The dark side of house rents in Spain
4 Latin families pay 2,400 euros a month to live in a crowded basement in Madrid
The cellar room was crowded with its seven occupants.
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At night, the occupants of the cellar had to collect luggage in a corner for mattresses.
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If the woman mentioned in this story could go back in time and start her life over again, she wouldn't believe her friend who told her that finding an apartment in Madrid would be easy.
She thought that within 10 days she would be able to find an apartment to live with her family in the Spanish capital.
And she will use her life savings to do so.
And that this time would be enough for her to find a job through which she could recover the money she spent buying five plane tickets from Lima, Peru, for her three daughters, her mother, and herself.
She dreamed that her eldest daughter, 18, would be able to go to university, her younger daughters could go to school, and that she could stop telling them that in her country money and acquaintances were the only ways to avoid serving the rich.
And there is no trace of the existence of "New Miami," the name given by the Latin American millionaires who settled in Salamanca County.
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And this woman wishes to remain anonymous because her biggest fear these days is that they will all be kicked out of the unlivable cellar, which has become their only refuge.
Before that, they lived on the streets, as her eldest daughter had to search for a comfortable seat in a square to spend the night on.
The middle child was thinking about how to put the umbrella in the best position, to avoid the heavy Madrid rain.
As for the third daughter, who is eight years old, she used to listen to music on her cell phone, in order to forget the suffering and despair that surrounded her.
The mother said, "I never thought I would find myself trying to explain to my little daughter that she had to sleep in the street."
Her niece, 24, and her fiancé, 22, had been living in Spain for eight months and joined them in the basement room.
Before this cellar, the seven kept looking for a house day and night in the capital, touring all the streets and reading all the advertisements they could find on the Internet.
It took 10 days for them to find the cellar.
All the apartment owners put conditions that they could not fulfill such as payment by cheques, permanent work, a salary that allowed them to spend money, two months deposit in advance and other guarantees.
And when the real estate owners heard the woman's tone, the requests they placed increased, and they demanded larger deposits to guarantee their rights, and some of them even wanted to pay him money in exchange for seeing the apartment.
Some of the apartment owners said: «We can't trust them, what if they can't pay?
And there are children, it will be even worse for them.
How would we feel if we threw baby girls out on the street?”
But they were already on the street and wanted any shelter.
Finally someone sent them a message on Facebook telling them they could live in a basement room in Osera.
At the time they thought it was a miracle.
The man told them that they had to pay 700 euros a month, which was what the occupants of the other three rooms paid, which would make the rent for this cellar 2400 euros a month.
The area of the cellar was 40 square metres.
There were three other rooms in the basement where all 15 other people from Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, including two infants under a year old, also lived in the same basement, in this claustrophobic corner of Lucira, south of Madrid.
crowded room
In the middle of the dark night, the seven occupants of the cellar room had to move their luggage and suitcases from their place and gather them in a corner, in order to be able to put the mattresses, and the room became so crowded that they could not open the door.
The corridor leading to the only bathroom of this room was very damp from the abundance of water, and due to the density of moisture filling the lungs, it was difficult for one to breathe normally.
The only way to let in air was to open the door to the street, and then to the stairs.
• Apartment owners impose difficult conditions such as payment by cheques, permanent employment, salary, and a deposit of two months in advance.
• When the real estate owners heard the woman's tone, their requests increased, and they demanded larger deposits to guarantee their rights. Some of them even wanted to pay him money in exchange for seeing the apartment.
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