'Flat auditions'

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well! 

I'm currently very busy flat hunting because as you may know, I'll be going to university in Cologne in October. Back in London, I lived in student accommodation because it was affordable, close by and filled with loads of other students (so pretty much exactly what I wanted). Sadly, getting student accommodation is very difficult in Cologne, so I've been busy going through tons and tons of ads, contacting tons and tons of people and getting very few replies. (Honestly - if an ad has been up for longer than an hour, you can pretty much forget about it already, it's that crazy). 

I thought I would counteract the craziness of flat hunting a little bit ;)

One thing that was completely new to me was the concept of 'flat auditions'. Because there are so many people looking for a place to live, it's no longer enough to simply browse through ads, contact the person and view the flat. It's no longer about being asked questions about who you are in order to find out whether a flatshare would work. No, it's going far beyond that point.

As an example, I came across an ad yesterday where two guys were looking for a third person to live with. In the ad itself, they had already included a proper questionnaire for people to fill in when contacting them. Some questions were pretty normal (what kind of music do you like, how old are you etc.), but some were actual CHALLENGES.

'Think of something to put in the flat. Get creative.'

And then, my personal 'favourite':

'Tell us a joke'.

Now I guess that due to the number of people looking for something having 'flat auditions' is probably the only possible way of going about finding flatmates. Yet, I find the concept really awkward. As much as I want to get to know my future flatmates, I'm not sure if I like to be judged purely based on my flat decorating originality and joke telling ability. 


Have you ever come across the concept of 'flat auditions'? Do you find it as strange as I do?

Have a lovely day xx