Housing Fiasco
Finding a place to live for next year has been a headache of a time, but I’m excited to say it’s finally almost settled!
After hearing about the lack of on-campus housing last semester, I didn’t even try to get into on-campus housing. So after opting out of that, I began looking for roommates and a house. (I also planned on getting a pet, so off campus housing was a must for that).
Finding roommates was the easy part – there are three of us girls living together with two cats and a dog. Finding a place that allowed all those animals was the tricky part. Eventually after looking at a good number of places, we fell in love with an old house on East Superior St. It was in bad shape and was dirty, but the other tenants were still living there so we looked past the mess they had and focused on the bones of the house – we thought after a good cleaning and maintenance it would be perfect! However, when we went to move in on June 1, the place was still a mess. The previous tenants left so much of their stuff and furniture all over the house and it was dirty beyond my cleaning abilities. When we asked the landlord if she will have it cleaned for us to move-in-ready condition, she refused us. Basically, after a huge fiasco of fighting with her, we got out of the lease and lost our deposit. It’s a bummer that we lost that, but it’s worth it. That place was too gross to live in and I did not want to spend a year renting from a uncooperative, unorganized, and downright unrespectable landlord.
On July 1, we signed a new lease for a house by the mall. It’s cute and in a nice, quiet neighborhood with a large yard for the dog. It’s also been professionally cleaned – yay!! On Wednesday I get to go to Duluth and move in. I can’t wait. It’s a relief to finally know that I have a suitable place to live for the year and I don’t have to stress about that. Renting can be such a hassle! I definitely learned a few good lessons about renting a place, though and the rights you have a tenant. Honestly, If it wasn’t for my love of animals I would have probably tried to get into on campus housing. It’s much less stressful that way. Oh well, glad it’s done and over with now!
Tags: Cat, cleaning, Dog, House, Housing, landlord, lease, Living, off campus living, off-campus, on-campus, rent, Renting
