Bedsit Blues

Asarlai

Memories of Dublin bedsits, or in other places as well.

"And you don't even have to get out of bed to turn off the light". The final sales pitch given to me by a landlord for a one room dump in Rathmines years ago - a bed surrounded by four walls.


"Suitable for someone who goes home at weekends...." :rolleyes:

Having to go out on the landing to go to the bathroom.

Meters you put money in

jimgoose

New Sherry Fitzgerald ad, yeah?

RayM

A bathroom so small you have to 'reverse in' to have a crap.

Sheep Lover

Blood stains on the wall from when junkies shoot the remains of a syringe up them

heldel00

Lived in one with my sister in ranelagh. It was an extension on the back of Satan's first wife's house.
Bathroom was the first room you walked into! Through that you were into kitchen and then into the bedroom which we had to share.
Riddled with damp, had to dump everything we owned when moving out. Destroyed with mould. Cried every night for the first week we moved in.
Happiest day of my life was packing my car up and getting the fúck away from that witch.

nokia69

irish landlords, the scum of the earth

MarkAnthony

heldel00 wrote: »

Lived in one with my sister in ranelagh. It was an extension on the back of Satan's first wife's house.
Bathroom was the first room you walked into! Through that you were into kitchen and then into the bedroom which we had to share.
Riddled with damp, had to dump everything we owned when moving out. Destroyed with mould. Cried every night for the first week we moved in.
Happiest day of my life was packing my car up and getting the fúck away from that witch.

Not really a very nice way to talk about the sis!

Oops69

Having to shave and wash in the kitchentte sink, basement flat 108 rathmines road 1988 and various other ****holes around there and it was one of the better flats aswell , landlords were ALWAYS Cavan men for some reason and were never a day late collecting the rent .

Asarlai

heldel00 wrote: »

Lived in one with my sister in ranelagh. It was an extension on the back of Satan's first wife's house.
Bathroom was the first room you walked into! Through that you were into kitchen and then into the bedroom which we had to share.
Riddled with damp, had to dump everything we owned when moving out. Destroyed with mould. Cried every night for the first week we moved in.
Happiest day of my life was packing my car up and getting the fúck away from that witch.

You had a car!?

Asarlai

Oops69 wrote: »

Having to shave and wash in the kitchentte sink, basement flat 108 rathmines road 1988 and various other ****holes around there and it was one of the better faults as well , landlords were ALWAYS Cavan men for some reason and were never a day late collecting the rent .

And a lot of them were guards as well. Guards from Cavan. That's the way it was.

anncoates

That reminds me, I think it's time to cook a meal to fill the emptiness I feel.

heldel00

Asarlai wrote: »

You had a car!?

It was actually the first year I was out working. Sister was a complete basket case about goin to UCD so mother dearest decided we should share a flat.
Left it too late to go looking of course. Some places wouldn't take a student and others wouldn't take a professional.
Bought my little car the week I was due to move out so was on cloud nine when I was leaving that hole in my lovely dinky car!

RomanKnows

Sounds like a bad Smiths b-side.

Post bedsit blues.

suicide_circus

Slumlord scum

800euro per month for a one room damp-ridden fire waiting to happen death trap?

Where do I sign?

Frynge

RomanKnows wrote: »

Sounds like a bad Smiths b-side.

Post bedsit blues.

You say that like there was a good smiths b-side!

the evasion_kid

Having to get out the marigolds and bleach to remove black fungus from the damp coming through the walls

jimgoose

suicide_circus wrote: »

Slumlord scum

800euro per month for a one room damp-ridden fire waiting to happen death trap?

Where do I sign?

Holster your Colt there, cowpoke. You'll have to save a hundert an' twenteen bajillan of them Earth euro first, according to Paddy Honahan!

Micky Dolenz

Yous had it good.


Back in my day it was proper tough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Jake Rugby Walrus666

youre lucky you had a hole in the ground to sleep in. we couldnt afforda hole in the ground

kowloon

Saw a place once that had an all glass conservatory with a tile floor turned into a bedroom, the attic crawlspace had a ladder to another 'bedroom'. Another place had a built in wardrobe converted into a toilet/ No space for a sink so it was put behind the curtains in a bay window (the room was a converted living room).

Arsemageddon

My first Rathmines shyte-box had a shower in it which was right beside the plugs and only a shower curtain that kept falling down to prevent electrocution. Central heating consisted of turning the oven on and leaving the door open. as per usual the landlord was a guard.

