Apartment Hunting is HELL!!!!
As we had not secured accommodation before we arrived - and by god, did we try! The first few days in Vienna were spent sightseeing, laughing and enjoying the sunshine.....NO! We spent our first few days holed up in our hostel sending emails, trawling the internet and having emotional breakdowns :(
Vienna's student housing is very different to that of the UK. They do not have their own accommodation affiliated to them, they use two outside organisations, officially, to recommend to their students to use and also various housing websites offering rooms in shared apartments (WG is the symbol to look for here). As we were so late (June) in getting our Erasmus place confirmed and our placement, too; we missed the deadlines for the 'official' student housing and got knocked back - joy! The summer was spent looking for apartments on various internet sites we found, which led to nothing. I was also swanning about Asia for 7 weeks and, to be honest, I didn't really have time to look whilst I was over there; so the job of apartment hunting was left to James - Sorry, mate :(
Anyway, after a further two weeks searching constantly before we left for Vienna, that added to the searches over the summer; we finally got accommodation through the website www.airbnb.com. OK, the accommodation is stupidly expensive, but it was the only thing we could find that met our needs and the location for our work placements was perfect. The only downside to getting this amazing apartment was that we could not move in until the 30th of September, thus meaning we would have to live in a hostel for a month. The idea of doing this wasn't so bad, the actual doing so is were the problems occurred. WARNING: Hostel living is not for the faint hearten - lack of sleep, noisy room mates, room mates that thinks its acceptable to walk around in their underwear and forget the rules on dignity are just some of the delights we faced - one guy enjoyed getting dressed in the middle of the room each day. Que me hiding under my duvet until he was done :(
So, my advice to future Erasmus students in Vienna:
- Make sure you have at least 800 - 1000 euros set aside for accommodation deposits.
- Apply for student accommodation, through the recommended sites, by at least the end of April. If your programme and placement still hasnt been confirmed by then; read the cancellation policy and just book it!
- Join Erasmus Facebook groups in Vienna - many other people (and there is a lot) are looking for accommodation, too. You could share with them or beat them to it for rooms....it's up to you.
- Try these links - (https://www.airbnb.com/s/
Wien--%C3%96sterreich?checkin= ). http://www.athostel.com/de/, www.jobwohnen.at, www.willhaben.at,www.flohmarkt.at and www.bazar.at, http://housing.oead.at/de/,08%2F30%2F2014&checkout=09% 2F10%2F2014&guests=2&locale= en&price_max=53&room_types[]= Entire+home%2Fapt
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