Inside The Cosmopolitan House...

Nearly a year ago, we promised to house readers struggling with the cost of rent in the capital. These 10 wome saw our shout-out. This is their story...

- Amy Grier

The bus pulled away, and Sophie Lane burst into tears. As the last chugs of exhaust fumes faded into the darkness, and the tail lights grew dimmer, she wearily pulled out her phone and called the only person who might listen at 11 o’clock at night.

“Mum..?”

“Sophie, are you OK? What’s wrong?” her mother asked anxiously, 190 miles away in Shropshire.

“I missed the last bus,” she said, wearily.

She then spent the next 15 minutes listing the frustrations of her day: working late to impress her boss at the music-industry internship in central London she’d fought so hard to get; train delays to Crawley because of ongoing strikes; getting off at the wrong stop in a fog of exhaustion; missing the last bus back to her grandparents’ house three miles away (the closest people she knew near London); and knowing the only option was a £20 taxi journey – taking her daily cost for commuting to £50, which was nearly half of what she had earned that day.

“I can’t do this anymore. It’s been months,” sighed Sophie, calmer after a quick cry. “There has to be another way.”

Not far away in Surrey, Stephanie Dale was sitting down to dinner with her parents. She knew she was lucky to have a supportive family, who put her up and allowed her to come and go as she pleased while she set about starting and growing her own video-editing business – making the two-hour round-trip commute to a part-time job in London three days a week to pay the bills. Still, as she went to bed in her old childhood room, unwanted thoughts plagued her. Mainly: would she ever be able to afford to move out and move on with her life? Her friends, now 30, like her, had started considering their exodus from the city – just as she was trying to get in. Had she left it too late to hit the big time in the capital?