That place made Angelas Ashes look like an episode of Beverly Hills 90210.

ArnoldJRimmer

Went to see one place in Ranelagh in around 2005 that was a room that had a small cooker on top of a small fridge, one press up high, and just about enough room for a single bed. The cheeky b*stard was charging 600 euro for it, but given the lack of alternatives at the time, had people queueing round the corner to take it.

Another, also Ranelagh, was where the landlord advertised a two bed by effectively created an 'attic bedroom' in an old Georgian house, by lowering the roof of the living room and creating what I can only describe as a coffin with a bedside table for someone to sleep in.

Sadly we still get to see similar properties in the 'Funny Houses/ Flats to rent' thread

fryup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFaIhDLb_NE

anncoates

anncoates wrote: »

That reminds me, I think it's time to cook a meal to fill the emptiness I feel.

fryup wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFaIhDLb_NE

Sigh :pac:

thelad95

I've seen some shocking arrangements of student accommodation but honestly sometimes I think it can be parents faults. The landlord puts up some nice photos online, they go to visit on a nice summers evening and the place seems warm and cosy and 'ah sure it's a place to put the head down'. Fast forward a few months to a stormy December night, their losing the battle to stop mould building up from all the damp, they have to sleep with 4 blankets and their Anthropology class hoody on and despite being offered a vacancy in the colleges student accommodation, they can't move as their sleaze-ball landlord won't release them from their contract.

Asarlai

Having to have sex with the landlord's 19 year old daughter when I couldn't afford the rent because nobody wanted to go out with her.

Aint Eazy Being Cheezy

Asarlai wrote: »

Having to have sex with the landlord's 19 year old daughter when I couldn't afford the rent because nobody wanted to go out with her.

Bedsit blues, not the plot of the last blue movie yeh watched.

Deco99

Wasn't there a thread before with links to the worst rooms available?

http://www.daft.ie/21521662

For example

nokia69

Frynge wrote: »

You say that like there was a good smiths b-side!

ToddyDoody

I suppose the one i was in in rialto this time last year was nothing to get too excited about, fitting two people in it was extremely difficult. It was a converted eh room where the back door is with an an extension on the back.V. Damp in winter, but fine as long as you don't wish to move from the sofa. There was one in Galway that had a reasonable sized bedroom and a separate living room but it was too drafty in the bedroom so i had to move the double mattress into the floor of the living room and step back and forth over it to get to the kitchen table... Again, fine as long as you're happy to sit on the sofa / mattress. I was younger and there was still a sense of independence about all this.

Teyla Emmagan

The one where the room was so narrow you had to crawl to the end of the (single) bed to get up. The one with a shower in the corner of the bedroom. Just sitting there, on the carpet, shower curtain billowing gently in the draught. The one with the loo in the corner, enclosed by 2 cardboard walls that were 6 foot high with no ceiling to this delightful compartmented space! In a two bed bedroom! The shared phone in the hallway that only the crazy alcoholic ever answered.

No one should live like that.

Aongus Von Bismarck

I might be reverting to stereotype, but my impression of many AH posters is that they live in disgustingly dilapidated bedsits and basement flats in places like Rathmines and the South Circular Road. Where they spend more on their broadband connection than they do on clothes. Eating beans on toast as they furiously tap out their latest post about religion/weed/the joy of a SF government/how the GAA sucks. Then back to playing computer games and watching hardcore pornography.

5rtytry56

^^ Post of all my time as gugleguy and now my new handle on boards from Aengus.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Some of them aren't so bad if you manage to keep it tidy and presentable. A real nerd-type friend of mine moved into a bedsit a few years ago and, due to the fact that he refuses to keep it tidy, he is a shell of the man I once knew. The floor is completely covered with empty tins of beans and KOKA noodle wrappers. He keeps the curtains permanently closed and refuses to switch the lights on so the only light in there is from the 24" dual-monitor set up in his "command centre." Terrible waste of a life, if you ask me.

fryup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI8gSlKFOjk

Aongus Von Bismarck

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I might be reverting to stereotype, but my impression of many AH posters is that they live in disgustingly dilapidated bedsits and basement flats in places like Rathmines and the South Circular Road. Where they spend more on their broadband connection than they do on clothes. Eating beans on toast as they furiously tap out their latest post about religion/weed/the joy of a SF government/how the GAA sucks. Then back to playing computer games and watching hardcore pornography.

That might have been the case five or ten years ago but most of the bedsit dwellers would have moved on by now.

