Spain: Apartment in Santiago with rats and termites rents for €475

Santiago: €475 a month for an apartment with rats, termites, and dampness

An apartment in Santiago de Compostela with termites, dampness, and rats has become a symbol of something more troubling than mere landlord neglect. It is being rented for about €475 per month and its tenants, students, discovered upon moving in that the owner's warning—"it is not at its best aesthetically, but you won't have trouble living there"—was a massive understatement. "You run your hand along the wall and it stays soaked," one of them says. There is no central heating in the flat, only electric heaters.

The anecdote, which went viral on university social media, is no longer just a story. The debate is not whether this specific flat is uninhabitable, but how many similar properties sustain the rental market in a university city without any intervention. Underlying this is a divisive question: is this greed, is this scarcity, or is this what happens when the State regulates aesthetics but deregulates habitability?

The conditions of the Santiago apartment

The tenants' account is detailed and bleak. Walls that soak your hand, cracked windows letting in the cold, an absence of fixed heating, and an old building where termites, dampness, and rats coexist. One student recalls being offered a room in previous years with only three walls: the fourth was a curtain, which the landlord denied. Another describes cracked windows and freezing temperatures inside the home.

The affected student downplays the issue with a phrase more painful than any complaint: "You know that for €200 it's possible a flat might have some dampness, but this shouldn't be the norm." Resignation has become the standard. A detail that explains its viral nature: in faculty student groups, they say the situation is celebrated as a reflection of daily life, not an exception.

How much does that apartment actually cost?

It is worth being precise here, as easy headlines fall apart under calculation. The declared rent is around €475 per month, which between three tenants comes to about €158 per person; including utilities, the figure the tenants deal with is close to €200 per person. In other words, the owner does not net €600: the landlord does not charge for utilities, even though the tenant pays them in the same transfer.

This nuance matters because it dismantles two narratives at once. It is neither a textbook real estate scam nor a free-market price in the strict sense. It is a dilapidated hole at a dilapidated hole price in a city where the alternative is worse. And when a bad product sells, the incentive to improve it disappears.

The landlord's argument: renovating is not worth it

The most common defense from the owner is not that the flat is in good condition, but that fixing it is impossible without going broke. The building is centuries old, made of stone and wood, and heritage regulations (normativa patrimonial) require reconstruction with traditional materials: wooden beams, tiled roofs, and restoration projects trinc a century-old style. A budget that would not be recovered for decades with rents of €475.

The logical alternative—tearing it down and building modern flats—clashes with the urban planning protections of the area, which is near the intermodal station. This leads to the most repeated argument: if the land cannot be densified and the historic center cannot be touched, supply freezes and old stock is rented as is. The conclusion drawn by some is uncomfortable: the problem is not the landlord, but the framework that turns renovation into ruin and demolition into a crime.

Who is to blame: the owner, the tenant, or the law?

Blame is also cast on the tenant, quite harshly: if no one signed, the landlord would have to renovate or sell. This is the argument of responsibility for those who accept the terms. The counter-argument is that those without money cannot afford the luxury of rejecting a roof, and that in Santiago, student rentals are dominated by tourist apartments that push residents out of the market.

In the middle lies the administrative route: if a dwelling does not meet habitability conditions, the City Council should not allow it to be rented. It is suggested that it likely has all its paperwork in order because nobody is monitoring anything. And a warning worth remembering: some remind us that any home must meet minimum standards, and that landlords who bypass the law often complain when the tenant does the same.

The context no one disputes: prices and comparisons

International comparisons serve to calibrate, not to console. Those who have rented in Northern Europe describe a different balance: the tenant pays a reasonable price, cares for the house, and the landlord maintains the property. In Spain, they argue, there is an abundance of hoarders who do not maintain what they accumulate. In South America, they say, a landlord warns that the flat "is a bit unwell" and lowers the price; here, a bad flat is offered at a premium.

There is also a historical memory of student rentals: in 1983, a fourth-floor walk-up in Barcelona's Diagonal, above a seafood restaurant, smelling of stale fish and with faulty wiring, cost 12,000 pesetas a month between four people, about 3,000 each. In 2012, a damp attic in Santiago was rented for €110. The trend does not invite optimism.

What can be done and what is being done

Solutions clash head-on. Some call for public intervention, limits on high-pressure zones (zonas tensionadas), and effective habitability controls. Others respond that intervening in the market only reduces supply and that the result is more dilapidated flats, not fewer. And a third way, the most uncomfortable for everyone: that the solution is not to regulate the price of a bad flat, but to allow the construction of good ones.

Meanwhile, the apartment remains rented. The students continue to study. And the question hanging over the case is not how much it costs to renovate a centuries-old building, but how many centuries-old buildings like this one are propping up the rental market in much of Spain without any administration ever knocking on the door.