In three years of living in London, Emily Bingham moved house 13 times after being threatened physically and bullied mentally. She was pinned against walls, screamed at by flatmates and was frequently stitched up over household bills. At one point her parents had to step in and buy her out of a contract.

"I had just moved to London from Scotland and I was very naive. I didn't know I had to be tough or otherwise people just walk over you. Instead of causing a fuss, I would just move on."

Two years ago, Bingham was again looking for a flatmate. "I was reasonably fussy but couldn't believe how difficult it was to find someone suitable. I spent a month looking through Loot and had heaps of strangers traipsing through the place, and I thought 'There has to be something better out there.'"

"I knew online dating had become quite popular, so I spent days trawling the net but couldn't find anything. Some websites list all the properties available, but they keep changing constantly, and it doesn't help you find out about the personalities you are going to have to live with. That's when I came up with the idea for a dating agency-style website for shared accommodation.

Recent figures have put the number of people renting in London at two million and, says Bingham, "I can't believe they are all happy with their living arrangements." She reckons there is a perfect flatmate out there for every renter.

Bingham says she wanted to get across the fact that people do have options. "Even if you are a student on a limited budget, you can still do something."

Her solution is perfectflatmate.com, a website that promises to help you find a room to rent, or fill an empty room in a house. It costs £18 to register and if, after 28 days, a match has not been found, a refund is offered. Clients fill in a 24-question questionnaire that takes 15 minutes, where it is stressed that honesty is vital. There are basic questions such as age, gender, the amount you want to pay in rent and bills, and whether you smoke. It then moves on to issues that are the likely causes of friction in a household, such as housekeeping styles, and lifestyle and partying habits. A level of 75% compatibility is required to provide a match. The client is given the top 10 matches and can choose three to contact.

As the website says: "No one should have to go through the misery of sharing living space with someone they are completely incompatible with. Think how much time and effort we put into finding a perfect boyfriend/ girlfriend/husband/wife/partner to share our lives with and yet many of us share a home with people we have nothing in common with."

Bingham said the main difference with perfectflatmate.com from other sites is that all you need do is fill in the questionnaire. "As soon as someone compatible comes along, we email you. No personal information is given out, you are not bombarded with phonecalls, which happens when you advertise in some areas, and we do not impose anyone on the client."

After coming up with the idea, Bingham sat on it for six months before approaching her father, who thought it was a great idea. There was a web design company, Pole Position, which became involved and through them another company, Digital Roots, which built a bespoke database.

"We specified that the database had to be self-managing, and we did months of testing, which was really labour-intensive." The website has been trademarked, as has the logo, but to trademark the idea would cost several thousands of pounds, money that she doesn't have.

But Bingham now faces a dilemma. Having already spent £14,000, there is no money for marketing the site, and she relies on word of mouth. Perfectflatmate.com is registered on a website that tries to find venture capital, but because she has worked so hard on it, she is keen not to lose control. "I have spent a lot of time and effort building it up with Dad and the team and I don't really want someone to come along and change the feel of it."

The site has been live since February, with a number of successful matches to its credit. Bingham says successful match-making will really take off when the registrations number in the thousands. However, even when the site had less than 100 registered, the site still came up with a perfect match.