Two people on the same Lekki flat, both working remotely, both on calls, one router, one generator, and a standup at 9 and a client call at 4 that cannot be moved.
This is a genuinely new Lagos housing problem. The flats were designed for people who leave in the morning. Nobody laid them out for two engineers who never do.
Here is how to share a flat and still do deep work.
The four things that actually break remote work here
Not personality. Infrastructure and timing.
- Power. Your workday depends on it and it is shared.
- Bandwidth. One router, two video calls, two large pulls.
- Call collision. Two people talking loudly in a two-bedroom at the same hour.
- The blurred day. When nobody leaves, there is no natural break between work and home, for either of you.
Solve those four and remote flat-sharing is comfortable. Ignore them and no amount of goodwill helps.
Power: plan for it, do not hope
This is the one that costs real money and real work. Agree it explicitly:
- Who fuels the generator, and on what split. With petrol around ₦1,400 a litre at the time of writing and diesel higher, this is a serious monthly line, and it is a work expense for both of you.
- Generator hours. Particularly whether it runs through the working day, which is different from running in the evening.
- Inverter or backup. Splitting one is often cheaper than two people separately buying power banks and losing calls.
- Whose meeting wins when supply is limited. Decide it calmly now rather than at 3:55pm.
Before you take the flat, ask what the compound actually gets, and ask a resident rather than the agent.
Bandwidth: two plans, or one honest one
One router and two remote workers is usually a false economy. Two video calls plus a deployment will find the ceiling immediately.
Either budget for redundancy — two providers, or one main line and a well-funded phone hotspot — or agree who has priority during which hours. And if you are splitting one plan, split it properly: same figure, same day, no chasing.
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Calls: divide the map, then the clock
The simplest system, and it works.
Divide the map. Each person has a default call location — one takes the bedroom, the other takes the sitting room or the balcony. Not negotiated daily, just fixed. Then a shared rule that the kitchen is neutral ground where nobody is mid-meeting.
Divide the clock. Share your recurring meetings once, at the start. Standups, sprint ceremonies, that Thursday client call. You are not asking permission; you are removing surprise.
Signal focus. A closed door means heads-down. Headphones on means do not start a conversation. Two signals, agreed once, save a hundred small interruptions.
Our guide on flatmates with different work schedules goes deeper on clashing timetables, and there is a fuller piece on working from home in a shared apartment.
Pick the flat for the work
If you both work remotely, the layout matters more than the address.
- Two bedrooms beats a bigger one-bedroom. A door each is the whole game.
- Bedrooms not sharing a wall if you can manage it.
- A balcony or a second usable space is worth real money when both of you are talking.
- Check the street noise on a weekday morning, not a Sunday. Generators, traffic and roadside trade are your call background.
- Ask about the compound's power before anything else.
Along the Lekki corridor, remember the service charge often covers estate diesel — which can make a pricier-looking flat the cheaper one for two people who need daytime power.
Agree the interruption rule
One more thing worth settling explicitly, because it causes more quiet friction than anything else: what counts as an acceptable interruption.
When you both work from home, the other person is permanently available in a way a colleague never is. It becomes very easy to ask a small question fifteen times a day, and very hard to say that those fifteen questions cost you an hour of focus each time.
So agree two things. First, that non-urgent things get batched — written down and raised at a break, not delivered through a doorway. Second, that "are you free?" is the opening, not the question itself. It gives the other person a way to say "in twenty minutes" without it being a rejection.
Protect the non-work hours too
The quiet failure of remote flat-sharing is that the flat becomes an office with beds in it. Agree one or two things that are not work: the sitting room is not a call zone after a certain hour, and at least one shared meal a week where nobody has a laptop.
It sounds soft. It is the difference between a flatmate and a colleague you happen to sleep near.
Look for a layout that gives you both a door on shared apartments in Lekki, and ask about power before you ask about anything else.
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