Tis the season when complaints about landlords' attitude to students are as ritual as, well, complaints about landlords exploiting/hating/ripping-off the little darlings of the nation's indulgent mammies.

Over the coming weeks, snivelly el presidente(s) of student unions will have their ritual whinge on paper and on de radio.

Here's my tuppence worth to that hardy annual debate.

Letting to students is rather like putting a few wire hangers in the wardrobe - they proliferate as soon as you close the door. If you make an (unannounced) evening visit, you will notice an extra person or two hovering about the couch, waiting for you to leave, so they can go to bed.

Last term, in the middle of a conversation with student tenants about the role of Sean Keating in painting the new Irish state, I absently wandered into the bedroom, opened a wardrobe and a man stared out at me.

He was crouched-over, to fit the wardrobe. Neither of us said anything. I resumed the conversation with the official tenants.

The Man in the Wardrobe was not mentioned, but I like to think my knowledge of Keating might have contributed a few convincing lines to an otherwise plagiarised thesis. Another time, as I approached the flat, let to two female students, it became clear from a window obscured by several pairs of male underpants that their wearer was a big man.

The tenant explained a friend was "camping down for a few days". In student parlance, a "few days" take on amazing elasticity and become a whole term, the term becomes a year and, hey presto, someone has just had free shelter for a year at your expense.

Such concern for their fellows' welfare is, of course, admirable.

Lifelong friendships are formed and more funding is available for that crucial lubricant of student life - alcoholic drink. Because, whatever they may swear to you as landlord, you can bet your last cent they are telling a different tale at home, moaning about the cost of living in the third most expensive capital in Europe.

Before the break, I got a call from the same tenant, as she wished to hold onto the flat for the autumn. She was off to work in Italy and to see the museums as part of her art studies. As she had saved for her hols on sub-letting the wardrobe, I wished her well.

Student leases finished with the university term: it saved me finding tenants for the summer. Next month, I had another call, from the irate caretaker of the block. Did I know there was a group of adults living in the flat and having late-night parties? Oh well-off people and all that, but other residents could not get a night's sleep.

Lowering his voice to the prejudice of the true-blue Dub, he suspected the intruders were from Cork. He made them sound like the Albanian mafia.

I promised to enforce the lease and bring quietude to the block. When I knocked on the door in the morning, it was opened by the Man from the Wardrobe. No names exchanged - you might say we had already been introduced.

I invited myself in, whereupon he apologised for the state of the place, which was strewn with sleeping bags and rucksacks and cartons of six-packs. The pong from a lot of people sleeping in a confined space was very strong. I opened the windows and put on the coffee-maker, which had the instant effect of bringing the sleeping bags to life.

Fully developed human beings emerged from the floor and bedrooms. All clearly hung-over and in desperate need of coffee and a cure.

They had been in Dublin for a rock concert, they said, their third so far this summer. The apartment was cheaper than a hotel.

As they all knew each other, it was like a home from home. And by the way, who was I? Was I a friend of Dermot here, who rented them the flat for the summer?

There is a story about the Corkman who came to Dublin, threw a stone in the Liffey and when it sunk, went home in disgust. Somehow, I don't think it applies to the Man in the Wardrobe. I expect him to play a fuller role in Dublin tourism in the future, like maybe owning a few hotels.