London Rental Opportunity of the Week: A Definitely Haunted Two-Bed in Dublin

What is it? The site of what I can only presume is somewhere between eighty and one-hundred thousand murders or at least unexplained deaths;
Where is it? Dublin, which is in Ireland, which is not in London, which the keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed flies in direct contravention of the headline, "London Rental Opportunity of the Week", but now we've got to the point where the words "London Rental Opportunity of the Week" have a certain shit-flat cachet, so yes, even though this is not in London, please, reader, please: allow it;
What is there to do locally? Got to admit to having Ed-Sheeran-in-Galway-Girl levels of knowledge about Ireland and the Irish, but it says here there's a good burger place called "Jo'burger" and an Irish pub called "Mother Reilly's", and if you don't fancy either of them then I suppose you can lay at home stretched out on a sheetless single bed waiting for spirits from the etherworld to scorch through your bones and pull your heart out through your mouth, thus murdering you entirely to death;
Alright, how much are they asking? €1,000 pcm, or £865 in the true coin of the realm

And so to Dublin, Ireland, which contrary to popular reports is not just a slightly-too-involved-stag-party that got a bit out of hand and became a city, but is in fact a place with a rich culture and history, and with a diverse population of students and locals and immigrants too, but also really thick pink 18-stone lads called Shawn running tiptoe through the streets in a ceremonial mankini before doing some real, real damage to the AirBnb they are renting for the weekend. A city of multitudes, a city of depths.

A city also home to this, The Second-Most Haunted Rental Opp Ever Seen in the History of This Column:

Putting aside that spirits definitely live here, like definitely, like there is no way that, days after you move in, you discover in a cupboard a ouija board – "Huh," you say, "I remember looking in this cupboard but… but I don't remember this being here?" and the lights glow a little stronger in the room for a second and you put the ouija board back but then something compels you, just an itch inside you that you can't quite scratch, some need to get the ouija board out – and you fold the it out on the table and sit there with your (corporeal) flatmate, and you start unfolding the instructions and slowly learning how to ouija, your lips softly moving as you read the ancient runes, but then the glass on the board just starts moving of its own accord – slowly, at first, but then faster; faster than you can note the letters, but you're pretty sure you saw "K" then "I", followed by "L", "L", and then thunder strikes outside – you don't remember it being so rainy, and so grey, when you started this process just moments before – and thunder strikes outside and for a moment the room is illuminated with a pure whole white light, and you swear for a second the walls are streaked with blood, and there in the corner, pure white face in a pure white smock but with utterly black open eyes, there's a girl, still as a statue, just staring at you – and you think, maybe it is time to put the ouija board away, maybe I should move out of this hell portal, and let's just forget about the deposit, just this once, it's probably not worth the aggro—

So putting aside all that re: house in Dublin being definitely haunted by malicious spirits of old, let's take a quick tour of the facilities on offer, shall we:

– Two single beds, because you are encouraged to share a bedroom with another human, like a college movie set in mid-90s America, or a sleepover party when you were 13, only occasionally
you wake in the middle of the night and there, across the room, they are just staring at you, eyes bolt open, eerie high sound emerging from their bloodless mouth;
– Single stool that just feels like it's been kicked over a few times in its lifespan;
– Wire cord leading to flickering single-bulb lamp which could have been installed literally in the year 1890 by the fucking looks of it;
– Steepled walls so you can slam your head into the fucker every single time you try and stand up in this place;

– Exxxxtremely buckled cabinet door which I can only assume is the survivor of a weird event where all the taps in the house came on at once, screaming and screaming and screaming with red-hot jets of water, flooding the entire bottom floor of the house and leaving the place seeping and infested with a haunted mould;
– What appears to be a… floating… disembodied… sombrero? Not q. sure what that is;
– Set of Poundworld plastic tubs in lieu of actual, like, drawers;

– Single chair that, when it isn't screeching of its own accord across the linoleum, you can sit in silently and contemplate yr. life and how you ended up here and what that creaking sound is, that creaking sound that only ever happens when the darkness comes inside;

— THE MOST PSYCHOTICALLY MANGLED PIC-STITCH OF ALL TIME, A PIC-STITCH SO UNWORLDLY THAT I CAN ONLY ASSUME THE PHOTO ITSELF IS HAUNTED;

So yeah, if a two-single-bed €1,000 pcm quasi-bedsit in Dublin is your vibe – or indeed, just generally having your throat slowly slit as you lay in your bed and silently scream, a floating body above you glaring into your eyes and smiling inhumanly while it does it, and somehow it contorts its mouth gap (the demon does not have a mouth, not a human mouth or even an animal mouth, just a sort of void with sounds coming out, not anything you'd recognise as an actual organ) and somehow the demon hisses "HELLLLLL" and "YOU ARE GOING… TO HELLLLLLL" – then… then I guess this is the place for you!

@joelgolby (h/t @deevseverything)

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