Jędrzej paid for the room with PLN 850 from the rector’s stipend and from waiting tables. In recent years, his only extravagance has been buying books and games consoles. Soon they will have to move these belongings to a new apartment, this time in Górny Wrzeszcz.
– In my final year I have fewer classes and can work full-time in gastronomy. Thanks to this, I can rent an apartment with two friends for PLN 1,200 per person, she says. – Living conditions will skyrocket.
Living in a chicken coop and not going crazy
“Lucky guy,” says Marta, a second-year student of communication and business psychology at the University of Szczecin, about Jędrzej. She didn’t get into the dormitory either: her father, a turner, got a raise, and her retired mother works as a cook in a social welfare home. The family’s income per person exceeds the minimum required. “Only one person from my year has gotten into the student house,” says Marta. “No wonder three- and four-room apartments in Szczecin are falling apart. Landlords are asking PLN 4,000-5,000 for the entire property and demanding the same amount as a deposit. People like me, who study full-time and earn a living with a part-time job, are condemned to a chicken coop, that is, to one room in a nine-room apartment.”
At first, she had to pay a deposit of PLN 1,000. She earned money by working in a seaside restaurant during the summer. She also paid for the first two months with her savings – a four by four meter cubicle costs PLN 800. Luckily, it has a micro balcony, so there is a place to hang clothes.
Life in a chicken coop demands dedication. You have to learn to cope with the hustle and bustle, because the nine bedrooms, separated by the owner from the original three, are divided by thin plasterboard walls. The noise increases at night, when the roommates, mostly students, come back from classes and turn on Netflix or talk on the phone. The noise of conversations also comes from the hallway, where the residents of two neighboring studios walk to the room with the shared washing machine. The owner separated it from his second apartment. When the noise becomes unbearable, Marta puts in earplugs. He has to concentrate because after a full day of classes he can only work at night: for the physiotherapy studio that he creates, among other things, Instagram reels. He also has to – like his fellow residents – keep an eye on the queue for the shower and the only bathroom in the apartment. At night, a person is allowed to spend a maximum of fifteen minutes in the bathroom, so Marta gets up just after five to shower and comb her hair in peace.
“During the holidays, when some rooms became available, it was a bit more relaxed,” says Marta. “At the owner’s request, I showed available rooms to students looking for a place to stay. It’s obvious that the school year is approaching because the phone calls are ringing off the hook. There’s no shortage of people willing to rent four-by-four-meter cubicles.”
Marta keeps an eye on who gets to use the shower and the only bathroom in the apartment. At night, one of the nine people living there can spend a maximum of fifteen minutes in the bathroom.
Casting for a Tenant
– There’s no denying it: students are driving the rental market – admits Szymon Sobalak, who has been working as a real estate agent in Wrocław for seven years. On the Internet he goes by the name Mr. Apartment.
– Just 10 years ago, you could pay PLN 500-700 for a 10-meter room. Today it costs PLN 1,700. A two-room apartment is not much more expensive – after finding a roommate, of course: PLN 2,800-3,000.
Sobalak admits that students are a tasty morsel for landlords. Firstly, the apartment is often financed by parents, who ensure that payments are made on time. Secondly, a modern student takes care of his apartment and rarely throws parties. He does not have the strength to do this because he combines work with study. Thirdly, it is easier to come to an agreement with a student tenant who bears the costs, for example, of equipment consumption. Fourthly, it is extremely rare for a student not to pay for several months and not to want to move out.
“A phone call to your mother is enough to scare you,” laughs Monika Dudek, a real estate agent at the Lublin branch of Big City Broker. Last month, she rented three 20-square-meter studio apartments to students. New, newly finished, I paid PLN 2,100 a month in full. A bargain, because there are still several apartments left for some people to live in.
– Our office finds tenants, helps with drawing up the contract, and we are also in constant contact with the landlord – says Monika Dudek. – In our case, the cooperation between the landlord and the tenant is impeccable, but I have heard that some landlords require only students to stay in the premises. They have control over this thanks to cameras installed in the hallway. It also happens that they do not agree to bring animals into the house. One of our landlords did not agree to a cat, but accepted a small dog.
