A five-room apartment divided into as many apartments – and even one more, because the owner did not hesitate to rent the closet… For such unscrupulous landlords, the most precarious people, with low incomes or in an irregular situation, represent ideal prey. An excerpt from “The poor, it pays!”, a document to see in “Complément d’Enquête” on April 21, 2022.
Grigny 2, in Essonne, 5,000 housing units for 17,000 inhabitants. It is one of the poorest neighborhoods in France. Behind the walls of its high-rise buildings, a poverty-stricken business has been raging for several years. To collect as much rent as possible, some unscrupulous landlords do not hesitate to rent their property on a piecemeal basis.
At the town hall, Mathieu Morosini is in charge of the fight against these sleep merchants. A team from “Complément d’Enquête” accompanied him on a visit to a five-room apartment… where six families live. This very lucrative cut would bring the owner 2,200 euros in rent each month.
“When you see that accommodation like this is rented for 300, 400, 500 euros per room, and that we have five bedrooms per accommodation, we quickly realize that financially, for the owner, there is has a real interest. And you quickly realize that the living conditions in the accommodation are not up to the rents that are paid by the occupants.”
Mathieu Morosini, head of the housing department at the town hall of Grignyto “Further investigation”
It is a young pregnant woman who is present that day. She is in an irregular situation. For a room that must not be more than nine square meters, where she lives with her husband and soon their baby, she pays 350 euros monthly rent. The living room is occupied by another family.
To make the most of the space, the owner goes so far as to rent… a storage cupboard, an area of six square meters without a single window. The tenant is absent, but Mathieu Morosini shows us photos he was able to take during a previous visit. A refrigerator surmounted by a microwave oven occupies a corner of the closet. The bed was tucked under the wardrobe.
Excerpt from “The poor, it pays!”, a document to see in “Complément d’Enquête” on April 21, 2022.
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