The dark side of renting in Madrid: Four Latin American families pay €2,500 a month to stay in a 40m basement | Company

If the woman in this story could go back in time and start over, she would never have trusted the lady who told her that finding an apartment in Madrid was easy. She estimated that it would take around 10 days to settle her family in the Spanish capital; she would use her savings to do so. This time would be enough to look for a job and recover the money she had spent to buy five plane tickets from Lima, Peru, for her three daughters, her mother and herself. She dreamed that her eldest daughter, aged 18, could finally go to university and that her two youngest daughters could go to school, and that she could stop explaining to them that in her country, money or connections were the only way to avoid serving the wealthy. But last Friday, they had cocoa mixed with water for breakfast in a damp, windowless, airless basement measuring less than 40 square meters (430.56 square feet). 15 other Colombians, Venezuelans and Peruvians, including two babies under the age of one, also live there. From this stuffy corner of the Usera district, south of the capital, for which residents pay a total of €2,500 ($2,656.62) a month, there is no trace of the “new Miami”, like the hundreds of Latin American millionaires who settled in the affluent neighborhood of Salamanca nicknamed Madrid.

The woman in this story wants to remain anonymous because her biggest fear these days is that they will all be thrown out of the uninhabitable basement, which has also become their only refuge. A few days before, her eldest daughter was looking for the best park bench to spend the night. Her second daughter was considering how to place the umbrellas to avoid getting wet in the Madrid downpour. And her 8-year-old daughter was listening to reggaeton on her cell phone, distracted by the angst and despair that surrounded her. “I never thought I would find myself having to explain to my little girl that we had to sleep on the streets,” she says.

– I don’t care, Mom.

It all started two weeks ago. She arrived with her daughters and mother in a Airbnb in Madrid Puente de Vallecas neighborhood. Her niece and her niece’s boyfriend, aged 24 and 22 respectively, had already been living in Spain for eight months and joined them in the flat. At seven they searched night and day for a house in the capital; they walked down every street and read every advertisement they could find on the internet. They had 10 days to find a place. They went to real estate agencies and inquired on websites. But all the ads mentioned conditions that none of the five adults could meet: the person’s last two paychecks, a permanent job, a salary that would allow them to do not spend more than a third of their salary on renta deposit of 2 months rent and additional guarantees.

When the landlords heard the woman’s accent, the demands increased: more payslips, a heavier deposit; some even wanted payment just to show the apartment. “We can’t trust them, what if they can’t pay?” “Ah, there are children, even worse”, “How am I going to live with myself if I have to throw little girls on the street?” But they were already on the street. They had a budget of €800 ($849.78) per month and savings that allowed them to pay six months in advance. It was impossible.

So they turned to Facebook. They searched for pages like “apartments and rooms for rent in Madrid” and “places to rent without documents”. A woman asked the family to deposit €800 ($849.78) into her account just to show them the place; she told them she was on her honeymoon, made a video call, and sent them a photo of her ID. She almost succeeded. Another person offered them a cabin in Arganda del Rey in the Spanish countryside. “You have to have a car. You and your husband,” the announcer warned. “How much would the cabin rental cost?” asked the niece. “It would be free. On condition of maintaining and fitting out the farm and the cabin, installing a solar panel and building a septic tank,” replies the advertiser. The place lacked electricity and running water; he offered them to live and work for him there in exchange for a roof over their heads 40 kilometers from downtown Madrid. “If you’re not interested, but know a Peruvian friend or relative who would like to live in the countryside, let me know.”

-How come the minimum wage in Spain is €950 ($1,009.12) but there are no apartments in Madrid under €700 ($743.59)? How do people do it?” asks the niece.

When they were about to go out on the street with their belongings and they did not know what to do, a man wrote them a message on Facebook telling them to enter the same day on the first floor of Usera. At the time, they all believed it was a miracle. “Then we had suspicions, because he told us that we had to come in at night so that no one would see us,” says the niece. And all seven entered – “like criminals”, says the woman’s mother, 62 – into the room they had been living in for two weeks. It wasn’t until the next morning over breakfast that they found out that many other people, just like them, were living in the four-room basement. The residents couldn’t even all fit in the kitchen at the same time.

The head of the family, his daughters, his mother, his niece and his niece’s boyfriend huddled together in the only free space: an 8.60 square meter (92.57 square foot) room with plasterboard walls, installed in a corner of the kitchen; fragile walls do not even reach the ceiling. The man who claims to be their landlord charges them €700 ($743.59) a month to live there. At night, they have to move their suitcases to fit two 90 cm mattresses and a full mattress; they must all squeeze in, and there are so many people that the door does not open. Rainwater that has collected in the inner courtyard of the building seeps into the basement through what was once a tall window, which is now boarded up with wood and duct tape. The hallway leading to the only bathroom is waterlogged. Mold has eaten away half of one of the shower walls. Dampness permeates the lungs and it is difficult to breathe. The only way to let air in is to open the door from the street that leads to the landing.

€2,500 for a windowless basement

A Colombian family also lives in the basement in another room next to the kitchen. This family arrived recently and started living in the cellar three months ago. There are seven members of the Colombian family, including two children, one of whom is less than a year old; they pay an additional €700 ($743.59) in rent. At the entrance there are two bedrooms of 3 square meters (32.3 square feet) in which only a single bed can fit. In one of these beds, a couple sleeps with their 6-month-old baby. The wife stays there all day with her granddaughter, while the husband leaves to look for construction work. “I think I’m depressed; some days I can’t even get out of bed,” she says. A Venezuelan couple lives next door with their 20-day-old baby girl. In total, residents are paying €2,500 ($2,656.62) per month for this uninhabitable space.

In the Salamanca neighborhood, one of Madrid’s wealthiest neighborhoods, accents similar to those heard in the basement imply investment, but in Usera, the neighborhood with the lowest per capita income in the capital, they mean misery. This is the dark side of the “new Miami”, nickname given to the city because of the number of Latin American millionaires who have chosen Madrid as their new place of residence. Wealthy Mexicans, Peruvians, Colombians and Venezuelans eat at trendy restaurants on Calle Jorge Juan, shop for clothes and jewelry on Calle Serrano, and buy renovated homes at an average of €12,000 ($12,751.80) per meter square. Then there are those who earn no more than $500 a month cleaning houses or laying bricks.

The “new Miami” cannot be seen from Usera. Working-class Latin Americans who emigrated to give their families a better future become the final link in the system’s cruel chain. Without residency or papers, newly arrived immigrants are hunted down by scammers looking to take advantage of them. As their savings continue to dwindle, they swell the ranks of soup kitchens, the Red Cross and parochial aid programs. “If we were in Miami, I would charge three times my hourly rate to take care of the children,” explains the Peruvian. But here, his bribe salary is not even enough for rent. That’s barely enough for a stuffy, unsanitary basement that costs more than someone with a steady job would pay for an apartment over 100 square meters (1,076.4 square feet) in the Salamanca neighborhood. .

On Friday, part of the basement roof collapsed while the Peruvian family slept. The wall that covered the tall basement window collapsed in the rain. The clothes hanging on the plasterboard walls were soaked in black water. Hangers fell on the mattresses in their bedroom, and Peru’s mother felt a rumble in the small hall rooms. The only natural light from the basement now enters through the hole created by the bad weather. They know they have to get out of there ASAP. “But where would we go?” asks the niece, who has already considered returning to Cantabria with her boyfriend. The head of the family’s eyes fill with tears. Today, her biggest fear is that her daughters will be taken from her, as recommended by a social worker. “They told us it would be difficult, we were ready for anything. But we never imagined that,” she says.

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