"Do you have a picture of you in a bra?"
This was a message that Alma Yasbeth Correa received from her potential future landlord in Dublin.
The Mexican student thought she had secured a room back in April and had even paid a deposit of €480. The tenancy was supposed to begin in September ahead of term – she's studying for a Masters in Entrepreneurship.
"The accommodation all looked proper, normal. I decided to go for it. Then the landlord asked me for photos in my underwear. I got shocked," Alma told Prime Time.
She immediately made the decision not to take the room but, despite repeated to attempts to contact the landlord since, he has not returned her deposit.
"I paid €480 and I haven't got my money back. It was just me by myself and I was very upset."
Alma contacted the gardaí after her experience, but was advised that, unless there is a signed contract between the landlord and tenant, there is nothing they can do to assist. They advised her to contact the Residential Tenancies Board.
Alma has since secured other accommodation in Dublin, but feels shaken by the whole experience.
It's an issue Laura Harmon, Executive Director of the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS), is seeing more of in 2022, particularly in relation to foreign students coming to Dublin.
"Landlords are taking advantage of these vulnerable students that are coming over here to study. A lot of them whose first language isn't English," Ms Harmon said.
"A lot of them are finding themselves homeless, out of pocket , losing their deposits."
Cheap accommodation in Dublin can be difficult to find on the popular property websites, which means foreign students often turn to social media sites like Facebook.
Property groups set up here have been described as the "Wild West", with pictures of overcrowded rooms commonplace and inadequate facilitates for storage.
"It's extremely tough for international students right now to find accommodation, particularly because there's a lack of accommodation. There's also exorbitant rent in urban areas like Dublin. It wouldn't be uncommon to see four bunk beds to a room. We see a lot of overcrowding," Ms Harmon told Prime Time.
For Irish students, availability is equally a challenge – and the issue is not just confined to the capital.
Atlanta McElvaney, from Monaghan, recently finished her Leaving Cert and is hoping to attend Maynooth University.
But, last Friday, her attempts to secure accommodation on Maynooth's campus were unsuccessful, with demand there far outstripping supply. There are 1,140 beds on campus, and all are fully booked.
She now spends most of her days and evenings on a laptop in her bedroom searching for rooms in Maynooth or the surrounding area.
"This is what my life consisted of for the past two weeks and will be for the next 10 days. Digs, houses, rooms for rent from €900 a month that I actually can't afford – and I'm really crushed," she said.
For Sam O'Hara from Portlaw, Waterford, his aim to study business at the University of Limerick and live near campus is now a reality.
He feels he got lucky after securing a room around 2km from the university. One of the landlords he contacted knew someone else in Limerick that was renting.
"Mum was on the phone, dad was on the phone – we were all on the phone calling people. I rang a digs, a lady who owned a house, and she had no room, but her friend had a spare room."
When the room was offered, he jumped in the car almost immediately and travelled to Limerick that same evening to secure the tenancy, before it was offered to someone else.
"Any digs that we rang during the day were like, 'yeah the room's gonna be gone in the next hour'. There seemed to be multiple people trying to get the accommodation."
Sam believes demand is partly explained by people who deferred last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, preferring to avoid remote learning and wait for the full college experience.
Georgia O'Gorman in Charleville, Co Cork, won't be getting the full college experience though – despite the return to normality.
She's attending Munster Technological University (MTU), but could not find anywhere to live in Cork City.
Instead, she commutes early each morning from Charleville. It requires two bus journeys, one to Cork City and another to the MTU campus in Bishopstown. One way, the trip to college takes two hours, and she's often late for her first class at 9am.
Georgia attended college virtually throughout Covid, but fears this entire year will be impacted for different reasons.
"In total I'm travelling four hours everyday on a bus," she said.
"I've massively missed out on my college experience. I couldn't go out on the spontaneous nights out or stay around to do society activities which I was heavily involved with in first year when I did have a place in Cork city."
Her attempts to source a room on Daft.ie, Rent.ie and multiple Facebook pages have not yielded any success – and she has now resigned herself to travelling from home for the full year.
"There's just nothing unless you get lucky and you know somebody. It's really, really desperate out there."
