Student accommodation

Eight times now we have had to move one or the other of my daughters into new student accommodation and seven times so far we have had to move them out.  Each time we have moved in it has been the same story, a litany of filth and squalor and a set to with the letting agent and or the landlord.  I gather then that this is the way it is supposed to be.

Every time that we have gone down to help them move in we have opened the door on their new accommodation to find rubbish lying about, old crockery still left in the cupboards and food left in the fridge.  There have even been clothes left in the wardrobes.  Every time it is as if we have stepped into the Marie Celeste.  The people have disappeared but their chattels have been left behind.

Eight times now, after a long drive either to London or Manchester, we have had to fill buckets with soapy water, put on rubber gloves and start to scrub the ingrained filth (to put it politely) off the furniture, walls and carpets.  Eight times now we have had to open a roll of heavy duty bin bags and fill them with the flotsam and jetsam of student life left behind by the previous occupants.  A visit to the public tip is somehow always a feature of these visits.

Eight times now, we have been faced with damp and mouldy walls, bathrooms that are a biohazard, missing furniture, broken fixtures and an inventory list that bears more resemblance to a work of fiction than reality.   I gather then that this is the way it is supposed to be.  

But why is it this way?  Is it because it is an easy market and the occupants are young and don’t really see through the problems in their eagerness to get away from their parents’ gaze?  Is it because most students have middle class families who will put the effort in to sort out the mess and do everything to protect their sacred offspring?  Is it because change over between one set of tenants and the next happens in less than twelve hours and there just isn’t enough resource to cope with all the activity or no time to carry out repairs?  Or is it just that students are slovenly, messy and lazy?

Eight times now we have broken our backs to clean up from the previous occupants to make sure our daughters had somewhere habitable to live but I can assure you, seven times now we have left a house clean and tidy for the next people to take over.  Surely this is the way that it should be.