By Brídín Ní Fhearraigh-Joyce,Jerome O’Connell

Copyright limerickleader

STUDENTS from up and down the country are frantically searching for accommodation in Limerick. I went through the same process in July when I moved from Dublin to work as a reporter for Iconic Media in the Limerick Leader offices. Despite getting in before the student accommodation rush, my quest for a room was not without misadventure. The first house viewing I attended was near the Crescent Shopping Centre. The tenants did not know who the landlord was and the gaff was covered in black mould – which was not evident in the pictures posted in the listing. I should have realised there would be a catch involved, with the rent as low as €350. The girls who showed me the viewing said they had given a viewing to a woman before me who said that she and her friends would take every room in the house – so it was unlikely that there would be any space for me. READ MORE: New role for former RTE Mid-West correspondent in Limerick The next viewing was worse again. A man in his 30s showed me a smelly room and gave me a list of terms and conditions. The man – who was not the landlord – said I was to use the washing machine no more than once a week, that I was not permitted to have any overnight guests – not even my parents – and that I should limit the time I spend in the kitchen. Before I was presented with this list of regulations, I complimented him on the cleanliness of the house’s downstairs, to which he replied: “thank you. My wife loves to clean.” Disaster struck again that day when I was contacted by a would-be scammer who saw my post on Facebook seeking accommodation. The man was offering an apartment on the very street that I work at and the rent was reasonable. There was one catch though – he was out of the country and could not show me the property. When I questioned him on this, he said I could go and look at the outside of the flat. In the second attempt to scam me, I was asked to pay a “viewing fee” of €80 to look at an apartment. When I said that this was out of the question, and this sounded like a scam, the trickster said: “I will rather spend the little time I have on earth lonely than to rip you off”. All of this to say I was not allowed to see the accommodation without paying a fee. It was little wonder if the property existed at all. On the third go around, a man would not give me the exact address of the listing. Instead, he said he would pick me up in his car at a shopping centre. The same man also asked me to confirm if I was single – three separate times. I thought to myself: Is this a dating app or a housing application? I declined to attend the viewing, for fear of kidnap. I was amazed at how obvious these scams were but I did think to myself – if I was an international student who did not know how the accommodation system works in the country, or if I was desperate for a place to live, it would be easier to fall for these types of tricks. READ MORE: Limerick homelessness charity launches annual fundraising ball Another house viewing I attended was hosted by a wellness guru. No sooner was I in the door, but he started giving out about how he was inundated with applications by Ukrainians to view the house. It was a shame that all the meditation and yoga he was doing didn’t help him cultivate more tolerance. The second last house viewing I went to seemed right enough – however, I would have been the only girl in the house, when I personally prefer to live with at least one woman – just to sound opinions off. Call me old fashioned, but while the men made me feel welcome, they were quite a bit older than me and I would have been more comfortable living in a girls’ house, no matter how nice they were. There was also the issue of the man’s child coming to stay at the weekend – which obviously was not a problem, but was not ideal either – speaking as a woman in her 20s who would be going out on the weekend. By the time I came to the last house I was exhausted and dejected. I had spent the day in Limerick going up and down estates and hadn’t found one house that I wanted to live in. At long last lady luck smiled on me when I went to view my current house – where I now live with two other women. I immediately knew that I wanted to take it. The girls and I had a good rapport and the place was clean. My father said to me on the way home from the viewings: you will kiss many frogs before finding a prince, and see many bedsits before finding liveable conditions to rent in.