Near and Not so Dear..
Written by Céline Vera Adjoumani
Dear reader,
In Dutch, we have this saying: “Huisje, boompje, beestje.” It’s meant to evoke the image of a comfortable bourgeois life, stripped down to its most recognisable symbols: a house with a mortgage, a tree out back, perhaps a cat or dog roaming the garden. But for many of us, those things are no longer quite so self-evident when considering our prospects.
Much has been said, and much more remains to be said, about the housing crisis. In Amsterdam (as in many other cities), moving house seven or eight times over the span of just a few years has quietly become the norm. Just like paying €1,500 to €2,000 a month for a studio flat. Rising rents, growing inequality, a chronic shortage of affordable housing, and the steady infiltration of foreign investors are all issues our cosy little Dutch government has been happy to ignore for far too long.
We've reached a moment where the phrase "housing is a basic human right" feels almost laughable, not because we don’t believe it anymore, but because that belief no longer aligns with the reality being manufactured in The Hague.
Many of us are becoming numb to the absurd demands of urban life.
“€1,200 for a single room in the city centre? Fine. I’ll just start stealing peanut butter and yoghurt at the self-checkout in Albert Heijn. Fuck capitalism, right?”
No, honey. Capitalism fucks you. Just like it’s fucking the rest of us — those who once proudly declared “housing; having a roof over ones head, is a basic human right”. Maybe that was before. Before we got corrupted by the idealistic compromises that come with adulthood. There’s not just “fight or flight” when it comes to reacting to political and economic systems. There’s also the “passively linger and occasionally complain” mode, which I think is the one most of us have settled into.
What to do?
We can be depressed about it and create hateful memes about how neo-liberalism is the source of all evil (which we will definitely do and there should be room for that), but we can also do something about it. A lot! One thing is talking about it. Catapulting stories into the world that remind us and reveal to others, perhaps for the first time, why its themes and subjects matter.
I could list dry statistics, numbers that would make your jaw drop, just for Amsterdam alone. But so many newspapers and research platforms have already done that. Stories, on the other hand, for better or worse, have more power over us than stats do. We're strange creatures, programmed to care only once we see ourselves reflected in someone else’s experience. That moment of recognition, making the reader feel seen, that’s the true power of a good column, essay, or book.
That’s also why, in this edition of Gen Z & the City, I’m handing over the mic to a friend of mine who has written bravely and brilliantly about her own housing situation.
Let her story show you something. Let it move you. Let it make you angry!!!! Good writing should.
Love,
Naomi
Welcome to the I Guess You Can Borrow My Friend series.
Every now and then, I hand over Gen Z & The City to a friend, so they can share a personal anecdote, or simply something that’s been occupying their thoughts lately. Enjoy the read and let it do something to you.
I had compressed my material life to two suitcases, a full laundry basket (dirty), and a plastic storage box with random kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies. I was moving for the sixth time in five years to a temporary sublet. A small studio on the first floor of a family home in one of the failed suburbs of Amsterdam: IJburg. To get to the studio we had to enter through the front door which was the same front door used by the landlord’s family, and the three others renting rooms above me. I exhaled but the air felt thin. My sister looked around the place and said ‘it is not that bad up here’. She must have read disappointment on my face. I sat on the bed and felt that everything in my life must be a string of failures for me to end up in the tiny illegal studio in IJburg with a mysterious landlord and other tenants I have not (still not!) met. I became a stranger to a house full of strangers.
I had just rung the doorbell and an alerted middle-aged man looked through the sheer curtains of the tall window beside the front door. I could not define his face, only vague contours of a white man with dark features. A pretty twenty-something-year-old girl opened the door to a dark narrow hallway. It was decorated with letters from the municipality pinned on a board, unopened letters stacked on a shelf above the radiator, scattered kids-shoes on the floor, and a random glove in the back corner. She greeted me and quickly turned around, gesturing that I should follow her to the end of the hallway. We passed a toilet on the left with a big map of the Netherlands inside. Opposite from it, there was a door where warm artificial light was leaking from underneath it. Must be the room that strange man was in. The girl noticed me looking at the door. “Don’t go in there.” , she told me in a soft but stern voice.
When I got to the studio on the first floor I didn’t really know what to think, but I was about to give up on the idea of having a place to live in Amsterdam so the opportunity was welcome nontheless. I had been aggressively looking for a new place, went to multiple viewings with other candidates, but I could never present myself eager enough. “Hi! I’m Céline and I will be the best roommate you’ll ever have!”, who was I kidding. I am Céline and I am desperate. Also desperate not to have roommates. So, I was actually glad I found this temporary sublet and even gladder that I was the first one viewing it. The studio was small, a bit damp, but functional. There was a tiny kitchen with a microwave oven beneath the sink, pans were stacked on top of it. You could not chop ingredients while using the portable induction hob, but with some strategic planning I could imagine making some decent meals there. Right next to it was a toilet in a makeshift linoleum bathroom box which also functions as a shower when dividing the space with a shower curtain hanging from rusting iron clips attached to a little curved rail. The rest of the studio consisted of an Ikea cupboard that was falling apart, a clothing rack, a low corner-desk, a big armchair, and a wooden-framed bed with storage underneath. All amenities were reduced versions of themselves. Without hesitation I told the girl I was very interested and I would give her my final answer tomorrow. It was the most realistic option so far, it was my only option. The whole landlord-lives-downstairs-and-you-have-no-lock-on-your-door seemed kind of sketchy, but urgency makes one ignorant and actual housing is for the rich nowadays (or the well-connected). I could move in with my youngest sister and commute, but I had to be in Amsterdam four days a week and six when uni would start. Also, my tiny social network (three friends) finally lived in this area, and it feels shitty to leave that behind too. I should say yes.
