It is obvious that coming back home and not having the water heater working properly is not normal and something you should not stand. Even less when living in a residence paying absurd amounts of money. So, what if I tell you that this has happened probably to all apartments in the student accommodations around DCU. 

But first, let me introduce the current living situation around DCU. There are four main Student Residences they all share the same characteristics and similar prices, with slight changes depending on the size of the room and bed. These residences include: on-campus, College Park and Hampstead as well as outside campus but still only two minutes away, Shanowen Hall and Shanowen Square. All the apartments in any of the residences mentioned will be equipped with a private and personal bathroom per person. Each apartment is consisting of four to five of these room combinations depending on the size of the apartment itself. All apartments include a common lounge and a kitchen for sharing between roommates. 

Some of the main advantages one can find in these residencies are the security guards which operate 24 hours a day as well as a laundry room, equipped with washing machines and dryers for a cost of three euro each per use.  

Enough of the good, let’s get down to reality and my time in one of the mentioned residencies. First of all, the lack of attention for students by residence employees has to be mentioned. A perfect example is a bizarre experience I had last year. While living on-campus I had a pigeon nest next to my window when I realized it was not going to change by itself, I called the security of the residence, in order to solve it. Their answer and solution was that they could do nothing about it and told me to keep the window closed. A few days later, I forgot my window slightly open, not more than five or six centimetres and on that night when I came back to my room, I found a pigeon flying around my room with his nest, including a couple of eggs, on top of my closet. When I called the security and told them what was happening, they started laughing and told me to fix it by myself. I called them again after a couple of tries and luckily one man offered me his help and fixed it. Nevertheless, it took me over an hour to get attended. Another huge issue has been the heater, including the water heater, of the apartments which seemed to work whenever it wanted to, but never when needed. These kind of things are completely out of place and are the reason for a lot of annoyance on the part of tenants.

The biggest problem of all is the exploitation of students due to the absurd amounts these residences request to pay. It is evidence that Irish accommodations are very expensive, even if you are renting an apartment from an individual, compared with other European countries. With quick research on the cost of accommodation in campus or close to it, you will realize that the nine months time you will have to spend at DCU per academic year will cost an exaggerated amount of €6.500 to €9.000. 

Now, you might think that these prices might belong to luxury apartments, but the exact opposite is the case. Apart from a few cases, the apartments are small and antiquated and not equipped with all the necessary items to make life comfortable.

At first sight, everyone with common sense is aware that these prices are completely exaggerated and usurious and nobody would be ‘stupid’ enough to think of renting at this price. The question you have to ask yourself is, “what other options does an international student or someone who lives far outside of Dublin have?”. 

The answer is, (almost) none!

Nevertheless, this mentioned grouping has to rent something somewhere. The question is “where if not in the mentioned residences?”. 

 When looking for other residences which are further from DCU, we could find some options, such as individual apartments or rental agencies which are possibly cheaper and could offer higher comfort and more facilities than the residences mentioned above. The downside is that these mentioned options are difficult to find as Dublin has a huge housing shortage. Furthermore, the distance towards DCU campus would most likely increase, therefore additional costs for travelling towards the lectures would occur.  

In conclusion, one can say, that student accommodations make use of the current housing shortage and rising rents in general in order to maximise their profit at students’ expense.

So I guess we students have no other choice but to choose one of the antiquated cooking systems provided to us, which will take you at least twenty minutes for cooking the easiest and quickest meal, to prepare our next meal.

Arturo Lopez Sanchez