It's the most wonderful time of the year. A crisp chill is in the air. Pretty soon, all the lampposts lining College Avenue will don their annual lighted snowflakes.
And freshmen, in groups of three to six, will be heading down to Beaver Canyon in the afternoons to check out that "awesome apartment with the big [expletive] balcony."
If you just so happen to work for one of the many real estate agencies leasing these so-called "apartments" to students, this really is the most wonderful time of the year. Bright eyed froshies walk into your office and throw money all over the floor so you can give them what they want, the coolest place to throw a party this side of Fraternity Row. They don't even care what the lease says. All they want is a guarantee that they're living downtown. East Side. Listen up freshmen.
All apartments are not created equal, but all agencies are equally motivated by one goal: getting your money into their pockets as much as possible.
Lemme axe you somethin'. Did you know in most apartment lease agreements, there are clauses that waive your right to trial by jury in the case of a lawsuit between you and the property management company?
That's right. If you don't get your security deposit back, or if you're charged for something you didn't do and you want to sue -- you basically can't. Did you know that the "12-month lease" you so badly want so you can stay up here in SC and kick it in the summer, is really only an 11-month and 13-day lease? Oh, but you still have to pay rent 12 times over the course of the year. Twelve monthly rental payments. You're not living there for 12 months.
Who cares, though. As long as you have that awesome apartment, it doesn't really matter. I mean its not like you're paying for it. I don't pay for my awesome apartment, daddy does. So, what do I care.
Let me relay a story of what recently happened to me, something that made me care. I live in the Meridian on College Avenue because it's cheap, and they actually have enough parking for more than three golf-kart sized Japanese cars. My situation is identical to what I just talked about above. My roommates and I must be out of our place Aug. 7, 2005, 11-months and 13-days after moving in, and we pay rent 12 times.
It clearly states on page one of the lease rent is divided into 12 "equal installments", the first being due Aug. 1, 2004, and the last due July 1, 2005. After the fifth day of the month a $35 late fee is charged to my account, and after the tenth day $35 more is added.
I paid the first-month's rent in order to have "express check-in" to my apartment on move in day. I thought I was ahead of the game. I thought that meant September's rent was taken care. Jawesome. The next time I paid rent was just a few days ago for October. But, no. That first-month's rent I paid was August's rent. Because I was an idiot I didn't read my lease, I didn't realize I completely missed September's rent. Two of my roommates pay rent through direct-withdrawal, so they never miss rent because it automatically goes from their parent's checking-accounts straight to the Meridian.
But I don't do that because it required an additional $50 activation fee, and my dad and me try to be thrifty people.
Now on Friday, Oct. 8, I received a notice in my mailbox from the management, alarming me that I had missed one month's rent and now owed late fees in addition to the rent.
Confused, I went to the main office to find it swamped with fellow students. I wasn't alone, and everyone was frustrated. The management's office isn't open on the weekends, and since Sunday is the tenth of the month, if I hadn't paid my overdue rent and late fees on Friday before the office closed, I would have had to pay $35 more on Monday. That means I would have owed $70 on top of my already expensive rent, rent I was unprepared to pay for because I never knew I had to pay it.
Speaking to the administrative assistant in the office, she led me to believe that this practice was nothing new at the Meridian. I asked if this was some kind of snafu because the building was under new management, McKinney Properties, Inc. of Pittsburgh.
Why would a company try to do this to people? What motivation is there to make 100 college students ridiculously pissed off at you?
This is the problem with the system we have here in State College. The agencies aren't inherently evil just because they want to take our money. If they didn't want money, they wouldn't be renting apartments in the first place.
It's not like we students don't do our fair share to piss off the agencies either. Just look at the broken window on the garage door entrance to Penn Tower, or step in any elevator on Sunday morning that's caked in urine and spit. Some drunk kid did all that.
My point is this: if you're going apartment hunting, be ready. The people who rent out the "awesome apartment with the big [expletive] balcony" are not your mommies and daddies. Read that obnoxiously long lease agreement that is non-negotiable and waives your rights to trial by jury.
These agencies are not evil. Their reasons for playing this game are the same reasons you have, freshmen -- they're just tryin' to get some.
