‘I pay £580 a month to live in a disused care home’: Property guardians show us around

Katrina says she loves the communal aspect of guardianship, which is “somewhere between living in university halls, a block of flats and a fancy squat”.

She lives with “all sorts of people”, from lawyers to artists, sharing bathrooms, a kitchen and communal living areas, and regularly socialising.

But there are disagreements over things like noise, she says. And while Lowe, the company that manages the property, operates a stringent vetting process for its guardians, two residents have been asked to leave because of antisocial behaviour – one for alleged sexual harassment.

Lowe tells the BBC it acts “quickly and decisively” on the rare occasion someone breaches its standards and that the “overwhelming majority” of guardians go on to be “brilliant, community-minded residents”.