Moved on to love and sexless relationships, mundane boring jobs, and being swamped in debt.

Nothing like a hard dose of reality to drain the humour out of anyone.

What else could account for the vicious levels of bigotry, sexism, racism, misogyny, and all round general nastiness?

RayM

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I might be reverting to stereotype, but my impression of many AH posters is that they live in disgustingly dilapidated bedsits and basement flats in places like Rathmines and the South Circular Road. Where they spend more on their broadband connection than they do on clothes. Eating beans on toast as they furiously tap out their latest post about religion/weed/the joy of a SF government/how the GAA sucks. Then back to playing computer games and watching hardcore pornography.

My impression from your posts is that you live in an inexpensive hotel, equidistant between London and Norwich.

FTA69

Gary Freezing Shortcake wrote: »

Some of them aren't so bad if you manage to keep it tidy and presentable. A real nerd-type friend of mine moved into a bedsit a few years ago and, due to the fact that he refuses to keep it tidy, he is a shell of the man I once knew. The floor is completely covered with empty tins of beans and KOKA noodle wrappers. He keeps the curtains permanently closed and refuses to switch the lights on so the only light in there is from the 24" dual-monitor set up in his "command centre." Terrible waste of a life, if you ask me.

Sounds like the poor lad is suffering from depression or some other horrific form of inertia in his life. I'd f*cking top myself if that was my life.

Maximus Alexander

RayM wrote: »

My impression from your posts is that you live in an inexpensive hotel, equidistant between London and Norwich.

My impression is always of a grey haired, middle aged, moderately rotund man whose nose wheezes when he breathes. Perhaps an avid rugby player in his younger days he has failed to acknowledge his encroaching waist line and still considers himself 'athletic', despite potentially being at risk of heart disease.

Having often felt inadequate in his formative years he has unknowingly decided that the best defense is a good offense. Staunch in his long held beliefs, he his slow to change and aggressively rejects new ideas. He does not enjoy debate, but prefers to quickly and angrily shut down dissenters, in order to protect his fragile self image. A self image, which is heavily reliant on a career, which isn't all he had hoped for and dreamed of, in either insurance or finance.

Living in a modest semi-d in a reasonably affluent middle class neighbourhood, he drives a Mercedes, or perhaps a BMW, to keep up appearances with his peers - despite the fact that upgrading the car every two years is placing serious pressure on his personal finances.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, he avoids spending time at home by playing golf regularly, despite the fact that he has no real talent for it, nor is he especially fond of the game. In the evenings, he retires to his study to do some 'work' on the computer, but instead finds himself browsing boards, night after night, trying desperately to feel some sort of connection with somebody out there, yet unable to drop the veil of pretentiousness which props up his belief that he's doing just fine, and it will all have been worth it in the end.

That's just what comes to mind when I read his posts.

4zn76tysfajdxp

FTA69 wrote: »

Sounds like the poor lad is suffering from depression or some other horrific form of inertia in his life. I'd f*cking top myself if that was my life.

Maybe he is, it's not my place to speculate. Seems happy enough, though, he works and he's simply content with spending his evenings exploring the mines of Moria or whatever it is.

valoren

It's not simply the fact that people willingly stay in such places, people need shelter after all.

It's the fact that the landlords price them at such an outrageous level that it beggars belief that anyone would actually hand it over a large wad of cash each and every month to line their pockets.

It's a dilemma for sure. It should be illegal to charge such ridiculous rates for accomodation that wouldn't even qualify as 'basic' in most cases.

Because if you were the owner of a variety of hovels, it is quite rightly pretty stupid to turn down 800+ euro from some plonker who is freely willing to hand it over to you. That's just common bloody sense. That is of course unless it was illegal to charge more than a set amount for Bedsh1t accomodation.

RomanKnows

Gary Freezing Shortcake wrote: »

Maybe he is, it's not my place to speculate. Seems happy enough, though, he works and he's simply content with spending his evenings exploring the mines of Moria or whatever it is.

Sounds like my brother. Does he also have a thing for smoking weed, listening to death metal and collecting Nintendo consoles? The fcuking idiot.

vangoz

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

The one where the room was so narrow you had to crawl to the end of the (single) bed to get up. The one with a shower in the corner of the bedroom. Just sitting there, on the carpet, shower curtain billowing gently in the draught. The one with the loo in the corner, enclosed by 2 cardboard walls that were 6 foot high with no ceiling to this delightful compartmented space! In a two bed bedroom! The shared phone in the hallway that only the crazy alcoholic ever answered.

