These houses are pretty awful Subscribe to my main channel!: @memeulous Twitter: / memeulous Instagram: / memeulous Merch: www.memeulous.s... Business/media enquiries: george@memeulous.com
New builds always look and feel like theyre made for those couples where the woman has a white range rover, orange spray tan, duck lips and the fella has an ice gem haircut and a sleeve tattoo
@@curcave Because they have good build quality and interesting design features. A 3 year old could draw most of these new builds and I for one wouldn't live in such a stale, depressing place.
My dad works in the building industry and his job is to literally fix mistakes on brand new houses and make them comfortable to live in. The shit that people get away with when they're building is awful cause its gonna cost more money to maintain the house instead of just doing it right the first time and not taking short cuts.
It costs more money _to the owner_ but to the company designing and building these house that literally doesn't matter. What matters is that they charge like it's a fine house while spending a fraction of that. If owners have problems with the house like 2 weeks after moving in, that's not their issue, they already sold the house and pocketed the money.
I went to a unit complex with 200 townhouses, joined in groups of 3 or 4, where every single firewall only went up to the top of the wall, not through the celing. So they had to rip up the roof above every fire wall and fix it. The houses were completely shit
Problem is developers give tradesmen “price” work for these new build. So quality is out of the window straight away. And site managers just want bonuses so they do it quick as possible
Honestly so many of those white refinished houses would look so much better with just a bit of greenery, like some vines or even just some plants on the windowsills.
But instead around here mainly the asian fellas have a thing for white render and columns, and enough space on what was a front garden for a large Mercedes van. But still park two cars in the street.
@@sumisu_senpai_6280 Probably has better drainage too. They often skip the bit where they improve the physical infrastructure around the developments to save money.
I live in a very hilly area in the UK, and on my usual dog walk I can see over most of the valley I live in. And when I tell you that the new builds stick out like a sore thumb even from miles away! It's just beautiful fields and rolling hills and old houses woven and nestled together that have aged like fine wine and then there's just this BEIGE copy pasted stain in the middle of the landscape. Just an unnaturally straight line of identical houses just kinda slapped onto the closest convenient road. Literally identical. Identical floor plans, identical gardens, identical materials, identical driveways, LEGIT just eighteen clones of the exact same house. I hate them. And this is a hill I'm willing to die on.
I live close to the beach. Not in UK but just across the pond. It used to be nice walking in the sand dunes, you couldnt see any buildings. Then the greedy municipality I live in decided to sell some land right next to the protected nature reserve that is the dune strip to a developer that built butt ugly 5 story tall buildings on it. View absolutely ruined. They shouldnt have even been allowed to build anything new that close to a protected nature reserve that has very nitrogen poor soil and will be severely affected by the air and groundwater pollution that will result from the people living in those buildings. Shameful display.
My town is currently having a bunch of newbuilds built on a hill that overlooks its south, and they also don't fit in whatsoever. I hardly have a problem with the placement of those houses, but to have big, soulless chunks of plastic ois incredibly sad. :(
@@kittikidd2334theyve fully destroyed and concreted over a poppy field and part of a forest near me for some shit newbuild estate, then also destroyed a horse field that used to have a secondary school on it, and are now trying to pave over the one last field people have to walk their dogs but theres been protests lol
That’s so sad :( I’m glad people are protesting, where I live we have lost 7 fields to new builds in the last 5 years, I have protested also but greedy businesses have all the power
Only those people who have never had, and will never have children have any right whatsoever to whinge about new house building. Hypocrites would do well to remember that every house was a once a newbuild on what had formerly been fields or woodland.
I (very) briefly worked for a house builder and there was a woman who sent in a complaint every time it rained because her garden was wet afterwards. not that it wasn't draining or anything. that her garden was generally wet.
@@laserduck4238it's literally a part of the history curriculum at secondary school so you definitely should've been taught that. Did your education get interrupted by the pandemic or something?
My favourite thing is when a village uses rocks from a local quarry to build all their houses. For example a village near Flamborough are made from chalk it’s awesome and just adds a unique touch.
And it’s more sustainable, and helps with local jobs, too! (and more durable than the wood framing with fake stone/brick) Using local materials is always better!
