Diary of a Gen Z Student: Embrace the squalor - student living is not for the faint of heart

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The door hangs halfway off its hinges. Seagulls attack the binbag just outside the door — full of old pizza boxes and empty beer bottles. The post, once again, has landed outside Johnny Sexton’s house.

The Sextons might have moved to another suburb if they had known that half of the post from Trinity Hall (where most first year Trinity students live) would end up on their doorstep.

No one warned them about the risks that come with living so close to student accommodation.

Ah, student living. This is a godless existence. Where someone drinks wine from a cereal bowl. And no one questions it. Of course, they use a straw. They still have their dignity.

Student accommodation is a unique landscape. Rules are different here. Finding a flock of interlopers in your kitchen on a Wednesday morning is routine. 

I have been part of that flock. And probably will be in future — if I’m doing the whole college thing right, that is. I have sought refuge on a friend’s sofa after a night out many times.

Explaining to a stranger why I am drinking coffee from their cereal bowl is always a fun conversation. They’re usually understanding.

I always feel this need to explain that I’m not the newest tenant. With the current state of student accommodation, who’s to say the landlord won’t decide the sofa makes a perfectly adequate bed? €900 per month. 

The cupboard under the stairs will be next...

... For rent: charming Harry Potter-style living in trendy neighbourhood.

The first time I walked into student accommodation was a surprise. The carpets looked like something from a horror movie. Dark red and stained. God only knows what kind of behaviour created those stains. 

Scary aromas radiated from the kitchen. The standard of living is lower. You are allocated a shelf in the fridge — so you can’t complain about the gone-off takeaway on the shelf above yours. It’s not your business.

But still, someone will help themselves to your shelf. That tofu-bacon, would make an ideal hangover breakfast? A bitter memory for you, a satisfactory solution to your flatmate’s midnight-snack craving. 

You can console yourself with the fact that it wasn’t real bacon. We students make a real effort for the environment when it comes to veganism, vegetarianism, pescatarianism, and lots of other ‘isms’. Honestly, though, tofu-bacon was never going to live up to the real thing anyway.

Jane Cowan: author of the Examiner's newest column, Diary of A Gen Zer

The demand for student accommodation is savage. Students are desperate for a shared, unkempt shoebox with one window.

Paying upwards of €120 a week to step over a sticky patch in the corner every time they walk into their kitchen. I’m lucky to be able to commute to college. Others don’t have that option. Squalor or nothing.

And then there’s the part of student living where everything is just difficult. You have no hot water. Your fridge is so cold that your milk is frozen. 

Your landlady moves around your furniture when you leave for the weekend (it’s called Feng shui). You can’t even rely on post making it to your front door. There is an Eircode issue.

Your post is sent to a poor, unsuspecting member of the public. Imagine my friend’s face when she realised, she had to collect her STI testing kit from Johnny Sexton’s house. The boxes are discreet, but not discreet enough.

You will overcome any hardship in the name of that college degree. Four years of frozen milk in your tea won’t stop you.

Despite all that chaos, I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel like I’m missing out on some formative experience by living at home during college. 

It seems fun. The lawlessness. The exuberance. The dysentery. Some things are singular to student accommodation. Boxes of condoms in every elevator in the building? STI testing drives in the canteen? Rag week? Shag week?

Definitely not part of living with your parents. On top of that, you have no one asking for names, phone numbers, and horoscopes before nights out. It has its appeal. 

I may be yet to meet Johnny Sexton, But, living with parents, your furniture is [nearly always] in the same place you leave it. And I do appreciate drinking coffee from a clean mug, not a cereal bowl.