"Me and my friend have just baked some cupcakes, but she’s eaten too much and I don’t want any. Who wants to try one?""Does anyone have a soldering iron I could borrow?"

"I’ve got a bell pepper and half a bottle of milk I can’s use. Any takers?"

This is just a selection of the abundance of messages posted on the Facebook group of "the Black Boxes", the two blocks of student flats on Hildebrandpad behind the University of Applied Sciences Leiden. The flats house 504 students, each with a private living unit: a room measuring 24 square metres with a private kitchen and bathroom measuring three by three. The occupants don’t seem to miss having fellow residents to share with: the Facebook group reveals a lively community.

"We were all in the same boat when we got the flats", explains Tobias Schrama (21), a Life Science & Technology student. "Nobody knew how to connect a washing machine, how to arrange your flat conveniently or how much fabric you need for curtains. That’s how the Facebook group was born. That quickly led to activities organised by the same means: an evening playing ‘Werewolf’, watching television or eating pancakes together."

"Actually, I felt quite lonely at first", admits Business Studies student ChiHo Yip (22). He would often call on his neighbours, but they were less inclined to socialise, or were out all the time. "Then I discovered the Facebook page and became a member of the residents’ association and I got to know loads of great people."

The group grew and grew. They held a competition to choose the nicest flat, and everyone posted pictures of their newly decorated rooms. They drew up a "find your neighbours" document and made a map to show where people who had First Aid certificates or resuscitation qualifications lived. Schrama continues: "At one point, people started to sell more and more stuff via the group - from Ikea high-sleeper beds to sandwich toasters and red cherry shrimps, so we created a special ‘Marktplaats’ [like e-Bay] for the flats. We also have a document for collecting giveaways like ‘Superdieren’ and Albert Heijn-minis for the girls from Education and Child Studies, otherwise all those messages would drive you nuts."

Most of the residents are pleased with the group and react with sympathy to appeals like Maxine Lampers’ (21, Education and Child Studies): she was afraid to take her bottles to the bottle bank because a large spider had taken up residence in it. Screw drivers, game controllers and trimmers are exchanged via Facebook and everyone complains about the cleaning. Strikingly often, the occupants require wine or beer, but are eager to get rid of six-packs of non-alcoholic beer.

Yip adds: "There’s always a demand for chairs for a birthday party, or a mattress when someone comes to stay." Renita van Werkhoven, an Education and Child Studies student, says: "I collect screw caps from food jars for a colleague of my mother’s: a recycling company invests in the purchase and education of guide dogs in exchange for large quantities of caps. The whole block of flats helps me and new caps are posted through my letterbox every day."

Last year, a study on Leiden student accommodation revealed that the demand for self-contained accommodation is rising rapidly, particularly among students who currently share facilities. Students who still live at home are not as fussy about sharing a shower or kitchen.

Leiden still has a shortage of 3,650 student rooms, and this is mainly caused by new students who want to leave home within twelve months. There would be enough non-self contained rooms with shared facilities if the students who want to move to self-contained flats were able to do so, but there is a considerable lack of accommodation with private facilities.

The 2012 Apollo Monitor on student housing confirmed this discrepancy between supply and demand. The model calculates – on the basis of the qualitative demand and the housing supply that annually becomes available due to new builds/ renovation and students moving on – that an annual optimal building programme would be the best way to accommodate the needs of all the students. If that demand is to be met by 2020, Leiden needs to build 1,210 new units: only twenty rooms with shared facilities, 740 rooms with private facilities and 450 self-contained flats.

Schrama’s explanation for the popularity of "new digs" is that residents want the pros but not the cons of student housing.

"It’s up to you to make something of it, but it is just as easy to close the door of your room on the rest of the world."

"I’d be frightened of catching something if I shared a bathroom," claims Yara van Langen (22, International Relations and Chinese). "If I’m meeting friends, they usually come here: we don’t have to wait to use the kitchen and it’s not a big deal if you leave the washing up."

Psychology student Anne Sophie Naus (21) left her parents’ house to move into the "Black Boxes". "I wouldn’t want to live in a large student house. I’ve got my own place here but I still have contact with the neighbours – I share a cat with the guy next door." Van Langen says: "I moved fast when I heard about these flats. I was only on the waiting list for twelve days - it’s a fourteen-month wait now."

Agaath Bont (20, Psychology) agrees that the units are very popular: "I moved here from Klikspaanweg. It was good to share for a while, but enough’s enough. People sometimes ask whether I get lonely, but I really enjoy having a place of my own. This floor is very friendly – we’ve organised afternoon teas to get to know everyone on the corridor and we regularly get together for dinner or a barbecue. I think there should be more blocks of self-contained flats, but it would have been nice to have a communal living-room on each floor."

Although many occupants consciously decided to rent a room with private facilities, they still seemed to need some offline company, so Van Langen and other members of the residents’ association decided to set up a bar on the ground floor of the building: the "Chilldebrandpad".

"We got the idea from the Pelibar. We thought if we raised the rent by 3.70 Euros a month, we could set up a communal area with a bar, some large settees, table-football tables and billiard tables on the ground floor. The plans were ready, but then some residents got upset about the proposed increase in rent, so we had to shelve the idea."

Mark Schoonderwoerd (22), a Biology and Medical Laboratory Research student living on "party floor four", claims that that’s the reason he dislikes the Facebook group. "Whatever you try and organise, there’s always someone who complains", he says as he throws a ball for a huge German shepherd belonging to a neighbour on the same corridor.

Last year, he and two of his friends bought one-and-a-half kilometres of orange flags for the European football championship.

"We went round all the flats to ask people to attach them to their windows, but although we’d had some great response, some people refused to let us in. Then people complained on Facebook about the noise the flags created in the wind. And some people didn’t like our plans to host a Hildebrand version of the Olympics."

Moreover, Schoonderwoerd thinks that the Facebook group is rather detached. "If you want some sugar, don’t get on your computer – knock on doors. I know nearly everyone on this floor. We held a party within a week of moving in. We go out a lot and hold barbecues too." Their offline strategy seems to be working, because all the other floors mention their parties.

Wouldn’t Schoonderwoerd like to live in a "regular" student flat, where his typically student plans might be received with more enthusiasm? "I used to be a member of Quintus and I didn’t want to have to face more student life when I got home. Besides, I hate having to wash up twenty pans before I can cook my own meal."

Schrama, the Facebook group moderator, also admits that all the moaning drives him round the bend, but he can also see the advantages.

"You put your name down for an apartment, so as far as that goes, this social atmosphere is unique. You’re always going to get people who gripe and moan when so many people are online in the same place. ‘The Black Boxes’ are like a miniature version of The Netherlands – there is always something to moan about".