An Australian landlord took to a Facebook group to vent his frustration with a tenant who deliberately underpays his rent by one cent every week.

The anonymous homeowner wrote on a landlord Facebook group asking his peers for advice on how to handle a cheeky tenant who reportedly underpays the rent by 1 cent every week. Apparently, the rent was set at AU$ 1,200 per week, but the person living in the house only pays AU$ 1,199.99. With 52 weeks in a year, it hardly seems like a massive loss for the tenant, but they claim to be losing their mind over the situation and are asking for advice in order to keep their sanity. Meanwhile, the tenant seems to think that they are well within their rights with the 1-cent weekly deduction.

Read More »

People on the lookout for affordable housing in the Swiss city of Zurich can now opt for a two-person tent on an open balcony offering “a view of the starry evening sky” for just 500 Swiss francs ($540) a month.

Finding a cheap place to rent in Zurich is almost impossible these days, because of the city’s competitive property market, so one resourceful tenant decided to subsidize her own monthly rent by subletting the balcony of her apartment on the open market. The offer includes a waterproof tent complete with an insulating mat, mattress and pillows, as well as access to the apartment’s kitchen, living room and bathroom. Believe it or not, the woman, known only as Sandra, has already had a good response to the ad she posted earlier this month.

Read More »

A listing for a “newly-renovated micro studio” in Vancouver that turned out to be a tiny bathroom with a bed crammed in it was recently slammed online.

Described as “ideal” for a single person looking to live in downtown Vancouver at an affordable rate, and who “does not need much space”, the 160-square-foot (15 sq. meters) suite was actually a bathroom in which the bed was literally just a couple of steps from the toilet bowl. That sort of makes its advertised features, like the brand-new porcelain flooring, granite finishing, and a large window seem somewhat unimpressive. Not to mention that the rent of this unusual “living space” was set at a whopping C$680 ($550).

Read More »

If you’re wondering how hard it is to find affordable housing in Germany’s capital of Berlin, maybe this will give you an idea –  On November 24, a whopping 1,749 people showed up to view a reasonably-priced flat, even though it had only been put on the market the day before.

Located near the Schöneberg Town Hall, the popular flat on the third floor of a 1950s building offers 54 meters of usable space and features two rooms and a balcony. So far nothing to write home about, but what really got people interested was the monthly rent of €550 ($610) per month, including extra costs like heating and water. That’s considered a steal in the German capital, and even more so in the sought-after Schöneberg district, so no one was surprised to see people lining up outside for a viewing. They just didn’t expect over 1,700 of them on the same day.

Read More »

It’s been over a month since Nicole and Pascal Vermeulen, a middle-aged couple from Lignières, France, have had to sleep in fear of someone simply walking into their home at night. That’s because they don’t have a front door anymore, or windows for that matter, after the house owner removed them as punishment for not receiving the rent.

Three years ago, when the Vermeulen family found a 110 square-meter house for rent in the village of Lignières, for €500 a month, they thought they were getting a good deal, but things started going south soon after they moved in. The building’s septic tank got clogged years ago, which rendered the toilet and shower virtually unusable. The tenants have had to deal with human waste coming up through the toilet and the shower drain on more than one occasion, and the bathroom walls are constantly covered with mold. Also their garage always smells like a sewer. Despite their repeated pleas to the owner of the apartment to get the septic tank fixed, and the home being declared insanitary by the CAF (Direction of Family Allocations), the owner simply disregarded the problems.

Read More »

In a time when the cost of renting a home seems to be getting higher virtually everywhere in the civilized world, the residents of an idyllic housing complex in Germany are living in an inflation-free utopia. The people of Fuggerei, a walled district on the outskirts of Augsburg, pay only $1 a year on rent, the same as the first tenants who originally moved here nearly 500 years ago.

Fuggerei was founded in 1514 by an affluent businessman named Jakob Fugger, as a social housing complex for the poorest people of Augsburg. The Fugger family moved to the bustling German city in the mid-14th century and established a prosperous cloth trading business. By the 16th century, the Fugger family was one of the richest in Augsburg, and their operations expanded to real-estate and banking. Jakob Fugger was the wealthiest banker in the city, which earned him the nickname “Jakob Fugger the Rich”, but he stayed true to his family’s values, and in 1514 he started the construction of Fuggerei as a way of giving back to the community.

Read More »