There’s a rat in my kitchen
In the UK, students are striking against the soaring costs of rental properties while the government thinks it’s unnecessary to enforce that apartments are fit for human habitation. Is the situation in the Netherlands any better?
On Monday 25 January, the students of University College London (UCL) decided they’d had enough. Week after week they kept paying the same, (insanely) high prices for their tiny, central-London apartments, juggling multiple jobs to do so. The price you pay, you might think, to live in the capital. But with no law that landlords must maintain their properties to a certain standard, many of them lack the amenities you might expect from such a location. And the costs of city living are soaring to amounts much higher than any student loan in the country can provide for.
But enough was enough and they went on strike, demanding a 40 per cent cut in rental prices. According to the campaigners, rents at the university have risen by around 56 per cent since 2009. The cheaper rooms cost about 540 to 1220 euros a month, whereas the more expensive ones cost between 835 and 1378 euros a month.
Struggle
Nyima Murry, 19, a first-year history of art student and one of the strikers, told The Guardian: ‘I’ve struggled massively with paying my rent. I’m not from a wealthy background, and last term I had to work two jobs which really affected my studies. I can’t afford to eat if I don’t work. Studying is becoming about your background and how much you’re earning, rather than your ability.’
A spokesman for UCL has defended housing prices, saying that while they understand the concerns, the UCL doesn’t actually make a profit from the rent. ‘Our rents are competitive in comparison with equivalent London institutions, and far less than rates for comparable accommodation in the private sector,’ he told the Independent.
So for all the times you might think you’re in a bad place here in Amsterdam because your roof is leaking and you’re stuck with that roommate that constantly forgets to do his dishes, you could, if you think about it, have been worse off had you decided to study in the UK. So go on, feel good.
Panoramic view
But on a closer look, are Dutch students really that much better off when it comes to housing quality and prices? We know that rental costs in Amsterdam are among the highest in the country. ‘At places like The Student Hotel, you can rent a room with a “panoramic view” for 1000 euros per month,’ says Asva president Xandra Hoek. ‘It is often said that Amsterdam’s living culture is starting to resemble the situation in London: absurd prices, a huddle of wealthier tenants living in the city’s centre and those who are less fortunate, in the outskirts. We also have flexible rental contracts, which makes renting more expensive.’
Nevertheless, we do have one huge advantage: in the Netherlands, it’s the tenant that holds many of the rights, with various laws prohibiting landlords from simply evicting tenants when it pleases them. Contrast this to in the UK, where the Independent revealed that, according to a survey of UK private renters by BMG Research, about 27 per cent of current and past tenants had actually been evicted. The most common reason for the loss of one’s home was the landlord deciding to sell up; and second, the landlord raising the rent so high as to make it unaffordable for the tenant. Tenants in the UK have no right to remain in the property they rent, even when they have done nothing wrong thanks to Thatcher’s 1988 Housing Act.
But even if you thought you might like to try your luck against the Housing Act, you might want to consider some of the other problems UCL students have to face. Rats, for example, or the city-wide construction works starting bang on 8 a.m. And what about the insane hikes in rental prices over the last couple of years, with mere metres of space going for hundreds of pounds, and that pesky little problem of the government deciding to dismiss a law which would have forced landlords to ensure their property is fit for human habitation… Yes, you read that correctly. Britain doesn’t think it’s necessary that its landlords bother maintaining their houses so that they meet normal living standards. Not, at least, since conservative MPs (members of the parliament) decided to vote against the bill for the reason, as the local government minister Marcus Jones put it, ‘the proposal would result in unnecessary regulations and costs to landlords’. A fun little detail is that 72 of the MPs who voted against the bill are themselves landlords, and derive much of their income from renting a property.
Unbearable
In November 2015, UCL awarded nearly 300.000 pounds (about 400.000 euros) in compensation to 238 students (about 1500 euros each), because they had complained about their living conditions. Descriptions included ‘it’s like living on a construction site,’ because of the near-constant building work that disrupted their sleep and made it impossible to revise for exams. Oh, and there were rats in the apartments. But at first no one listened. Not until the students withheld their rental payments in May 2015, to which UCL’s management responded with threats of academic sanctions. These, however, were reversed after union officials politely pointed out that such sanctions were illegal.
In the Netherlands, students largely keep quiet about their problems with landlords unless the situation becomes unbearable. Even with the backing of legislation, they seem to be afraid of eviction. Xandra Hoek: ‘Landlords do the craziest stuff to try and get their tenants to leave. Wijksteunpunt Wonen has a hotline for bad landlord behaviour and they get complaints weekly.’ She urges students in Amsterdam to always contact the rental committee when something is wrong.
But what if everything fails and no one listens, should Dutch students also strike? Hoek thinks not, at least not yet. ‘A strike is so effective in London because there is barely any social housing left. In Amsterdam, the share of social housing is getting smaller, but there are still enough affordable houses to go around. Once that’s gone, however, I would encourage any student to stand up for themselves, even if that meant striking.’
So, while you may be feeling sorry for yourself under your leaky roof, rest be assured that just across the pond, not only are they not feeling any better, students are likely faring far worse. Schadenfreude dictates that next time you feel the water trickling down your neck, just consider the poor Brits – after all, it could have just as easily been you.
