People camped outside Finders Keepers three days before ‘The List’ opens

Hopeful Brookes students were spotted camping outside Finders Keepers a full three days before ‘The List’ was released.

People have been queuing outside the letting agency at St. Clements in high anticipation for the the list of houses that was released early yesterday morning.

For the second year running, students have felt the need to camp out for multiple nights to try and get a house to live in next year.

Due to Finders Keepers releasing the properties on a first-come-first-served basis, eager house-hunters were seen lining the street of St. Clements armed with sleeping bags, with some even going to the extreme of pitching a tent as early as Saturday evening.

Despite the freezing temperatures over the weekend, with Oxford plummeting to minus four degrees overnight, it did not stop some determined students pulling an all nighter.

Fresher Rebecca Nash, studying Geography, said: “I arrived at 6:30am and queued for five and a half hours, it was so cold.”

Alex Axon, a second year Geography and International Relations student, commented: “A member of the public gave me £2.50 as he assumed I was homeless.”

For some properties, the landlords had specific requests which led to some groups abandoning their post.

Second year Geography student, Victoria Plant, told The Tab Brookes: “We didn’t get to queue for long as we were told the houses that we were interested in allowed for mixed tenants only.”

Although the queue had ventured into the car park round the corner, people were still seen arriving at the agency in the early hours of this morning and throughout the rest of today.

Given that Brookes has already exceeded the student living quota at 3,800, with the cap being 3,000 students, it is clear that the demand for houses has increased substantially.