When a strange knocking and scratching sound coming from behind her bedroom wall turned out to be an infestation of rats, Chloe Tomalin knew the time had come to get out of London.
She loved — and still loves — life in the capital, but the thought of paying almost £10,000 per year in rent to cohabit with rodents was too much. She opted to return home to the West Midlands during the pandemic where she has been able to buy and renovate her own flat.
“If I could move my flat to London then I would, of course, but that is not the world we live in,” said Chloe, 27.
Chloe had moved down south aged 18 to study at the University of the Creative Arts in Surrey. She lived in Epsom but, with dreams of a career in fashion marketing, she always knew she would end up in the capital. And after graduating she landed a job as a fashion trend forecaster and a flat share in Lewisham.
Over the years Chloe flat hopped to Dalston, and then to Hackney, and her career evolved into food marketing. She had just started a new job working with restaurants when the pandemic hit and Chloe’s working life was turned upside down. “All the restaurants closed, there was the move to online and delivery … it was absolutely crazy,” she said. “The pressure was just too much for me.”
Chloe took the difficult decision to quit her job and go freelance. “I knew loads of people who were losing their jobs, and it felt wrong, but I just couldn’t stay,” she said. Her rent at the time was by far her biggest expense — £800pcm, plus bills. “I was faced with the challenge of whether I should spend my savings on living in London or look to move back to where I came from and establish myself a life outside London.,” she said.
Chloe was also fed up with some of the downsides of renting. “There was a very bad damp problem in the flat,” she said. “We told the agent and they sent a man around who used a hairdryer on the wall. It was just unbelievable — a complete lack of care.”
The final straw came when Chloe started to hear a strange knocking sound coming from behind the walls of her bedroom. It turned out to be a rat infestation. Suddenly moving to her dad’s house, in Dudley, sounded like a great way to save a bit of money during the third lockdown.
“We went on daily walks and would look in the estate agents’ windows,” said Chloe. “I could see how much cheaper rent was than in London and I started to wonder if I could afford to buy.”
After careful calculations Chloe realised she could. “I have always been a saver, not a big spender,” she said. “To some extent I lived a sad existence in London, but I would rather invest £10 than spend it on a cocktail.”
Her frugality paid off and in June 2021 Chloe paid £55,000 in cash for a one-bedroom flat close to her dad’s house. “There is a caveat,” she said. “The building had severe damp and the flat didn’t have a kitchen, just a sink.”
This meant she was able to buy the flat for, she estimates, a 70 per cent discount against what it would be worth once renovated. She has since spent another £30,000 on getting it redone, including installing a new kitchen and underfloor heating. She and her neighbours are now working with their freeholder to sort out the underlying damp issues.
To help pay for all this Chloe has also taken a full time job as a marketing manager with a gambling harm consultancy, and still takes the odd freelance project in food, fashion, and wellness (www.chloetomalin.com).
More than two years after her move Chloe still misses London — the food and fashion, the ability to do something new every day of the week — but moving to Dudley has given her something else: security.
“I had to make some adult decisions about what was best for me in the long run,” she said. “I take great pleasure in knowing that this flat is all bought and paid for.”