Yep, I live in a new build , built 9 years ago now, and there are cracks around every window, the roof leaks every time we get heavy rain. The toilets/bathrooms are shoddily done. The builders even left the plastic material that’s on new doors when it was installed , noticed it after living here a couple of months. Completely rushed to get them built and now me and my neighbours are constantly having to get people out to fix these issues!
If it makes you feel any better, cracks around windows and dodgy roof work has always been an issue in British housing - even those that are over 100 years old. Usually, those issues were just fixed a couple of decades after they were built so we think they never had those problems…. But oh they did 😂
Sue them for hidden damage, as a private home owner you have rights to protect you against scamming construction companies. I dont think the brexit people will have had enough time to get rid of all that legislation yet, but im sure theyre trying.
I'm not convinced smaller windows save much emergy. Residents must need their lights on more often and the houses won't naturally warm up on sunny winter days.
Petition to go off grid, build a little cosy cottage and live off the land, decorating your house with plants and eating cosy meals say aye. Edit: from the people who have tried and failed, let's just own a little house in the country and grow our own food in the back garden... sorry to you guys
i’m moving house at the moment and we went to look at quite a few newbuilds, saddest houses i have ever been in. theyve all got barely any garden, theyre already falling apart and theyre so overlooked cus they crowd them in so much
@squiggle.64 yes and kitchen's are twice the size of the living room where you are lucky to fit anything more than a 3 seater couch and your tv..you are stuffed if you get visitors or relatives showing up.
I grew up in the uk, spent 30 years in the states and then moved back to the village I grew up in. Hundreds of completely soulless houses had been built in the village. Nothing new was even remotely aesthetically pleasing. It honestly reminded me of the cheap social housing they built and knocked down in minneapolis.
"This is probably a lecture your dad'll give you" Well as somebody who doesn't have a dad, I'm honoured to have someone my own age step into the role and give me advice I otherwise would not have 😂 Thank you papa George.
house near me was sold and then the new owners cut down a monkey puzzle tree in the front garden that was older than me and then they put the house up for sale again. then when the new people moved in they ripped up the garden, covered the ground in gravel, put up a massive fence and now have like 8 cars crammed in to what was meant to be a front garden. absolute insanity.
I hate that so many people who do up houses have the assumption that replacing gardens with concrete is automatically better. The same with removing any sense of history or life and replacing it with a sterile and cheap look.
it blows my mind how here in England we have beautiful Tudor houses which still survive with the original wood from 1600s while modern day housing could probably last 20-30 years max. Like you can litterally see the quality of these really old buildings, even ones built from the 1800s which still survive in central London. idk they just look so sturdy, like they could stand there for eternity. These modern houses in Britain are absolutely atrocious!. Not only do they look like they would blow away with a gust of wind, but they are overall uncomfortable to live in compared to the older, more cosy houses
I think you summed it all up well when you said 'it's completely lifeless'. Grey interiors, grey exteriors, concrete and gravel over beautiful garden space in which you could grow your own vegetables, plant flowers, do your part for nature etc etc. I believe Frankfurt made it illegal to pave over your garden and I think it is an excellent idea. Let's bring some colour and personality back to this bleak island, please
The first one was a guy in Birmingham who paved his entire front garden to provide parking for hopsital staff who worked opposite him... He still charged them a fiver a day though so he's still a bit scummy
You have summed up all the despair and disgust I've felt for years about new housing developments - and made me laugh too. I'll be letting my partner see this to show her that, yes, there are other people out there that echo my opinions exactly! (She's suffered my rants about this for some time!)
my dad is a builder and its crazy how all newbuilds look so identical now days bcos multiple ones u showed look EXACTLY like sites my dad has worked on literally copy and paste housing lol
To be fair to them, I reckon people said the same about terraced housing from 1920-1960 and now we kind of like them 😂 The main issue however is that they are just built so rushed that you really have to question how long they will last.
