Living Hell 011: Dublin Gumtree rental vs a prison cell
Words: Dylan Murphy
Welcome back to Living hell, the series profiling the worst kips on Daft in Dublin. For this edition, we compared a Dublin rental on Gumtree to a literal prison cell.
What is it?
Well, this week I decided to loosen my glare on Daft.ie for fear I’ll actually burst a blood vessel, only to visit a “Studio apartment for rent” on Gumtree that left me feeling a strong urge for a wash afterwards.
In my experience, I’ve found Daft.ie presents itself as a sleek and clean platform. The kind that at least tries to disguise the fuckery of landlords behind attempts to redefine kitchens with a bed in them as “modern self-contained studio apartments”. It’s a strange phenomenon, but there’s an initial hesitancy to call a 4m x 4m room with a bed and an oven in it a shithole when there are new bedsheets and freshly painted walls. However, once you realise you are paying €1,000 a month for the opportunity to recreate a medieval moat and bridge situation by pulling down the oven door to meet your ‘live laugh love’ bed linen, the initial leeway wears thin.
With the trademark characteristics of Daft’s rental market fresh in my mind, I had a sense of optimism going to my Gumtree virtual viewing. But as you can probably guess by the fact this piece exists any hope quickly went down the drain.
Before we feast our eyes on this property, It’s worth noting, different websites have their own set of moral codes they abide by. On Instagram, there’s none of that slander you see on Twitter – it’s ‘Slay queen’ and fire emojis only. Meanwhile, on TikTok it feels like the wild west of ropey content and keyboard warriors. Whereas on platforms for gaffs there seems to be this unwritten rule where if you give a fluffy description, use a DSLR for the photos and at least give the impression you care then it’s all gucci. On Gumtree though? Anything goes.
A quick disclaimer: Gumtree can be great for finding accommodation, cheap utensils and basically any loose bit you can think of second hand. I even managed to rent my apartment from Gumtree and it’s reasonable and my landlady is really sound. But it’s become increasingly apparent there’s a disturbing underbelly powered by people throwing up the worst listings on the site due to the lack of accountability. It really is bringing out the worst in people.
Without further adieu here is the humble abode:
For some reason, the intensity of the past year has really heightened my senses. All I need is to see an argument on Twitter and the survival instincts we developed in pre-historic times send me on an anxiety spiral. So you can imagine my fight or flight mode was ACTIVATED when I saw this wild monstrosity. I have an almost primal urge to throw a large spear in its direction in self-defence.
It looks like the landlord was trailed around the room by the beam of a shrink ray gun and missed the single bed. What adult-sized person can comfortably exist in this space?
To makes things worse, they expect someone to pay €1,000 every calendar month for this.
In isolation, it’s bad enough, but if you were to look at a place in any other reasonable city you’d soon be mortified at what you can get for €1,000 elsewhere. Hell, this Twitter user even compared a house for rent in Dublin to a Norwegian prison cell and it was honestly hard to tell which is which.
The comparison inspired us to do one of our own. Instead of looking to our Nordic neighbours we took a flight to The Hague and found that you may have a more comfortable existence had you committed serious crimes against humanity.
At least then your room has access to natural light. Meanwhile, if you are trying to rent in Dublin you get served a corridor with a child-sized bed and a table from a dollhouse.
Lockdown brain fog is really slappin’ different at the moment and this apartment is a visual representation of what it looks like to have ten tabs open in your head on a Monday morning.
I’d genuinely rather wake to my sleep paralysis demon at the end of my bed than to this claustrophobic clusterfuck.
What’s most unsettling is from the images available online I can’t work out the orientation of this place. It kind of looks as though the bed was moved to get a better picture of the room and subsequently it may be even less comfortable than it appears (Hard to imagine I know).
Couple that with the fact they had the audacity to say this is “Also available for couples” when it can’t even comfortably fit one person and I’m just about ready to implode.
The shadow cast by the bed frame onto the floor by the fridge is so ominous. *shudders*
Where is it?
424 South Circular road Dublin 8.
Conclusion
Look we get it, there has to be creative solutions to the housing problem in Dublin. You look at other countries with densely-populated cities and they are building upwards with sky-high apartments becoming the answers. However, when we have so many homes lying vacant and little being done to challenge predatory landlords in a market that feels unrestricted it’s pretty evident we have a problem on our hands.
This is a prime example of using Tetris-style placement to squeeze utensils into what is essentially a corridor and charging €1,000 a month.
Bin whoever is behind this.
8.5/10 on the shitemeter.
Click here to view the property.
