 With
a housing shortage in Boone these days, more students are living
off-campus, and as they move, they have to face leases, landlords,
apartments and rent.
According to information released at the June 6 Board of Trustees
meeting, more than 60 percent of the student body now lives off
campus. That makes the above matters more important to Appalachian
students than ever.
So why are so few Appalachian students aware of their legal rights
as tenants?
Due to so many students needing housing, they’re usually willing
to sign the lengthy and detailed leases, often without reading them.
Almost every students has heard them--horror stories about unrepaired
leaks, being charged for basic services as cleaning carpets, apartments
having shoddy construction and their complaints falling on deaf
ears from landlords.
There is a series of state and local statutes which protect tenants’
rights.
Landlords can be sued if they fail to abide by these laws and repeated
complaints by the tenants are ignored.
In a perfect world, rental companies would obey these laws of their
own accord, in the interest of fulfilling their obligation to their
tenants and maintaining a safe property.
However, we don’t live in a perfect world.
Rental companies often take advantage of students’ relative
lack of knowledge and clout to avoid living up to their end of the
deal.
The recent problems with behind-schedule construction at Mountaineer
Village, with students moving into some apartments without doorstops
and other basic features, is just one example of rental companies
not being entirely up front with students.
Last year, Blue Ridge Light & Power finally ended a policy that
would freeze off-campus student accounts if power bills were not
paid, a policy that was illegal.
As with so many other areas in life, students need to take the lead
in educating themselves about their own rights and pressing to have
those rights protected.
Students also need to read their lease agreement thoroughly, with
a knowledgeable third party if possible.
Students also need to become familiar with both state and local
laws, both to learn what landlords have to do as well as understanding
their own obligations.
Tenants have an obligation to keep a safe and clean apartment and
pay rent on time, but landlords also have obligations to keep up
their end of the deal.
As more students move off campus, it’s time we started pushing
for them to do so. |