I was incredibly lucky with my first Amsterdam-address. I rented an apartment from a former gallery-intern together with my best-friend, and I had the best time of my adult life there. We had our routine; espresso in the morning, doing our groceries, having dinner together after work, good conversations, and watching reality-TV (without guilt!). She would travel a lot, and when I was alone I would turn up the music really loud and dance, I would experiment in the kitchen (like a real grownup one), and take walks in the abundant greenery of Amsterdam Noord. After my dearest friend decided to emigrate to the United Arab Emirates to make real money, I continued to live in the apartment, only now with the owner of the house (ex-gallery-intern). Although there were some very nice moments and I did enjoy being in the apartment, it was not comparable to what I had with my friend. I felt like an unwelcome visitor and hoped to move out as soon as possible. I decided to sublet the tiny sketchy studio from the girl (who was temporarily moving to Berlin btw).
After I moved (thank God for my sisters), I did not encounter the strange landlord-man again for a while. I understood that a family lived downstairs and the general rule was to pretend that each of us did not exist, or at least we’d try. I would listen by my door on Saturday mornings if any of my strange housemates were using the communal washer, only then would I step out to do a wash. When I leave for work I listen at the top of the stairs if the coast is clear (read: if no one is going to use the toilet in the hallway), then I take care to go downstairs with as little noise as possible. And when coming home I would make sure to not make any eye contact with the family through the window next to the front door. Their dinner table was by the window so in winter they would all be having dinner right when I came back from work. I made sure they remained vague shapes to me so I could hold on to some vague shape of sanity. After two and a half months, or three, I don’t quite remember, I was leaving for work. I listened and proceeded to go downstairs when one of the shapes now got form. A woman with long grey curly hair stood in the hallway and looked up. I was surprised I didn’t hear her before going down. I was halfway across the stairs and my first instinct was to smile: the type of awkward disarming smile you make on a walk while meeting eyes with a stranger who’s waiting on their shitting dog. She did not return the gesture, rather she ignored my presence and left. I can’t quite describe how the interaction made me feel, except that it feels kind of strange to have someone look through you.
Not long after this instance, I came home to an older woman smoking in front of the front door. She obviously did not recognize that I had to go inside which resulted in an uncomfortable maneuvering. She looked me up and down before making way for me to go through the door. I apologized as I went in.
Another time I saw a woman and a young girl entering the house, while I was getting my bike from across the street. I did not assume they were part of the family; they had different contours and colour palettes than the vague shapes behind the window. They looked like mother and daughter. I have no idea what they did there that day, if they lived there, maybe were visiting, or maybe they were there to clean the house. Everyone in IJburg had cleaning ladies after all.
They are questions that come up every time I am walking behind someone while going ‘home’ from the tram stop, or looking at figures and faces while getting groceries at Albert Heijn. I wonder if I share a washing machine with them, if I have tried to guess what they are cooking because the smell seeps into my room, or whether that random slender, dark haired man standing by the artisanal potatoes is my direct neighbour. I wonder if he knows I hear him sing every evening to Ariana Grande and other (horrible) songs that sound like they are from Eurovision. I wonder if the woman with a fast pace and the bright green and purple hiking backpack carrying cottage cheese and leeks was the startled girl I ran into on the first floor hallway a few days prior. We exchanged a short ‘Hi’, no smile. Was she the one that pees really loud at 7 in the morning? Did she put up the note with “leave me open = no stink ! :)” on the washing machine?
I tried explaining my new living situation to the person I am dating, but I don’t think he fully understood the silent landlord-tenant agreement of mutual ignorance, until we ran into a young child in the forbidden hallway-door when entering. She must have been 3 or 4, long blond hair, wearing a pink flowered camisole, white crumpled socks, and holding some plush animal. I think I walked behind her, her sister with blond dreadlocks, and her mother before; obviously making sure I was not in view. She had a mischievous look and kept staring at us, almost daring us to make contact. I semi-panicked and continued to walk to the stairs, trying to ignore her presence like her mother did to me before. I could tell he was a bit baffled, but he followed suit. When we got upstairs we started speculating. I googled the landlord (I had done so before), and shared an article on how he and his wife bought an abandoned Portuguese village for 350.000 euros to set up a food forest and a new Dutch community. The landlord-man was also very vocal in the media about having to leave the Amsterdam city centre for IJburg back in the early 2000s.
Recently I watched a documentary on an English couple with kids that had a very similar construction in the 90s; welcoming strangers and students into their family home as tenants. They were considered very friendly. They also murdered twelve of them and buried their bodies in the foundations of the family home. So far, I do not think this is the case at IJburg.
I had imagined that I could finally somewhat settle into a home for longer than one year at the age of 24, but alas, here we are. Still, I had hoped my sixth time moving would not be into some landlord’s family home with left-wing-party-posters around the front door aligning with ideals such as ‘social liveability’ and ‘the Netherlands is for everyone’, while asking 900 euro per tenant. I still stumble over kids’ shoes in the hallway, but I no longer try to hide my presence. I’ve started putting up trinkets and gifted artworks, I dance again, and I let myself imagine new futures. Perhaps even a next (Amsterdam?) address (if I may be so bold).
