Many a one-room apartment in Paris is not for the claustrophobic. And often inadmissible, as in a horrifying case brought to light by the newspaper “Le Parisien”: a waiter paid 550 euros a month in rent for an apartment of only 4.7 square meters in size. The municipality is now taking action against the lease.
When the 42-year-old climbs onto his loft bed, acrobatics are required as there is only 50 centimeters of space between the mattress and the ceiling. “I only come here to sleep, otherwise it’s depressing,” he says. The municipality has now declared the room uninhabitable and wants to assist the waiter under civil law.
Regulation: minimum 20 cubic meters
The law prescribes that an apartment must consist of at least one main room with a surface area of at least nine square meters, a ceiling height of at least 2.20 meters or a volume of 20 cubic meters. In this case, the landlady had simply written a volume of 24 cubic meters in the lease — twice the actual size, the paper wrote.
Not the only prospect of a “depressing” room?
To even get the room, Massi, who is from Algeria, paid 300 euros to a real estate agency when he arrived in Paris in 2018. He was standing in line for the room with six other candidates.
The case illustrates the housing crisis in the French capital, said spokesman for the association “Right to housing”, Jean-Baptiste Eyraud. Landlords took advantage of this and would offer “impossible departures”.
Tens of thousands of former servants’ rooms on the market
As a person in charge of the city’s housing authority explained, there are 58,000 former servants’ rooms in Paris, called chambres de bonne, that are less than eight square meters in size, some of which are also rented out.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
