Housing disputes reported in France and Germany

In France, a group of British tourists reported a distressing experience after renting an Airbnb property in the rural Bars area near Bergerac. Despite online descriptions of an 18th-century barn with a private pool and sauna, the group encountered significant hygiene issues, including insects, a dead rat in a bedroom, and a pool filled with green water. The guests also reported finding poison spread on floors and tables.

In Germany, a Romanian family has been denied access to social housing in Berlin following a ten-day trip to Romania. The family had previously stayed in a shelter in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, with costs covered by the Federal Employment Agency. Neukölln social affairs councillor Hannes Rehfeldt rejected their request for emergency housing, stating the situation was not involuntary. A Berlin administrative court upheld this decision, ruling that the family could have avoided homelessness, marking a potential shift in how the city handles such cases.