6:52 don’t wanna sound like a nerd but The English Civil war was basically the king vs the parliament, King Charles wanted parliament shut down so he had all the power, they declared war on him, parliament won and King Charles was executed. It’s basically like if everyone who is mentally okay declared war on the Torys
Jokes aside, I'm really happy to see George passionate about this topic and sharing it with the younger (late teens- early 20s) audience. Because we're the ones that these development companies are fucking over with all this. Building shit boxes we cant afdord that have no business being that expencive. I hope more people open their eyes to the pure evil that is corporate greed and jow its corrupting everything about our lives. I'm also v passionate about this topic haha
@@NTL578 I don't think the aesthetic is relevent beyond being a nice place to live*, I just want safe and accessible homes, fit for purpose for all kinds of people. I'm an idealist, I know. *there's been studies about how a buildings' appearance can impact community and crime and how beautification encourages people to take care of spaces thus increasing it's use period and decreasing empty houses in need of refurbishment. I reccommend checking out videos about them, it's really fascinating! Oh, I love classical and paladian inspired buildings though, don't get me wrong, it just isn't always necessary :p
My sister lives in a new build and she literally can't put anything on the walls because the wall will crumble away lmao the stair hand rail and the coat rack have fallen off so far, the hole they designed for the washing machine to go, they hung a radiator directly in front of it so they had to take the radiator off to fit their washing machine and the door wouldn't open with the radiator on the wall anyway 🙃 they had a massive field to build this stuff, but they've built all the back gardens with a slope going towards the house and being a high risk flood area the water has almost been getting in the house since they were built 2 years ago 😅 literally exactly like the ones from 10:16 but the water is directed to everyones individual houses lol. Oh, and the kids climbing frames they made out the front of the houses, they decided the best floor for kids to fall from height on would be chalky spikey gravel🙃 A fish would have made better choices honestly
I think the issue is that we treat housing like a luxury commodity that needs to be profitable and not something that literally EVERYONE needs lol. "Make it cheep, sell it expensive, get your money and not care about the people you're fucking over" Capitalist innovation ladies and gents. Developers and landlords bare a large amount of blame for the cost of living crisis
To answer your question: The War of the Roses and the English Civil War are NOT the same thing The English Civil War happened in 1642 between the royalists led by King Charles the 1st and the parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell ended up winning the war and King Charles was executed by beheading for "treason". England would go on to be a republic for a decade before King Charles the 2nd returned and restored the monarchy following Cromwell's death
I live in a new build house, one of the "nicer" ones as George puts it. While I get the issues people have, i think its more about putting heart into the building. We made sure to plant lots of wild flowers and climbers in the garden, and create a warm, family environment inside. I would love to live in a cottage somewhere but i cant afford that. Sometimes it's the only way to get on the property ladder until you can get your dream home.
I lived in a new build (social, I'm no minted) and here are some of the issues we had: The insulation hadn't been installed properly, so when it got cold (and it was in N Scotland so that's a lot) the upstairs would be freezing. People were finding their kids turning blue in the winter. They fitted all the pipework and then concreted over it so even the fancy expensive boiler couldn't heat upstairs. Forgot to open the valves on every radiator. Didn't fit shower properly so the first time EVERY house on the street used the shower it flooded downstairs - housing association didn't bother to warn other tenants. Cladded in wood (untreated) on a property facing the sea, causing every house to look like shit within a year. Described the "state-of-art" air flow system on initial tour - when I later took the vent off to wallpaper it was just a hole literally punched into the wall - no insulation, all rough edges, with a crappy plastic vent on top. I hate new builds with every fibre of my being.
7:16 NOT TO BE A NERD: YOU could have underfloor heating for the shiny, cold floors.... that's what I have in my house. although it might be a little expensive..
ALSO: In the channel Islands (where I live) especially in guernsey houses on the house market you can buy houses for very expensive prices e.g. ~£650k for a 3 bedroom town house...... it's crazy!
Yeah! I read loads of comments above about whether this was/wasn’t on the history syllabus. It wasn’t on mine but I’ve got a pretty serviceable knowledge just from reading and being interested.
I didn’t like new builds until my mum & dad got one & it’s beautiful. I get there some new builds that look horrific. I love how passionate George gets 😂
3:31 Good old Cardiff, recognised it instantly, literally less than 15 yeras old and already gone to pot, I'm glad I don't live there anymore so don't have to see those disgusting buildings when I go watch the bluebirds lol
Just wanted to say that the bright white paint on these new builds is actually probably to help combat heat in the summer. Light colours help reflect the sun, where as darker colours absorb the sunlight so the brighter it is the longer the house stays cool. Its a common thing in many hot countries. Of course certain construction materials and airflow also help keep a place cool in summer, not just the colour
Yeah, i'm in Southern Italy and ALL the houses/buildings are white or off-white with some that choose jazzy colors like Yellow or Pink. It DOES help with the heat (can't imagine Nottingham hitting 44c tbh though). The big houses done in the White and Grey is fine to me but for the love of God put some greenery there to break it up.
counterpoint: you can make a house white without making it ugly. Back in the Georgian era, they built a lot of white houses and a fair few of them actually look quite nice!
