If you want to live around the campus, your
only option is an off-campus apartment. There are numerous
apartments available around the campus starting at 2,500 to
6,000 THB/month, each one surrounded by the typical microcosms
of a rural community, which includes pharmacies, laundries,
hairdressers, convenience shops, Internet cafe, various food
stalls and street restaurants, and at least fifty hawkers -
all that within a hundred metres distance.
Our experience shows that you don't need to
settle the rental arrangements before you arrive in Bangkok.
The much easier way (and much cheaper on the long run) is to
take a hotel near the campus for the first few day, for about
590 THB/night including breakfast.
Once arrived at IIS-RU, your fellow students
will show you the best accommodation for the lowest cost
available since it is not easy for a first-time visitor to
judge quality and cost relations between the numerous
apartment buildings around the university.
In any case, you will be lucky when your
room is close to the campus. Public transport in Bangkok is
very well developed, but a metropolis of this size always
comes along with enormous traffic, particularly in the morning
and in the afternoon - exactly the time when you go to the
university or back home. Due to heavy traffic jams, even a
distance of three kilometres can cost you up to two hours that
way.
Off-campus apartments are available for
rental on a monthly basis, but utilities such as telephone
services, electricity, and water are usually not included in
the rent. An apartment complex is made up of several units (up
to hundreds) and each unit comprised a furnished studio
bedroom, balcony, and bathroom.
More facilities are available at a higher
monthly charge. These may include more bedrooms, more
bathrooms, a larger living space, and amenities such as air
conditioning, shared laundry facilities, a fitness centre, a
pool, a patio or balcony, and/or a refrigerator.
In order to rent an off-campus apartment,
you must agree to a housing contract, which is provided by the
property manager. Usually, you must give one month's notice to
the manager prior to moving in or out of the apartment.
The housing contract usually requires a
security deposit, which may cost as much as one or three
months' rent. This security deposit is fully refundable after
you have moved out of the place as long as you have complied
with the terms of your rental contract, which entails keeping
the facilities in the same clean and undamaged shape that you
have found them.
You will have to pay your rent, in full, on
time, although sometimes there is a 3-5 days grace period to
pay your rent. Otherwise, you could incur further late
charges. Usually, you will have to pay your rent in cash.
Depending on your situation, you may have
to obey certain group regulations, such as keeping quiet
during certain late night/early morning hours, not having
large parties or drugs on the premises, not having pets, and
only parking in certain areas. Failure to obey these
regulations could result in eviction.
Each normal apartment around the campus
offers you a telephone. Be aware, however, that this phone
line is not well suited for dialling up to an Internet
provider. For example, two hundred apartments will share
twenty phone lines. In order to give anybody a chance to call,
each call is cut after a certain time by the central computer
of the apartment building, usually after five to twelve
minutes. When doing research on the Internet, this becomes
annoying, and it becomes costly. Better, you look for an
apartment building (condominium) that offers ASDL for a fixed
rate per month (usually 650 to 700 Baht). Offering ADSL is
quite common nowadays, you will not have a difficult time in
finding one.
Minimum duration of rent is for cheaper
apartments usually 3 months, for higher-quality apartments 6
months. In any case, however, expect to find a mattress as
hard as stone. That's usually the first thing to buy.
More information you find at Studyinthailand.org. |
The photos below show an example of a
middle-class one-room apartment. Small
apartments (ca. 30 m2) cost about 4,000 Baht/month, large
apartments (ca. 40 m2)
4,500-5,000 Baht. Deposit is three monthly
rates. For one person, water is about 60
Baht, electricity about 500 (without using
air-condition), laundry about 1,000 Baht,
ADSL 700 Baht. Certainly, prices are not
the same in each condominium, but it should
be around that.
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