>leasing expensive shop units to students

I guess snails were not available at the time https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/04/... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46241159

I can't speak for this one, but I've stayed in a bunch of these over the years and they're exactly as quoted in the article - better than a hostel, worse than a hotel. Because the rate is higher than a hostel, it prices out the bottom rung crowd, and because the architecture explicitly prioritizes privacy over socialization, the visitors tend to be more respectful of one another. As such, it's quiet and clean enough, although obviously if you are sleeping next to a bunch of other people you may hear some snoring, farts, sleeptalking etc.

Some of these are better sound-proofed than others. Some even have little TVs or radios inside, but I've never found that worse than traffic or construction noise if you're anyway in the city. There's always earplugs.

Shared bathrooms suck, especially if you need to be out during "rush hour" when everyone else also needs to be out, but for a saving of $100+ per night there's plenty of people who would gladly accept holding their pee for a few minutes and/or getting into an already-steamed-up and damp shower cubicle. Most people gotta work 4 hours to make that kind of money back.

When I was commuting back to London for work I tried a hostel in Central London, I think it was about £25 a night 9 years ago. The room itself was clean and 'only' 6 people in it.

The main lobby was nice and a pint was a reasonable price - I sat there after having dinner at work, and read a book, which felt pretty nice to be honest.

The bed was comfy, with clean good smelling sheets.

But there were three issues that meant I went back to relying on friends and family until I got a local job.

1. Someone's feet smelt terrible - so bad it was hard to sleep

2. Someone snored loadly - it was even harder to sleep

3. The shower was grimy. I was lucky to have a ThirdSpace membership so showered there instead

It was a bargain and saved me traveling after a long day of work and having to be social after a very early start to get to London on the Monday. But the better option for me was to find a suitable local job and not do the extra long week commute. (I was also missing my family loads too, so it was never a longer term option for me).

I stayed at this exact location earlier this year. The showers are in individual stalls (felt private enough to me) and quite clean. You could hear other people occasionally but there wasn't any socialising and there's no space for it anyway. Spaces felt safe/cozy (unusually good light/sound design helped a lot I felt), although the lack of any storage/work space makes it less practical than a hotel room for longer stays. The audience was probably 80% tourists and 20% working poor.

I wouldn't worry about fire: it seems to be quite modern so most likely has quite some fire equipment and concrete. Common parts from the pictures don't seem to have much flammable stuff. Last time I stayed in London was in a hotel assembled from multiple old 3-4 floors buildings and multiple old wooden staircases, like to go to your room you had to go to floor 2 then end of a corridor then to floor 3 and right left and stuff like this in 1-person wide corridors and stairs. There I was scared of a fire because there was definitely a feeling of no way to escape fast.

There are definitely backpacker/frugal traveller-oriented capsule-ish hotels in Japan. For example, in some rural resorts like Hakone.

Really? I spent a few nights in a capsule hotel in Shinjuku (Tokyo) and the experience was great. It was cheap, quiet, clean, and had everything I wanted (quiet private space, free coffee and "onsen" bath. Would definitely recommend.

That's hell. So most of the time you are away from your home and probably from your family if you have one. If you don't have one - you are leaving your home unwatched most of the time. You pay for 2 places instead of 1. 3-5 hrs commute away from your job - that's nuts by itself.

What you should dream of instead - most jobs becoming remote or physically proximal to where you live.

In 2023 I stayed in a capsule hotel in Bilbao. There I was told at check in that no talking or loudspeakers of any kind is allow in the capsules. That can only be done in the lounge area.

I spent 3 nights and got much better sleep than I would have at a hostel.

The ultra wealthy live in a very small number of buildings that have no meaningful impact on rental prices for normal people. The high end buildings that are mostly empty have rents starting at £3k/month for a studio, which is completely out of reach for normal people. London’s problem is the U.K’s problem: not enough housing is being built.

The middle-wealthy landlords are the people profiteering off of normal-people housing, but they are a symptom of not building enough.

I just checked this link and every day in Jan was under £40

https://zedwellhotels.com/locations/london/piccadilly-circus...

Edit, Jan 1 is £48

Depends on a person I guess. I suffer in shared rooms and it's exhausting both physically and mentally for me. At the same time the few times I was in a capsule hotel were between OK and great - I just need a clean private space to rest and that's it.

Fully agree on forced RTO being evil.

*single-sized coffin, more like. They're only one meter wide

Cities have always been places where people are consumed and converted into capital.

> Try telling the boomer generation that they have to work in the city center

They would say "no", which is exactly what you young people should be doing.

3M X5A + earbuds, you'll never hear a thing.

It sounds great to me. I travel regularly for work, and when doing so I work and sleep with no social life. I get as much work done as possible and then I go back to my house and family. I don’t need a big room or anything really, because I’m just there for work. They obviously don’t fit every use case.

I definitely shouldn’t have to pay more for a hotel because other people are claustrophobic. And the fire thing is a red herring, in a modern city there are fire codes and inspections - presumably this is very regulated. You’re almost certainly less safe staying in an unregulated air bnb, people have died in airbnb fires.

See https://montrealgazette.com/news/owner-of-old-montreal-build... for example

Can't believe this is the only comment with this sentiment. I find the entire thing horrific.

The fact that so many here say "sounds perfect, I just want somewhere to sleep" is even more worrying.

You misread the story: it's not a house, just a cheaper hotel room.

If you have to do this 4-5 days a week, sure, but what if you only have a couple of days of meetings? Seems ideal just as a cheap and safe place to crash privately for a night.

You will own nothing, and you'll be pretty miserable as well

The only appropriate response to such a proposition.

Would be unpleasant, but asphyxiating from gradual CO2 increase isn’t really possible unless you’re dead drunk.

Your body measures CO2 (not O2), and will escalate to full-blown panic will before it’s particularly dangerous. You’d leave on your own.

> You’re one air con fuckup from asphyxiating on your own CO2 by the looks of it.

You might as well say the same thing about any sealed building, like virtually every skyscraper, or honestly most hotels I've stayed in (without exterior windows that you can open).

Buildings have air ducts for forced air flow. This isn't any different. Each capsule has one vent for fresh air, another that removes the air. It's the same way regular rooms work.

And oxygen and CO2 diffuse through air and ducts anyways, passively, even if blower fans fail. Plus there are additional gaps anyways for safety. You're not going to suffocate. They do actually think about these things in building codes. You're not allowed to build rooms that would suffocate someone if mechanical fans failed.

I would guess there is passive ventilation too, they're not hermetic. You'd get stuffy/uncomfortable, but it's not like you'd... suffocate and die?

The story clearly mentions people who have no such choice but have to go to the city because their work requires it, and wouldn't spend 250$ per night to meet such requirement.