Tanya Sweeney: Homeowners who are happy to rent you a room for €14,000 a year need to get real about having a housemate
Today at 21:30
Say a Hail Mary, a rosary, or a prayer of the religion of your choosing for my pal C, who is oxter-deep in a terrible and stressful undertaking: searching for somewhere to live in Dublin, at the age of 48 and on a decent but relatively modest income. He is dutifully scouring Daft and the like, firing off emails here and there, to little effect.
The endeavour has become monumentally depressing, and not just because of a dearth of decent living spaces. 'Many of the really nice places specify that they would prefer female housemates,' he observes. Many of the house-shares are populated by people in their 20s. There is a significant number of single box rooms available for rent, and don't give much change out of €1,000 a month. The really plum house-share situations rarely make it as far as Daft; word of mouth does its thing long before that.
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