Student’s Snapchat exposes the state of Dublin’s rental crisis

Finding a place to live in Dublin is hard.

Finding a place to live in Dublin when you're a student is even harder. Amidst reports of rental scams, sky high rent, and accommodation so dodge you wouldn't even want to stay in it for a night, it's safe to say that finding a decent gaf in Dublin is no easy feat. To highlight just how dire this situation is, UCD's Student Union have taken to Snapchat to show exactly what students in Dublin are being offered as living quarters. And as expected, it wasn't great. UCD SU president Katie Ascough went undercover on the popular social media app to shed some light on the kind of accommodation being offered to students. The first place she viewed was a house in Crumlin. A room there cost €250 a month to rent which, as Katie said herself, is "dirt cheap." The room in question was actually a sitting room with a bunk bed in the corner above the sitting room couch. Katie said that the bed was "basically, a grill of metal bars propped up by a cheap, DIY timber frame.” The other three bedrooms in the house were being shared by six people. Katie finished that snap by urging students to "be careful" when looking for a spot to live. She also commented that the smell of the house was "like old granny feet mixed with mould." The second student accommodation that Katie viewed was a room in a house in Kilmainham. This room was going for €300 a month, and offered a single bed in a bedroom with two other single beds right next to it. There was also a lot of mould. Afterwards, Katie commented on the "crampedness" of the house, saying that the three beds side-by-side were "shocking." She then encouraged people to contact UCD's accommodation officer if they were struggling to find a place to stay. With CAO offers having just been released this morning, hundreds of students are probably desperately seeking somewhere to live right now. And even though student housing developments are on the rise, many people are still having to resort to mouldy rooms and incredibly cramped living conditions. Images via UCD Students Union.