“I don’t know if it’s delusions of grandeur or if people are actually applying.”
Liveline listeners were left shocked on Monday after a woman told of a Daft advertisement which was looking for a “quiet person who is out a lot” to rent a €300 bedroom.
Racheal Tobin who just returned from South Korea said that she had come across a “box room” with no photographs.
Joe Duffy said that he had seen a shared, box room for €480 plus bills with only a “corner with a microwave and sink” advertised online.
“I’ve been coming across those exact same rooms, I’ve been searching for months,” Tobin said.
“I’ve just come back from living in South Korea and I knew coming back that I was coming back to a pretty bad housing situation but it just keeps getting worse and worse.”
When asked by Duffy to read out the advertisement, she began: “Would suit a quiet person who is out a lot, just looking for two nights per week maximum, a place to sleep, store belongings and do laundry, no shared kitchen facilities.”
“Why put your place up for rent if you don’t want a tenant?”, she asked.
Duffy continued reading the ad: “It goes on, microwave, fridge, and kettle in own boxroom, shared bathroom and laundry facilities, references required, be sure to state the days of the week that you will be in the house, those that don’t won’t receive a reply.
“The house is shared with three other people and is owner-occupied, with the owner also renting out the driveway for use.
Tobin added: “Maybe they have a lot of people applying to not live in this place. I don’t know if it’s delusions of grandeur or if people are actually applying.”
Tobin had been renting an apartment for 400,000 South Korean won in Seoul which would translate to roughly €290, which she says was a “very decent size” and compared to salaries was also “pretty okay”.
The woman who had been working as a teacher said that teachers in Ireland do make more but “not enough to justify” the increase in rent prices, adding that public transport here is also much higher.
Tobin said that she could “go to Gatwick on Ryanair” for the price of her €22 each way bus to Kells each day.
She said that she had also seen similarly bleak advertisements such as one which showed “two steel rail bunk-beds, side by side” for €350 a month – just in case you wanted to sleep in a fashion fit for a participant of the Squid Games.
The 26-year-old added that she had shown the adverts to her friends from New York and other mega-cities around the world who were stunned by the ads as “they weren’t even having to do that”.
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