No one should live like that.

A shower, carpet and an alcoholic!! What is the queen visiting??? Mine was an upturned skip out a builders scrapyard, 10 of us sharing. We licked the damp off the steal walls for nourishment.

Aongus Von Bismarck

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

My impression is always of a grey haired, middle aged, moderately rotund man whose nose wheezes when he breathes. Perhaps an avid rugby player in his younger days he has failed to acknowledge his encroaching waist line and still considers himself 'athletic', despite potentially being at risk of heart disease.

Having often felt inadequate in his formative years he has unknowingly decided that the best defense is a good offense. Staunch in his long held beliefs, he his slow to change and aggressively rejects new ideas. He does not enjoy debate, but prefers to quickly and angrily shut down dissenters, in order to protect his fragile self image. A self image, which is heavily reliant on a career, which isn't all he had hoped for and dreamed of, in either insurance or finance.

Living in a modest semi-d in a reasonably affluent middle class neighbourhood, he drives a Mercedes, or perhaps a BMW, to keep up appearances with his peers - despite the fact that upgrading the car every two years is placing serious pressure on his personal finances.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, he avoids spending time at home by playing golf regularly, despite the fact that he has no real talent for it, nor is he especially fond of the game. In the evenings, he retires to his study to do some 'work' on the computer, but instead finds himself browsing boards, night after night, trying desperately to feel some sort of connection with somebody out there, yet unable to drop the veil of pretentiousness which props up his belief that he's doing just fine, and it will all have been worth it in the end.

That's just what comes to mind when I read his posts.

My word! That made me laugh heartily. I'm astonished that you could infer all that from reading my posts on a relatively light-hearted message forum.

The vast majority of it is completely incorrect of course. What is true is that I own a BMW. 5 Series. Change it yearly. I enjoy driving a fine car from a premium marque. Doesn't rattle my finances too much.

Thanks for the amateur psychologist profile though. And the genuine 'lol'.

Dr. Lollington

Lived in this kip on my own for a while. Tiny bedsit at the back. Holes in the windows etc. It was still an absolute joy though compared to flatsharing and I was very happy. Your own space doesn't need to be huge!

https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.451313,-0.120823,3a,75y,169.2h,103.37t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1shlmilBXa7u3O7lW8MSf2Ww!2e0

The Peanut

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

My word! That made me laugh heartily. I'm astonished that you could infer all that from reading my posts on a relatively light-hearted message forum.

The vast majority of it is completely incorrect of course. What is true is that I own a BMW. 5 Series. Change it yearly. I enjoy driving a fine car from a premium marque. Doesn't rattle my finances too much.

Thanks for the amateur psychologist profile though. And the genuine 'lol'.

I couldn't care less whether you're a financier from Germany or a housewife from Offaly; people take stuff here far too seriously. If your posts are intended to rile people, then good job. If they are indicative of your actual life, better again.

circadian

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I might be reverting to stereotype, but my impression of many AH posters is that they live in disgustingly dilapidated bedsits and basement flats in places like Rathmines and the South Circular Road. Where they spend more on their broadband connection than they do on clothes. Eating beans on toast as they furiously tap out their latest post about religion/weed/the joy of a SF government/how the GAA sucks. Then back to playing computer games and watching hardcore pornography.

Sounds like me, except I live in a decent place, cook good food and drive a 5 series.

chrissb8

There should be price fixing in some form on renting. It's killing young people to get a place for an adequate price.

Maximus Alexander

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

My word! That made me laugh heartily. I'm astonished that you could infer all that from reading my posts on a relatively light-hearted message forum.

The vast majority of it is completely incorrect of course. What is true is that I own a BMW. 5 Series. Change it yearly. I enjoy driving a fine car from a premium marque. Doesn't rattle my finances too much.

Thanks for the amateur psychologist profile though. And the genuine 'lol'.

There's no amateur psychology involved, as I said, it's just the image your posts put into my mind. Who you actually are is of no consequence to me. Glad I could give you a giggle though.

RayM

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The vast majority of it is completely incorrect of course. What is true is that I own a BMW. 5 Series. Change it yearly. I enjoy driving a fine car from a premium marque. Doesn't rattle my finances too much.

Nice car, but it's no Rover 800 Vitesse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuN7kOW7iwo

harry Bailey esq

RayM wrote: »

My impression from your posts is that you live in an inexpensive hotel, equidistant between London and Norwich.

And has a scam going with a 12 inch plate