You move off-campus for the first time! No more RAs, quiet hours, or 3 a.m. fire alarms because people didn’t put water in their ramen.
Sounds great, right? WRONG! Your landlord is never going to respond to you and your roommates are going to get on your nerves.
“It was hard at first, I kept going places and thinking, ‘Where’s my mom?’” said Estie Tetrick, a third year microbiology major.
“The rent is so astronomical that we had to choose the layout with shared rooms. $1200 a month is crazy, mine was $900 which is still very high,” said Tetrick. “The front desk felt more like bad hotel reception where packages couldn’t be collected for days and problems were never addressed.”
“I got locked out one night because one of my roommates added a deadbolt to the door and had to wait in 32 degree weather,” said Afton Hatcher, a second year marine studies major.
“You have to be very on top of everything,” said Lillian Keller, a third year business major, in regards to rent, maintenance, etc. while being on your own for the first time.
Besides roommate issues and lack of communication from management, you will also have to deal with things like broken appliances.
“The screen door to our balcony doesn’t shut all the way and they couldn’t fix it because the entire frame of the doorway is bent. Luckily there’s also a glass door that we have to slam shut if we don’t want bugs to get in,” said Hatcher
“Our dishwasher took four hours and never got the dishes clean,” Tetrick said. “The laundry only worked on timed dry and took at least two hours, the kitchen sink constantly dripped, and we could never get the mustardy odor out of that place.”
Not everything is horrific though, Hatcher described her landlord as “really nice” and said they helped “within a timely manner.” Keller agreed, noting her landlord was “always responsive” and fixed issues quickly.
But even though they had nicer landlords than Tetrick, they still had to deal with their fair share of issues.
“The worst part with the fridge was this one time when I noticed a small container of rice in the fridge right before winter break. It wasn’t mine and I was leaving before the roommate who it belonged to, so I left it hoping she would deal with it. Over halfway through winter term, I found the container in the back of the fridge and had to throw it away because it had grown a dangerous kind of mold,” said Keller.
Tetrick and Keller both found themselves living in a sorority house after their apartments.
“It’s very comparable to the dorms, with the only major differences being food available in the house, and no loud alarms. Other than that I find the situations remarkably similar,” said Keller.
“It’s definitely a step up from the dorms,” Tetrick said.
Living on your own for the first time is definitely an interesting experience but it helps you grow as a person.
