This Crowded House is a new four part series for RTÉ2 that intervenes in the not-so-unusual phenomenon of adults in their 20s and 30s who are living at home with their parents. In July, latest figures from the Central Statistics Office revealed that almost 460,000 adults over 18 still live at home. It confirms the Eurostat 2016 survey that found that almost 23% – or 1 in 4 Irish adults – over 25 are living in the family home.
Presented by Brendan Courtney, This Crowded House follows the journey of eight different Irish families as their adult children try to figure out how to move out. Brendan helps these adult children explore their options in this current tricky housing market, as well as helping them get on the right financial path to independent futures, calling on the necessary expertise where needed.
Episode 1 of 4
This week, Brendan Courtney meets a pair of boomerang bunk bed brothers in their 20s, struggling being back under their parents’ roof and feeling the pressure to move out and get their independence once again.
Brendan also meets a young couple considering a rather alternative and, what many would consider, extreme approach to gaining some privacy in their crowded house – living in a cabin in their parents’ garden!
Andy and Daithí Kennedy are back living in their parents’ beautiful, bijou, but undeniably petite 2-bed cottage in Palmerstown in Dublin. As the brothers try and find a home to share with a group of friends, it’s not long before their housing requirements fall foul to the cut-throat Dublin rental market.
As the brothers bear the brunt of the current housing crisis over several weeks, will they surrender their fight and stay at home or make one final attempt to abandon their bunk beds?
Meanwhile, for 20-year-old Casey Weafer and her boyfriend Maksim Jancenko, living under Casey’s parents’ roof in Clondalkin has become too much for this pair of young lovebirds. The couple are still in college however whilst working part-time, and so don’t want to waste their money on rent when they could be saving for their future mortgage deposit.
They have an ambitious but short-term vision to get a little love nest – purchase a cabin and put it in their parents’ spacious back garden whilst trying to save enough over 5 years to move out and buy. Mum Joan & Dad Frank seem ok with this idea, but Brendan isn’t as sure and so he brings them on a journey exploring all their options that work for them as a family in the long-term.
Will Casey get her way and get her love shack, or will mum Joan turn Casey’s dream on its head and get her own way?
