I have been in the rental market for a little short of eight years.
I have moved 24 times in my lifetime. (You’d think I’d have my own TV show)
One I stayed in for 8 years, our family home that we owned. In 2010 we moved to a townhouse nearby, it had 3 bedrooms, a den, a garage and costed $1600/month. In 2011, I moved to Chilliwack with my mother. We rented a 3 bedroom, 1 den townhouse for under $1000/month. In 2012, my sister and I rented a 2 bedroom, 1300sqft basement suite for $900. Today, I live in Whiterock, in an old 2 bedroom rancher, only managing due to a very generous roommate, and short-term lease with low rent ($2200/month is supposedly low) before this place gets torn down in a few weeks.
At 17, I was living on a tanning salon management salary, I had bills, I had a car, and I was just fine.
At 24, I am living on a servers salary, I have bills, I have a car, and I am so not fine.
Hell, even on a 40k annual management salary at 22 I was still not fine.
The saddest part is; even if I had actually made it through university to get my degree, I’d still be in the same shit sinkhole that I am today with no place to live and certainly no chance of ever owning a home in my future.
Currently, I am searching for a home to live in anywhere from Vancouver to Chilliwack, and have even looked at rentals in Calgary. I can not find a 1 bedroom apartment for under $1,000/month anywhere in the lower mainland or Fraser Valley that is available. For god sakes, there are more WANTED ads on the rental page than there are rentals, AND THERES EVEN A WANTED SECTION. When something comes up, it is gone in seconds. I go to a viewing only to find 10 families viewing it, some families even trying to fit themselves and their children into a 1 bedroom COACH HOUSE. I fill out an application, and by the time I do, I am heartbroken with guilt thinking about why my entitled ass gets to live in this place and leave 3 year old Jessica and her parents to find the next shithole that shows up.
Where in the fuck is everybody supposed to live!?
I have a stable job, a strong work ethic, I am responsible. I am the perfect tenant on paper… Until the moment a landlord asks the dreaded, godawful question: “Do you have any pets?”
DUHN. DUHN. DUHN.
This is mayhem! People are struggling to make it through the month with the lowest income rate and highest cost of living in all of Canada. Single families want to get a first pet, single individuals want a companion to spend time with. Pets are an incredible way to develop responsibility, shitty pet owners have given us a bad name and we all have to suffer the consequences?
Now I am left with a few choices. How fortunate I am to have more than a cardboard roof and fourth hand ratted sheets to choose from… First world problems I tell you.
So here I am, a few weeks later.. And I am applying to shithole after shithole. Finally coming across a semi-decent apartment building in the Fraser Valley. Who am I competing with? Never the type of people I would imagine I’d have to beat out to live in these beat down, old, ruined buildings that are in my budget. Never did I imagine that my financial choices would lead me to these options for housing. But here I am. Excited about this lovely one bedroom 700 sq foot apartment that only the slum of the Fraser Valley live in, looking at an hour commute to my work, so that I can actually maintain a semi-stable financial living with my cats. When did life get this fucking expensive?
I am astounded to be scrolling through Craigslist and finding the rentals that I am finding. Who in the right mind would be willing to charge so much for these places?! It’s insanity. It’s beyond my ability of understanding. The audacity of selfish rent prices in this province have murdered any millennials dream of ever owning a home unless the live with Mom and Dad until they’re thirty.
Goodbye to my freedom, I will say goodbye now. Because god knows when I’ll ever be able to afford a decent living in today’s society without having to succumb my independence to a man that’s able to afford a portion of my living cost. Society is screwing us all. I will live in a shithole for years before I fork out thousands of dollars a month to live in a decent building, let alone a standalone home.
The world we were built for is no longer available, instead, as millennials,
we are eternally fucked.
Neesh Media 