Things had come to a pass in my last flatshare. It’s possible that the living arrangements were unique, even in Dublin’s pressurised rental market: two permanently locked sitting rooms, for the sole use of the landlady; a bin storage area that meant the bin had to be lifted over a 4ft fence on collection day (“Simple,” said the landlady, “just take the refuse bags out when you’re lifting it over”); mould patches in the kitchen; an old fridge on the landing; and the “indoor garden” effect of virginia creeper pushing through a window in an empty bedroom.
Call me fussy, but I reckoned it was time to move. When a neighbour began posting clumps of eucalyptus bark through our letterbox, I knew I had made the right decision.
I’d heard it was a bad time to hunt for a flat, with tales of rent gazumping, queues for viewings, and letting agents requiring bank statements, multiple references and MRI scans before deigning to deal with you. Yet it wasn’t until I started my search that I saw the doom-mongers weren’t just doom-mongering for kicks.
First, there are hours spent every day on daft.ie, a grimly draining experience. Having to look at so many photos of bad decor induces a sort of reverse Stendhal syndrome that makes you want to climb back under the duvet. In fact, I wonder if landlord-chosen decor is a psych-ops move by property owners. After all, if you can depress your tenant by exposure to a series of grippingly ugly 1970s carpets and fittings, they will be too demoralised to demand what little rights they do have. It’s possible that the three Fs have been reinterpreted for today’s Irish tenants to include the right to foul curtains.
Of course, it’s unfair to say all rental property is of the dank 1970s stereotype; there’s also a more modern template of ugliness. An enormous black PVC sofa matched with a beige vinyl floor seems to be a popular style — a look you could probably describe as “wipe-clean”.
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Then there are the viewings. To sidestep letting agents, I was seeking a room in a house-share. In the old days, you just turned up, tried not to betray any antisocial tendencies during the tour of the house, and then agreed to take the room. Not any longer. Sitting tenants now have to select one new flatmate out of the hundreds that have contacted them promising rubies without number in exchange for the boxroom beside the bog.
The audition process is unforgiving. As the tenants sit on a sofa, scrutinising your every tic, you give a gushing performance of what a responsible, fun and tidy potential flatmate you are, gamely keeping up the talk while pretending not to notice that they have just exchanged a “this one’s a no” glance at each other.
Then there are places that look great in the picture, until you see them in person. The grand house in Donnybrook with high ceilings and beautiful plasterwork, but whose carpets looked as if they had seen more living and dying than a season of Game of Thrones; the handy little townhouse in Smithfield, perfect except for the absence of a bedroom door. Each one another wasted evening of viewing.
And all of that without even thinking of the rents, which seem to indicate the cheerless digs of Dublin are being priced to attract passing sultans and oligarchs.
Yes, it’s a jungle out there. Perhaps I should have stuck with the lovely indoor garden.