Settling In Sydney

Well, agencies have started to get back to me now with interviews (most of them have only just got back to work after New Years).  We have spent our time this week flat hunting.  Everyone we ring, the flat has already gone.  They charge you more if you are a couple in a room (I don't know how that works), a lot of people won't take couples (which is fair enough).  It is really hard work.  Every place we have looked at is terrible.  They are all no bigger than my living room, and that is including a bathroom and kitchen!  One place we went to, all the skirting was rotting, the kitchen was in bits and it seemed as though a smack head was living there.  Another place we went to visit, we got eaten by fleas and the list goes on.  I am not long from being a student and I can put up dingy hovels, but I caouldn't stand these flats we were looking at.  To get something acceptable (by the standard of a student) you needed to pay $300 plus, a week.  All the nice places had about 50 people going to visit them on an open day (that is no exageration by the way), and most of those would apply to for flat.  Then the agency would sift through the applications and chooses someone to live in the flat.  Often though, because of the huge demand, they would refuse all the applications and then have another open day the next week and put the price up.

There must be somehere to live in Sydney, but the news keeps having articles on the ridiculous prices and how accomodation in Sydney is more expensive than London. 

It is really stressful trying to find somewhere to live.  We have been travelling for 4 months now, living out of a bag and I just want somewhere I can call home for a while, or even just unpack my stuff would be good.  I am really starting to feel like a little ant in a city who is about to be trod upon any minute.