HOW much living space do we actually need? I recently heard about a four-storey Victorian house in London that has been converted into 14 tiny flats, with fold-up beds, miniature shower rooms and built-in storage units. A set of stairs, leading to the bed, pulls out to make a dining table. A fitted kitchen is tucked behind folding doors. Each studio apartment is 18sq ft - smaller than an average budget hotel room.

Micro-apartments are becoming quite a trend, with rising numbers of developers converting older properties into them. Could this be a solution to the housing crisis - and, in the process, change the way we live?

In this fast-moving digital age, possessions we own - especially younger people who’ve grown up with laptops, iPads and the like - are scaled down in size and number. When I started university, 30 years ago, I took a car load of stuff, including a clunky stack stereo with speakers, a box of tapes, a pinboard and a huge trunk filled with books. I’d imagine today’s students and twenty-somethings have a more minimalist lifestyle.

There probably aren’t many millennials with rows of bookcases cluttering up their flat-shares. Even the way they watch TV has changed - why take up valuable space with a TV set when they can watch programmes on a laptop or smartphone? So maybe people don’t need so much space these days. Micro-flats might be a good idea, especially as starter homes.

They’ve been doing it in Japan for a while. In Tokyo, one of the most overcrowded cities in the world, landlords have developed shared houses comprised of pods – basically sleeping spaces with just enough room for a few clothes and possessions – stacked on top of each other. Not for the claustrophobic, I guess, but for busy young professionals who spend most of their time at work or out and about, it’s just somewhere to lay the head.

It is when we face the upheaval of moving house - something I have done three times in the last two years - that we realise how much stuff we have, and how little we need most of it. Over the past year I cleared out my late parents’ home, carefully going through their things deciding what to keep and what to let go, and discarding much of my own clutter too.

I recently moved to a much smaller house and have been forced to scale down my possessions even further to fit the space. It’s been quite a cleansing process, and I’ve come to see that I really don’t need the things I’ve accumulated over the years. Why did I collect so many mugs? Why did I keep all those cheap dog-eared paperbacks I will never read again? Why did I hold onto clothes from long ago that I’ll never wear again? Did I really need four sets of cutlery?

There are some things I will never part with, but downsizing has made me realise that I can do without a whole load of stuff. “I reckon I could live in a caravan when I’m retired,” I told my partner, after offloading another load of bin-liners at the charity shop. Raising an eyebrow, he reminded me what is covering the spare room floor; files filled with cuttings of my work, stacks of photo albums, childhood toys, my old dolls house, letters and cards, vinyl albums, an antique sewing-machine, schoolbooks, even my old Guide uniform.

The flotsam and jetsam of life that I’m not ready to let go. Maybe micro-living isn’t for me...but at least I don’t have four sets of cutlery anymore.