Our enthusiasm for Zoom quizzes and making sourdough quickly waned, but the pandemic has changed our home lives in more enduring ways. There’s our new-found appreciation of domestic workers, for one thing. And our love affair with house plants shows no sign of withering. However, much like Covid and all its variants, there are many things we’d rather see the back of in 2022.
Going up
Cleaners
What?! You have one? Can I have their number? A combination of Brexit and Covid has meant cleaners are scarce and, as such, are highly prized — and highly paid. A friend says hers charges £20 an hour and has stopped working on Fridays because she’s earning enough doing four days a week. Poaching is rife. Trust no one. See also: nannies, au pairs, gardeners, housekeepers.
Instagram side hustle
With the shops shuttered through lockdowns, purveyors of brown furniture and bric-a-brac had to get creative and now there are more people peddling wares on Insta than you can shake a brass candlestick at. While we are all for sustainability and love a bargain, we question whether anyone really wants a pair of Staffordshire toby jugs.
Your local WhatsApp group
Can anyone recommend an upholsterer/tree surgeon/plasterer/babysitter/harpist? Will you give some baby stick insects a home? Virtual community groups on WhatsApp and Nextdoor have mushroomed since the pandemic began, connecting, amusing and maddening us in equal measure. People have used them for advice, to help the vulnerable and even to buy and sell houses. Note: the mute function is critical.
House plants
Our homes are now lush and verdant, replete with Chinese money plants and bamboo palms. If we haven’t managed to kill them all, that is.
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Going down
Cockapoos
They are passé – not to mention pricey. To judge from all the Instagram shots of cockapoos looking mournful in jumpers and coats, or sitting on the sofa next to a succulent, the hipster lockdown dog purchase of choice was the whippet.
The pits
You paid £350 for a fire pit in autumn 2020 and have used it once — not least because you’re now deeply troubled about its environmental impact. Other items filed under “pandemic panic purchase I now wholeheartedly regret” include: exercise bike, rowing machine, hot tub, pizza oven.
Overzealous lockdown clearouts
We felt so virtuous when we systematically tidied all our drawers and cupboards during lockdown, but now we actually need some of the things we’ve chucked or given away. So we’re on eBay/Etsy/Instagram/Amazon buying them all back.
Building delays
Has anyone seen my builder? He hasn’t turned up since mid-September and my extension is half-finished. Builders are in desperately short supply, which means they can pick and choose what work they do. And the materials crisis is piling on the misery and the costs — the lead time for bricks is up to 26 weeks.
Open-plan living
Great until everyone was stuck together under the same roof and the sound of Disney+ kept coming through on Zoom work calls. I’d put up some walls – if I could get a builder . . .
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The stockpilers
Has Omicron made you even more convinced that, one day, the 76 cans of cannellini beans and 25 jumbo packs of loo paper in the basement will come into their own? Shame on you.
