it’s half a mile from where we were brought up I’m happy here.

That looks like a great place to live, MS. Where was it moored?

You can imagine the looks we got every time we said we lived on a boat. There was almost a look of, oh, poor you.

They were generally surprised when we said, yes, this one.

We lived in a 3 storey, 6 bdroom Edwardian semi when DS1 was having drum lessons and had a drum kit in his bedroom. Was constantly asking the elderly couple next door is the could hear him and they swore they couldn't.

Surely, it depends on how much you love your house as to whether you feel looked down on.

No 🙄

The word sniffy brings back memories of my long dead mother in law. She used it a lot but I haven’t heard it for years.. it never occurs to me people are being snobby about anything. Must be because what others do passes over my head! My father in law explained to me once that people moved to big houses to show off!! When I asked him who they would be showing off to he couldn’t give me an answer…..there will always be a smattering of snobs about something or other but I think most have the same take on life as I do ‘couldn’t care less’…

Well, if someone appeared to look down on me because I lived in a semi, a flat, a terrace, or a tent, I'm afraid I wouldn't give them the time of day.

I've lived in a detached (old and damp), a terrace (convenient and cheap to run and never heard the neighbours), and a flat (absolutely wonderful).

I live in a very large, very old semi, it has thick Victorian walls and I hear nothing from the three kids next door ( I used to have 8 next door at one time)
I ve lived in semis, terraced, council, a prefab and flats and on forces bases, all are fine you get used to where you are

Lauren59

Just because many if you haven’t had the same experience as the OP doesn’t make this a “strange post”. We have snifiness right here on this thread.

Do we? It’s not sniffy to say you prefer a detached home, and why. I haven’t noticed anyone being sniffy. We’re all different in our preferences. That doesn’t mean looking down on people who make other choices.

I've lived in flats, as well as terraced, semi and detached houses.
From my point of view it's not snobbery that I prefer a detached home.
The noises that travel through the walls and floors/ceilings can be horrendous.
Sound insulation can be virtually non existent ...
If you have considerate attached neighbours, all's good. Otherwise be prepared to hear all and everything

Doodledog

I think there are huge differences between some terraces and some detached, though. It really isn't a case of one is better than the other.

165 Eaton Place (Upstairs Downstairs) and 10 Downing Street are both terraced houses, and some of the little boxes on Brookside were detached.

When I was a child I saw 10 Downing Street (you could walk along Downing Street then) and was really shocked. Not only was it terraced, it didn’t even have a front garden! I didn’t think it looked at all suitable for a Prime Minister.

I live in a ‘ link detached’, meaning that a garage is between the houses. We hear nothing of our neighbours, unless they are having workmen in.
I have lived in semis and experienced no snobbery. The neighbours only complained once when our son was doing his flute practice! ( at least it wasn’t a trumpet).
I lived in a terrace in London once. I bet that house would cost a fortune now, nothing to turn one’s nose up at.
Very rude to comment.

Just because many if you haven’t had the same experience as the OP doesn’t make this a “strange post”. We have snifiness right here on this thread.