Confessions of a sofa surfer

Blanche DuBois may have depended on the kindness of strangers, but I prefer to rely on that of my friends – especially those with a spare room, or even just a sofa.

I own two flats in Marylebone and am renting another in New York's Hell's Kitchen, but a grim combination of circumstances (I blame my estate agents) left me stranded in London and, despite owning a key ring to rival Peter Rackman's, homeless. I couldn't afford a hotel. There was no room in the Big Brother house. So I texted a friend who lives with her husband and two children in Clerkenwell, asking her if I could rent the spare room for a few weeks. She phoned me straight back and told me not to be silly, and to come to stay. And so I became a sofa surfer.

I am one of a growing band who criss-cross London in cabs from friend to friend, belongings squashed, in my case, into three very large suitcases. Some have lost their jobs, others' relationships have ended and left them homeless as well as loveless. One of my friends had both happen at once: '2010 is my year of penury,' he explains. 'I separated from my long-term partner and lost my job at the age of 46 and a new job was hard to find in the middle of a recession.' Not having enough money to cover his mortgage and loans, he rented out his flat. 'This environment forces people to do slightly crazy things, but I did not have enough income to support myself. There is no workhouse any more, and because I am middle class and own a property, the Citizens Advice Bureau told me there were no benefits to help me. I had to rely on my friends and started sofa surfing.' In my case, I hoped that a month of futons would be all I needed to get back into my own flat.

It is a risk, though, because whoever you're staying with, unless it's your parents, your dependence shifts the balance of power in your relationship. If you owe someone the roof over your head, you don't feel like dishing out stern advice or cheeky put-downs in the same way as you might other-wise. 'You have to consider how much friendship you can cash in at an age when you really should not be in that kind of situation,' agrees a fellow surfer.

Over in Clerkenwell my friends were very welcoming. I responded with babysitting and trips to Waitrose, but when their three-year-old daughter woke me one morning at 6am with the question 'Are you staying forever?', I knew it was time to move on.

Less lucky than me was another friend who lost her job as a TV producer in Newcastle and, realising there was no work there and with a mortgage to pay, rented out her two-bedroom apartment and came to London. 'I eBayed everything I could because I couldn't afford storage and downsized to two suitcases,' she explains. 'I worked out a two-week rotation between eight friends.' It was the lack of privacy that ended this experiment after eight weeks. 'I was staying with a family in the kids' playroom and they would be in there late playing computer games. That was the tipping point; I took out another credit card and rented a studio in Bounds Green.' She is still looking for work.

I journeyed up north for a week with some friends who live in Lincolnshire – after stashing one of my suitcases in my Clerkenwell doss (every sofa surfer knows you should only arrive with two cases otherwise your presence looks permanent). I spent happy June days in the country, but another problem of being a sofa surfer is getting on with work. There is the constant hassle of trying to get on to someone else's broadband, and self-invited guests can't really demand a quiet study as well as a bedroom.

Also one spends a lot of time attempting to keep out of the way and not leave anything lying around. During my Lincolnshire idyll, an agile two-year-old unscrewed my Tiger Balm jar and rubbed the pungent unguent all over his body, hair and eyes. The prospect of the end of my friendship and, more importantly, losing my bed for the week ahead flashed before me.

I retreated back to London and moved in with a friend who lives on her own and had a spare room. No more children, no more accidents, I figured. But guests can never relax. Attempting to use her cooker, I gave myself several mild electric shocks from the ignition. Forgetting the GCSE physics that I never passed anyway, I poured water over it. The sparking flared up. Hours later I gave up and went to bed. My hostess returned to find the cooker smouldering and the water I'd sloshed about collecting in the cutlery drawer. She renamed me 'the kitchen destroyer'. The next day I caught a plane to New York.

LEARN TO SOFA SURF
Buy food and drink as soon as you get there. And loo roll.
Find things to do so you aren't hanging around the house. Go out every evening but one a week. And if you are all staying in, you cook.
Leave the place cleaner than when you arrived.
Don't rearrange the furniture to suit your needs.
If you are pleading penury, don't show off about the dinner you just had at Scott's. If you can afford that, why not stay in a hotel?
When you leave, buy something – eg, new towels – for the house.