Hilarious Video Reveals How Hard It Is To Rent As A Wheelchair User

A new clip from Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back has revealed how difficult it is for wheelchair users to find a suitable place to stay. 

Searching for a home to rent is tiresome. You trawl letting websites for properties, doom-scroll through places you can’t afford, chase agents up for viewings, traipse around town to all the different ones, never really falling in love with anywhere – and then the process starts all over again until you find that perfect home, or somewhere you just settle for.

However, having recently gone through it, it’s all been put in perspective by a recent episode of Got Your Back. My struggles are nothing compared to disabled people who have almost no means of filtering properties by how accessible they are.

Comedian Rosie Jones appeared on the show to discuss her flatmate Claire, who’s in a wheelchair. ‘I hate her,’ she joked. ‘I can’t find anywhere accessible for her to move into.’

For example, Rightmove doesn’t allow users to filter for wheelchair-accessible homes – but it does let you find out which ones have gardens. After phoning 43 agents, Rosie and Claire had three potential homes to check out. Unfortunately, none of them were particularly great.

The first two properties all had steps at the front door, which is an obvious problem. They also had narrow hallways, bathrooms and kitchens which wouldn’t allow Claire to turn around and some doors she couldn’t even get through fully.

The third was better, albeit it had a steep ramp to get in and a balcony with a step, which would take some manoeuvring to overcome. However, it was far and away the most expensive at £1,400 per month in Slough.

Rightmove replied to the show with a statement. ‘We completely agree that more needs to be done to make it easier for people with accessibility needs to find a suitable home, and we’re committed to doing more,’ the company said.

‘We’re working with specialist organisations to help agents provide better accessibility information, including a list of phrase to use in listings to highlight suitable properties, and we hope this first step will help make it easier to find a suitable property.’