When Lena S. (29) got into an emergency situation, she was heavily pregnant. Her fiancé, the child's father, had left her because of mental health problems. Today, Lena S. is no longer alone. © Private
The housing market in Munich is a tough place. This can put people who are looking for an apartment as quickly as possible in a predicament. This is also the case for Lena S. (29).
Munich – If you are looking for an apartment in Munich, you need time, patience and a "thick skin". Hardly any other housing market is as highly competitive as the one in the Bavarian metropolis. Lena S. also felt this with full force. Strokes of fate brought the 29-year-old into an emergency situation – so far without a "happy ending".
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Wedding burst, heavily pregnant and apartment moldy: Munich woman experiences "catastrophe"
Getting married, having a child and moving into her own home – that was the dream of Lena S. (29). Within a very short time, it burst like a soap bubble. The drama begins in March of this year, when her fiancé leaves her out of the blue. "There I was, almost six months pregnant, the two-room rental apartment had already been terminated and the new tenant was already at the door," she told tz.de. Her partner at the time had developed a serious mental illness with which he no longer felt able to lead and live a relationship, let alone fatherhood.
Even from the outside is visible: the walls of the house, into which Lena. S wanted to move in are clammy. © Private
While she packs the boxes with an ever-rounding belly to move into the five-room apartment with a garden on the outskirts of Erding, Lena S. receives the next bad news, which is to change her fate further for the worse. The apartment, which belongs to her mother, had previously been rented out for nine years. When Lena S. and her mother enter the apartment after the tenants have moved out, they are shocked.
The apartment that Lena S. actually wanted to move into with her fiancé is uninhabitable after the previous tenants moved out. There is mold everywhere. © Private
"We thought we would be hit by the blow," says Lena S. in an interview with tz.de. "She was literally under water." There is mold everywhere. This was not visible from the outside. "From the inside, it's a disaster." My mother looked at her destroyed property, Lena S. at the poisonous nest for her unborn son. "Of course, I was gripped by panic and the nest-building instinct." She decides to look for a new apartment – the continuation of the odyssey.
"Crying all the time": The search for an apartment becomes an odyssey
Lena S. is looking for a two-and-a-half to three-room apartment for a maximum of 1300 euros warm. She is a permanent zookeeper, in a permanent employment relationship and with a solid income. "A good basis for the housing market, one might think." She leaves no stone unturned: she has created a premium profile on a real estate portal, asked her father, a former employee of one of Germany's largest automotive companies, for a guarantee, submitted an application to various real estate websites and newspapers, and I even tried it on the radio. "No chance." She is at her wit's end. "I just cried all the time and was desperate."
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She gathers her last energy and writes a call for help on Facebook. "I got a lot of tips and news, ideas and suggestions and even housing offers very quickly." She spent several days calling house companies and brokers, writing e-mails and explaining her precarious situation. "Scathing answers came back." She is not the only "emergency seeker", the story sounds too adventurous and therefore implausible. "The worst sentence was: If you have already made the man mentally ill that he leaves you pregnant, I don't need you as a tenant."
In addition to the humour, however, she also gets promising housing offers. But hope collapses every time, like a house of cards. An apartment that is offered to her could change her fate for the better, but the owner does not get in touch. With others, she gets rejections.
No "happy ending": Lena S. has to live in a moldy apartment after giving birth
Even after several months of looking for an apartment, only one thing has changed in Lena S.'s situation: she is no longer alone. On June 4, 2023, her son will see the light of day – a glimmer of light in a very dark time. Her parents are a great support. "They've been ploughing for months to make the upper floor of the moldy house habitable, at least over the summer." So she can spend the postpartum period in her own home, stress-free. Afterwards she will go back to looking for an apartment. "But I don't feel comfortable putting my newborn in this house."
At the end of the interview, Lena S. has a clear appeal to the city: "For the future, I hope that Munich's priorities will be set in housing brokerage, especially for working people and middle-income people." She wishes all other apartment seekers in a similar situation: Good luck in finding a beautiful, suitable home soon.
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