From the left: Roos, Floor, Ate and Sander. Photo Guy Ackermans There are student houses and there are weird and wonderful student houses. In this column we visit the latter. This time it’s Emmapark.
House: Emmapark
Residents: Ate Frijters, Floor Kutsch Lojenga, Roos van Haeff, Sander Eradus, Tijmen van Rietbergen, Veronica Leonard
Unique because: everyone is a member of Argo rowing club
Sander: ‘There are about ten Argo houses. Most of them are fairly recent. This house has been a student house for five years now.’
Roos: ‘There was even a court case about it. The neighbourhood was afraid that a student house would disrupt the “cohesion of the neighbourhood”. That case is still used as a case study in law degrees.’
Ate: ‘We have good relations with the neighbours, by the way.’
Roos: ‘Of course they hear a bit of noise sometimes, but we have each other’s telephone number so it is always quickly solved.’
Ate: ‘We don’t do as much maintenance as the neighbours. Drilling in the walls when you’re studying at home is as big a problem as a party at night.’
Roos: ‘It’s because of the landlord that only Argo members live here. Or actually, because of his wife, who was once a fanatical rower with Argo.’
Ate: ‘To start with, a lot of competitive rowers lived here, and it was a really healthy house. You had to watch your diet, your sleep, and not drink…’.
Sander: ‘It’s not like that anymore, though.’
Ate: ‘It is nice to be a club house, but also a bit limiting. It can make it difficult to find a new housemate, especially now that there are lots of rooms available. At the start of the year there was a room shortage, but now a lot of people are looking for housemates.’
Roos: ‘When we have new housemates, we take them to all the Argo houses to show them off. Then they know where all the houses are from the start.’
Sander: ‘And everyone knows the new resident.’
Floor: ‘I moved in just after New Year’s Eve. We had picked up a Christmas tree somewhere nearby, which I had to take along with me and offer to every house. Of course, no one wanted a Christmas tree on 15 January so I had to lug it everywhere with me.’
Sander: ‘In the end, it ended up in the Hoogstraat, where it stayed until last week.’
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