17 Things About British Homes That Americans Think Are Weird

Why is gurgling? And now it's banging? And why are some parts scorching and others are still cold?

1. A detached house is a luxury, and most people live in terraced houses.

Look, we live on a small island so we can't all have the luxury of not sharing walls with neighbours.

2. We have seperate taps for hot and cold water.

Nothing wakes you up more in the morning than darting your hands between a stream of scorching water and then freezing water.

3. And those terraced houses are also tiny.

View image on Twitter — The already-small Victorian terraced homes are often split into several flats.

4. And the toilet isn't always in the same room as the rest of the bathroom.

5. We actually have kettles.

We use freshly boiled water to make our tea, rather than microwaving room-temperature water like savages.

6. We keep the washing machine in the kitchen.

Sure, you may think it's weird, but surely it's a lot weirder to haul all your dirty underwear out of your house and into a public space, where you have to pay to watch said dirty underwear be washed in front of strangers?

7. We also don't have dryers, so we use the magic that is the atmosphere to dry our clothing.

We barely have the space for washing machines, let alone dryers. Some washing machines claim to be both, but they're lying.

8. If a home is in a block, it's called a "flat", not an "apartment".

Some estate agents use the word "apartment" in advertisements to try and make a property seem more fancy, which usually means it's a shithole.

9. Every house has central heating and all radiators are strange and terrifying.

10. Many of our buildings are older than the USA itself.

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The United States of America became an independent nation in in 1776. The flat I lived in while I was at uni was built in 1774.

11. We don't have separate little tiny homes for our mail in front of our houses.

Our letters are just stuffed through a small slot in our door and left to their own devices.

12. Our plugs are huge and therefore even more painful if you step on them.

13. But they're a lot safer because they actually have an on and off switch!

14. The light switch in the bathroom is on a string.

15. We don't have air conditioning, because it only gets hot enough to warrant it once a year, at best.

However, on that one hot day, boy do we lament our lack of air conditioning.

16. Very few people have cellars.

Probably not a good thing in the advent of a nuclear war, but at least there are fewer spooky places for ghosts to haunt in our homes.

17. And of course, very few of us can actually afford to buy these weird little houses, but that's not very specific to Britain alone.

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Excuse me whilst I cry into my avocado toast.

17 "Facts" You Thought Were True But Are Actually Totally False

1. Dogs do not see in black and white. psychologytoday.com Dogs only see a limited spectrum of colors compared to humans, but that old "fact" you've heard about dogs seeing in only shades of grey isn't true. To a dog, the world is mostly shades of blue, yellow, and grey . 2. Sitting too close to the TV won't harm your eyes more. Christine Mariner / Getty Images While watching a lot of TV can cause eye fatigue and potentially harm your vision, sitting too close doesn't make much of a difference , if any. However, this myth was true back before the 1950s, when companies made televisions that emitted dangerous levels of radiation ...up to 100,000 times more than what federal officials deemed safe. 3. Lemmings don't run off cliffs. Tinieder / Getty Images The myth about lemmings committing suicide by running off cliffs came about from the 1950s nature documentary White Wilderness , produced by Dis...

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