C'est toujours la même histoire

So the past few weeks have been hectic (in a dull way?). After sitting around the house watching many a This Morning with a flicker of The Wright Stuff and the proceedings of Loose Women whilst responding to ad after ad of accommodation in Paris. Yes, I have received my results. I did not feel the wave of relief or joy after receiving them because the knowledge of my results had a bittersweet after taste which I will not divulge into here. Nevertheless, I am to spend my next academic year in a foreign city and there was accommodation to sort out!

I had replies on post-it notes on my desktop all ready in French and English:

Hello/Bonjour

A nice quick greeting.

My name is...

Let's get personal.

I am writing in regards to your advertisement on craigslist...

I did forget to change 'craigslist' when I copied and pasted sometimes so the landlord must have thought "What?! I never posted on that website!"

I am very interested in your accommodation.

I just want a place to live and work in!

I am a student and will be living in Paris from 1st September 2011 to 1st August 2012, could you send me more information and any more pictures please?
Thank you,

Jane

Then I hoped the landlord would get in touch with me and handle the rest. I was a bit taken aback by all the documents that I needed. I started looking at the lower end of the ladder, the EUR400 advertisements (400 Euros a month) to find studios with surface areas less than the required amount to make a student eligible for rental aid from the French government. So I upped my bracket to 500, 600 at a push.

It turns out any apartment/flat/studio in Paris that's not in the suburbs and at these prices per month were scams. You cannot get cheap in Paris. It was always the same story:

I like to travel a lot so I won't be able to show you the apartment but if you send me the money through Western Union or moneygram I assure you you will get the keys by recorded delivery...

I am a missionary, GOD BLESS YOU, (did I sneeze?) I am in Africa and I want a faithful human being PRAISE BE TO GOD to look after my blessed apartment, GOD BLESS!, I have lived in the flat for the past few years with my family but I will not be able to show you the studio as I am spreading GOD'S GOOD WORD, if you could kindly with GOD'S KINDNESS send me the money through Moneygram GOD SPEED...

Hello, you sound like a person who is very responsible (I literally just said my standard message of being interested in the apartment) and will not let me down, I am currently studying in the USA and am the only one with the keys and cannot go to Paris at all...

I've just been promoted to work in London so I must leave for London tonight so cannot arrange viewings of my flat.
That's alright, I live in London! We could meet up and discuss things further?
(I didn't really want to meet up and discuss things further, I knew it was a scam straight away, they'd used the exact same words in an e-mail from a previous scam but I wanted to play along.)

Hello, I've just won a plot of land in Nigeria and must take my whole family there to continue bidding on it. Send me the money....

The replies that I got that weren't scams were ones expressing sorrow that their accommodation was already rented out. Great. So I e-mailed a woman from the university I will be studying at to help with university accommodation. I did not realise that she had sent an attachment until too late. My Warwick mail (my university e-mail) was the only mail in her sent list that did not receive the attachment so I looked like a right douche bag saying she hadn't sent me it. It was details about various university accommodation around Paris especially for foreign students. It turned out there was only one left, to share with another foreign female student. The pictures didn't look too appetising nor was I willing to share.

Don't get me wrong, I have looked into sharing but I have my reasons why I stopped thinking about it.

So I've upped my bracket even more, taking into account I will get financial help from the French government through CAF (Caisses d'Allocations Familiales) so the max I will go for now is EUR900 and have started contacting French estate agents who charge about a month's rent as an agency fee.

What am I looking for in an apartment? I don't really mind how big it is, as long as I feel comfortable in it, because I know there'll be times on my year abroad when I'll miss my family, my friends, my hometown and I don't want it to be a depressing room. There are some must haves though: internet and washer/dryer, fully-equipped kitchen, bed and desk. A balcony would be a plus, the nearer to the centre of Paris, the better.

I've received a couple of phone calls from these estate agents and am off to Paris this weekend to hopefully finalise accommodation!

So here are the websites that I found were helpful for me:
www.craigslist.com (watch out for scams!)
www.vingtparis.com (estate agents, very friendly indeed!)
www.seloger.com (private landlords and estate agents adverts)

www.pap.fr (same as seloger but these go quickly, so keep refreshing and instantly phone/e-mail if you're interested in something)

www.parisattitude.com (estate agents, deal in English, they have great information on their website about each furnished rental)

Happy hunting if you're trying to find an apartment in Paris and good luck! I'm going to need it too...

The next update will be filled with the results of my weekend, so until then!

A picture of my desk in my halls of residence, Bericote - Westwood during my first year at the University of Warwick.