Maria, the owner of a two-room apartment in Bałuty-Doły in Łódź (56 m², PLN 2,400 total price including taxes), does not use intermediaries. She has to find a tenant who fits what she calls a permanent basis, i.e. a student who has been renting a room with her for four years. Two months ago, she posted an ad on Facebook and is holding a casting call for a tenant. “I prefer to take on a first-year student,” says Maria. “It’s easier to raise him and I demand, for example, that he be informed if he is going to be away for a longer period and that the electricity and gas are turned off during his absence. He must also accept that I have the right to enter the house day or night.”
She has exercised this right on several occasions. Most recently, after a call from a student who said that the former tenants in the room next door had taken in the dog. When Maria came to visit, they were feeding him with her utensils. She threatened to call her parents. All she had to do was take the dog to the shelter.
Underwear owner
– Rules are necessary, but there are those who take advantage of students’ lack of experience. Especially for beginners, says Oliwia, a first-year psychology student at the University of Warsaw. She had the chance to be in a select group of 8% of students at the University of Warsaw: she won the subject Olympiad, which allowed her to be the first to receive a place in one of the seven student dormitories at the University of Warsaw. However, she did not apply for a place: the whole family decided to support her studies. Thanks to this, she has less than 4 thousand zlotys at her disposal per month. She would prefer to live in a studio apartment, but in Warsaw the average income is 3,000. For now, she is looking for something cheaper by phone: she lives in Radom and does not have the money to travel to the capital often. As soon as she arranged to visit the apartment, she took the train and arrived on time, but the apartment was already rented. The landlord forgot to tell her about it.
– Fortunately, there are Facebook pages where first-time tenants share their experiences – says Oliwia.
On one of the pages, the students describe a visit to the owner of a two-room apartment. Price per room: PLN 1,200. Tiny kitchen and bathroom. In one room there is a large bed, in the other a sofa. They were ready to rent it, but suddenly the owner said he would stay there every week. His daughter lives nearby and he wants to visit her every weekend. Every weekend, the students had to cram into the same bed. They gave up. In the comments to the post, there were warnings about another owner who not only spent the night in an apartment rented by students, but also paraded in front of them in his underwear.
On another website for freshmen, a student warns about a landlord on the outskirts of the capital. There is a floor for rent with a separate entrance. The cost indicated in the advertisement: PLN 2,500 per month. It turns out that the landlord not only failed to warn about additional utility fees, but also that his mother-in-law lived in one of the rooms on the upper floor. The student couple also warns against landlords who publish advertisements with photos of rooms in the so-called Ikea standard. One of the rooms should be repainted and the furniture replaced. Upon arrival, it turned out that the walls were dirty, the wardrobe door was broken, the bed was sagging, and two tables looked like they had been taken from the trash. The only thing that matches the description is the plastic windows, which were recently replaced. Not enough to pay PLN 1,500 plus utilities for the room.
The photos from another location are apparently genuine, but the owner failed to mention that the room for “only” PLN 1,700 is temporary. Six roommates will cross it on their way to the bathroom and kitchen.
For a rainy day
– We are thrown into a free market and the strongest will survive – says Oskar Sieczkarek, a second-year law student at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań. He lives in a seven-square-meter room in a former tenement house. He paid PLN 750, the owner recently increased the price to PLN 1,000.
“For some people it may not be much, but for me every hundred counts,” says Sieczkarek. “I work part-time in a fast food restaurant, earning PLN 1,500 a month. To survive, I use websites where people share unnecessary food scraps. Recently I received a jar of soup. Someone shared the peppers. I buy clothes in second-hand shops. Last year I bought a black shirt for PLN 20.”
Sieczkarek tried to study – initially Romance studies – without renting an apartment. He comes from Kaźmierz in the Szamotuły district. It took him about an hour to get from home to the university by bus. Unfortunately, the last passenger to return left at 20, and he still had classes at that time.
– I dropped out of Roman studies, was thinking about law, but I knew I couldn’t live without my own house in Poznań – he says. – I came back home and started working at the processing plant, just like my parents. I saved every penny I earned. In half a year, I managed to save 10,000 PLN. zloty. A fortune! I had a deposit for the apartment, but mainly for a rainy day.
He doesn’t need to use the money right now. He’s studying and making a living working at a fast food restaurant. If he stays healthy, there’s a chance he can survive on the open market until he finishes his studies.
