I haven't heard rain dropping like pills on the roof since I left home some 15 years ago.
It's been flats for me ever since. Never higher than the second floor either.
It's not that I fear a staircase, shudder at an upstairs floorboard creaking or dread a leaking roof. It's just that I haven't seen a house I like that I can afford.
Viewed a flat tonight that I like. Can't afford it.
SHORT STORIES
I have written some. They are very good. And inexpensive. Some of them even take place inside and nearby nice houses. Tenuous link to site successfully forced/forged.