Our homes have a big influence on who we are. If you build places for people, you get communities. If you build places for things, then you can't be shocked when things turn up.
there's a new build site being built in the fields next to my house, and it's so sad to see those hostile-looking fake brick houses instead of trees and cows. plus half of the houses are being built on flood plains, i feel bad for the future residents
10:08 the developer think he was in the early 1800s or something lmao, there isn't any window tax mate, unless thats a concequence of energy efficient regulation in which case that's hilarious, when you fuck up the design by adding too many windows that you brick it up rather than just getting tripple glaze
Remember when houses and buildings used to be so gorgeously crafted. That you could tell the designer really put their whole soul into it…now it’s just plain and dull
I love my new build, considering some of the crap places you get for affordable housing I got so lucky. I think for council houses the new bills can be pretty crap sometimes probably depends on area
As much as i hate the majority of those houses i can't really knock the people who got ride of the gardens. After years of owning a house with a garden I'm sick of having to sort it out, it was bearable when it was for the kids but it never gets used now and is just yet another chore ontop of everything else . Give me extra parking space any day of the week.
When I was a college student, there were new houses being built near my college. I can’t describe what the houses looked like at the end, but as the building process went on, they got uglier and uglier, to the point where I felt sick every time I passed by them on the way home
My uk house pet peeve is the grey living rooms. Grey couches, greyish white floors, grey wallpapers, grey and silver tables, silver lamps, grey accent cushions (yes I'm looking at my families living room right now.)
Some of these houses are so bad I just want to spend 6 years getting a degree in architecture for the sole purpose of proving these developers wrong. 😂😢
Greyworld! This is my partners favourite game; driving around and spotting the latest Greyworld addition in our community. Always inflated like a house on steroids; no colour no garden or plants just a charmless block of grey surrounded by a car park.
(2:00) When it comes to fake material, like fake marble, fake wood, and such, it's not the actual material. So it's pretending to be made out of something it isn't made out of. But behind those fake bricks, there are actual bricks. So the houses are still made out of bricks. They're just covered with an attempt to look like nicer bricks, while still being made out of bricks.
@@Liggliluff Sorry, what I meant was most houses in the UK are made of breeze blocks, covered with a facing of brick nowadays. If you watch houses being built you will see that is true.
this is just like the minimalist trend here in the states, i fucking lose my mind with rage when i see a gorgeous victorian era house turned into a black-and-white nightmare
I hate new builds too, an area near mine looked nicer when it was an abandoned car park and pub (Also war of the roses and the English civil war are two different things, they are still both are civil wars tho)
The vast majority of New-Builds in the UK are shocking inside and out - measurements not matching up, thin walls and windows, damp setting in, the ability to hear your neighbours literally at talking-level noise. Plug sockets not straight, cracked bricks, built-up gardens that are shared with others etc. I purchased a new-build a couple of years ago, but it was a one-off property built on its own, and its not overlooked and stretches out onto a field behind it. I was involved with the development and speccing it so choosing the kitchen, tiles, flooring, lighting and electronics etc. I watched it going up and I have to say they did a fantastic job, house is rock solid, everything is picture perfect (I got very lucky) - but 95%+ are just thin nasty properties that aren't meant to last
Not anymore theyre not . they're either concrete blocks. Thermalite panels or timber frame with an outer course of bricks. To make them look "traditional" Just not as solid as a fully brick house
Well, I like the style of older houses, but I do realise that neither of those newly built old-style houses are easily accessible to people with wheelchairs or the elderly. As for the energy preservation, you guys build crap, it's like you never heard of insulation. I'm from Scandinavia and an acquaintance bought a house in the UK. As the Scandinavian he is, he insulated the house directly. Come winter and there were some snow, his neighbours started to gossip that he couldn't afford to heat the house, as the snow didn't melt on the roof on his house while it did on theirs. He had a basking 25 C indoors.... We have a saying that you shouldn't heat for the crows, that is what you do when you don't insulate your houses.
