This month many students will be moving into an apartment for the first time.

It can be a great experience or a trying one. Unfortunately for many students in State College apartments, it's the latter experience.

Students are forced into veritable "warehouses" downtown for a number of reasons. Not insignificant among them is the State College Borough's housing restriction for unrelated parties. Regardless of size, zoning regulations restrict the occupancy of a house to a family plus two tenants, or, in lieu of a family, three unrelated persons. This restriction forces more students out of comfortable living arrangements in a house or townhouse and into a rectangular cube with four students sharing two bedrooms. This ordinance is one more example of what I find to be an unfriendly attitude students encounter from the borough when they try to become members of the State College community.

Another problem that this ordinance magnifies is downtown crime. With so many student apartments in such a small vicinity, many of which have balconies, it lends itself to putting a very large number of people into a very small area. Everyone knows of the disturbances present in Beaver Canyon over the years. If more students were able to live in the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown area, then the concentration of students in Beaver Canyon would diminish and with it the crime rate.

Penn State exacerbates the student-housing problem by admitting more and more freshmen to University Park every year. This year there will be an estimated increase of about 1,500 new students. With this influx of more students, it puts a strain on the already flooded student housing market. Students are practically forced into unfriendly leases and apartments that are in substandard repair. One Penn State student was recently paralyzed by a fall from his apartment and is suing his landlord, claiming the balcony railing which gave way was not properly maintained by the owner. I'm not trying to prematurely blame the landlord in that situation, but I think it's just a matter of time before more students are injured by lackluster workmanship in apartments downtown.

Upperclassmen can tell you horror stories about the conditions of their living spaces. I've heard stories about broken sinks and toilets that go unfixed for weeks, mold growing in bathrooms due to ineffective exhaust fans, and landlords wanting access to apartments at unreasonable hours, intruding on the lives of their tenants. Students can avoid many of these problems by reading their leases and demanding better results from their landlords. Tenants have a right to the enjoyment of the property they're paying to use.

Regrettably, students' troubles don't end when they move out. Under Pennsylvania law, a landlord is required to return a tenant's security deposit, along with an itemized list of any deductions made due to damage, within 30 days of the student moving out.

Many landlords conveniently ignore this law and make up excuses for holding onto the deposit, thinking that students won't take the time to challenge their actions since they are likely moving away from town.

When you move into an apartment, check the place out. Check all fixtures, walls, plumbing, etc. Make sure there isn't any damage that can be attributed to you at the end of your lease and make the landlord aware of them right away, preferably in writing. The landlord cannot deduct from your security deposit for normal wear and tear.

Be forceful with landlords when they try to take advantage of you. Talk to your neighbors, chances are they're having similar troubles. It's hard for a landlord to ignore 20 tenants all raising complaints at the same time.

You have rights under your lease. Exercise them.