Accommodation for students – A rant
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Hallo all. Advance warning, serious head banging of wall up ahead.
Son has been accepted into a university two hours south of here. Yay !
He has decided as he is 19 that he does not want to live in halls of residence (wish he had now) so we set to looking for a flat, apartment, studio, shed….I wanted hi to co-locate with other students, but as he knows no one there, this could be a nightmare so we registered on all the Student Immo sites and checked every day….
a month and a half later no agent had answered my e mails or rang me back. There are a number of these sites for students to register on and ask for accommodation. Hard to register your details on, none of them remembered my searches, two I paid for and were useless. I left numerous phone messages with agents and was sent details of flats way beyond our price range as the only form of communication. So with the new term looming I took a day and drove down and trudged the streets dropping in on the agents.
The conversation would go like this
me – I want to rent a flat, studio, somewhere small…..
them – oh yes we have lots…
me – for my son, a student….
Them – oh, those aren’t for students. only long term rents, for salaried people.
me – what about the 6000 students in your town.
them – Shrug
Finally found the one agent who DID do student rentals, very sympathetic, and he now has a 13 m squared room to call home. Whilst I was there, she fielded off three other call from parents who were in the same boat as me and she said the same thing. ‘ I have rentals, but the landlords don’t want students.’
For heavens sake , this town has two large engineering universities and a nursing college – these are young people with a serious career bent. She said as well that the rate of ‘vandalism ‘ was negligible as the students cannot afford to piss off their landlords. There was also a report in La Telegramme today about that exact problem….and guess what ? The solution they advocated was to get to the town and pound the pavements for two days and knock on doors – who has the time ?
Now to fill in the mountain of paperwork just to get the keys…….
Sounds like a nightmare Seahorse!
No luck with the CROUS ?
CROUS are there only for university accommodation which he did not want. Own fault I suppose…..
Plus, just read that CROUS are only responsible for 2 percent of all student accommodation. So kinda useless really.
Not at all ‘ueless’ if you get in the application early enough. We had to start the application to put his name down in january (as advised) for eventual accommodation in september for our son a few years back for Poitiers. He then did his Masters in Paris and found accommodation by asking around and visiting various agents etc in areas not close to the uni and eventually found a flat n Vincennes which incurred a 20 minute Metro ride there and back.
The CROUS flat was superb, well appointed and in the centre of town and close to his studies and pretty cheap too.
Had four daughters at university, had no problems locating accommodation for any of them, some private, some on campus.
Thanks Pete and Bo. Glad to know it is not universal.
Out of interest, when did you know where your children were going to Uni? He had seven choices and only found out in June which one had selected him. I have no doubt the CROUS accommodation is good, but son did not want to live with other students. (He is a twin so the idea of living alone is quite thrilling).
Online, the process seemed simple, join the selection process, including dedicated student sites and the suitable properties details are sent to you. Only this never materialised.
Well my lad was doing quite a specialised subject which gave him only two options, Poitiers or la Sorbonne. Poitiers is just down he road so we thought it would be easier for him (first time on his own etc ) to be within easy reach of home. We made out the application in january jut as the CROUS had recommended knowing he would be gong to that uni in case of passing the Bac etc so it was easy for us. A couple of years later when he wanted to do his Masters he felt he wanted to break free a bit more so applied for Paris.
As i said, the CROUS flat was brilliant and we had no idea of being overrun with students when we visited. It was just like being in a private flat with no loud music or rowdiness etc from the students, maybe we were lucky ?
Ah Well, he has a place anyway. Just had a look at his acceptance letter – June 17th before we knew where he was going, as he had applied for engineering schools all over France.
Well done to him and good luck at uni.
Yes good luck with the accommodation, perhaps ‘as a last resort’ you could suggest living with the other students, and still keep looking for his own place in the meantime. Mind I would have thought a lot of friendships are formed in the students accommodation.
Thanks Pete. Apparently it is the best metier to be in, technicians and engineers are going to be in huge demand. He wants to be one of those guys who service the nacelles in hydro electric and aeolienne generators. I don’t know which is scarier.
Totally agree BV. I have told him that by Christmas, he will have a totally different view of living by himself and probably be dying for company. At least he will have a few friends to share with next year.
Gosh he sounds very clever Seahorse, well done to him ! Yes I totally agree, I wouldn’t want him to miss out on the fun and be lonely.
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