Busted toilets, bed bugs and crowded apartments: International students complain about conditions they are met with after moving to Australia

  • One student said his flat is 'a thousand times worse than Bangladesh'
  • He ended up in a 'barely liveable' place 20km from his university 

Many of the half million international students studying in Australia have found their living conditions are far worse than their home countries.

Busted toilets, bed bugs and overcrowded apartments are just some of what they are forced to put up with, with one student saying his flat is 'a thousand times worse than Bangladesh'.

Australia's broader rental crisis has also been made worse by restrictions on the hours foreign students are allowed to work, restricting their scope for affording a nicer place. 

When engineering student Rafiul Hossain was about to leave Bangladesh for Sydney he knew from online searches that it would be tough to find accommodation.

He hoped to at least find a place to live close to his Macquarie University campus in northern Sydney, but ended up in a 'barely liveable' unit in Lakemba - about an hour away on public transport.

Rafiul Hossain from Bangladesh (pictured) hoped to find a place close to his Macquarie University campus in northern Sydney, but ended up in a 'barely liveable' place 20km away

His flat had a broken door, a busted toilet and a bed with bugs crawling all over it.

Mr Hossain said his homeland of Bangladesh is well known as a third-world country,  'but the place I'm currently staying is a thousand times worse than Bangladesh. 

'After two days of long flights, I was hoping to get a good night's sleep, only to end up in a bed full of mites,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Mr Hossain's flat had a broken door, a busted toilet and a bed with bugs (pictured) crawling around it

Mr Hossain's flat had a broken door, a busted toilet and a bed with bugs (pictured) crawling around it

Another international student, Anna, paid $180 a week to share her first apartment in Haymarket in the Sydney CBD with 11 others – four people per room in bunk beds. 

They couldn't open the blinds because the building management sometimes flew drones to see how many people were living there, as the building was known for people leasing it out to more than legally allowed.

A survey of 7,000 international students found a quarter were sharing a bedroom with someone who wasn't their partner, and 3 per cent were 'hot-bedding'. 

Hot-bedding is where multiple students share one bed on a roster. 

Though the survey was carried out pre-Covid, the problem is likely to be even worse now with students flooding back to Australia in the midst of a rental crisis where national vacancy rates are at a record low of 1 per cent.

A major factor in preventing foreign students finding a better place to live is the cost, which is not helped by the limit placed on the hours they can can legally work.

The pre-pandemic limit of 40 hours per fortnight has been raised to 48 by the federal government, but Indian student Kartika Dilip Kharat said an extra four hours a week won't make much difference. 

The Macquarie University master's student pointed out that Sydney is an expensive place to live and that she 'would prefer to work as much as possible'.

She said there should be no restrictions on how many hours foreign students are allowed to work as it helps them to pay their fees, accommodation and expenses. 

It is not just the students who want to be able to work more hours, employers do too, including Ken Rosebery, the former managing director of The Cheesecake Shop.

Sydney-based Indian student Kartika Dilip Kharat (pictured) would like to be able to work more hours than the 48 hours per fortnight she is limited to

In a submission to  the Senate's economics reference committee, he wrote 'What's the government doing in the business of trying to determine what the appropriate hours of work are for a student? 

'They don't do it for domestic students,' he said. 'It seems like you're punishing both the foreign students and the employers for no particular gain.' 

Top 10 countries for international students studying in Australia 

China - 156,217 students

India - 100,302

Nepal - 57,182

Colombia - 22,662

Vietnam - 22,521

Thailand - 19,362

Brazil - 19,057

Philippines - 17,976

Indonesia - 16,914

Pakistan - 15,875

Source: Department of Education, January-December 2022 

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The work restrictions can also lead to students working cash-in-hand jobs to get around the limits. 

But this often means they will be paid far below the minimum wage and are unlikely to complain in case it affects their visa. 

An arrangement between the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Department of Home Affairs allows student visa holders to report being underpaid without fear of their visa being cancelled, even if they've breached their conditions.

But fewer than 200 international students used the amnesty.

A study of 2,472 students by the Migrant Justice Institute found 77 per cent of them were paid below the minimum casual wage, with 26 per cent getting $12 an hour or less.

The institute's co-executive director Bassina Farbenblum said 'if international students are too scared to come forward because they think it will affect their visa – nothing's going to work'.

And nothing is likely to change in the immediate future, with international students being very attractive to Australian universities because of the huge fees they pay. 

For example, in the University of Sydney, international students pay about $48,000 a year for an undergraduate business degree, but local students pay less than a third of that - $15,142.

Fees paid by foreign students make up 38 per cent of the University of Sydney's total operating revenue and 77 per cent of its income from all students. 

Natasya Zahra, an Indonesian woman who studied in Sydney, said that the fees for international students compared to what domestic students are charged leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

'I feel like studying and living are almost two separate experiences in Australia,' she said.

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