5 Secret Problems to Apartment Life

By Elizabeth Hilfrank on October 29, 2017

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It’s all fun and games until reality strikes. Apartment living is great, but it has some hidden problems. Read these six apartment life situations to get quick insight on some challenges you could face.

1. Miscalculated cost

When you sign the lease to your apartment, make sure you know how much money you owe when. For example, in the first month, you may have to pay two month’s worth of rent: one for the first month, and one for the last to ensure your stay.

Also, if you move to a big city, you will most likely need to go through a broker to find a place. That means that after landing the apartment, you owe the broker money, which comes in the form of a certain percentage of your rent. Christina Allan, who lives in a $1,000/month apartment in Boston admits that, with the Broker’s fee, she ends up paying more towards $1,083 per month.

2. Utility chaos

When you rent an apartment, you are renting utilities. This means you do not have complete control. Take these four examples to see what I mean:

•Ever since fall began, my friend and her roommates have lived in an igloo at night. The temperature in their apartment drops drastically, but there is nothing they can do about it. They up the thermostat, but it does nothing. As soon as they move from the common room, it’s quite chilly in the bedrooms.

•Last year as my sister neared the end of her lease, her landlord decided that she wanted to put in a laundry machine for the new tenants. After doing so, however, my sister and her roommate encountered a new problem. The water from the laundry machine would go down the pipes, where there was a lot of pressure. Then, that water would come up through the bathtub drain, along with all the gunk that had collected in the very old apartment.

•Last year, when my roommates and I moved in, one of my roommate’s fathers opened the shower curtain to find mold all over our shower. We called facilities to get it fixed. They came, cleaned it, and left, but the mold remained. We were stuck with a moldy shower all year, and one of my roommates has mold-induced asthma.

•Victoria Crabtree reported that her roommates in her flat in Ireland cracked the toilet seat four times in one semester.

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3. Unexpected events

“Last year we were woken up in the middle of the night on two occasions to all of the doorbells in the building ringing. Once was because a passerby thought they saw smoke coming from a window, so they rang doorbells until someone let them in and they could pull the fire alarm. It was steam from a radiator. The other time it went on for close to an hour, and we ended up calling the police,” Allan said.

On a less severe note, unexpected events could include things like going to the bathroom to find no toilet paper. Colleen Donahue, in Fairfield, Connecticut, reported that to be a big problem in her home.

4. Mess

Even if you think your friend is clean, you may not really know until you move in together. I live with my best friends, but they leave things everywhere, and I am a neat freak. Most mornings I find makeup all over the counter, and on weekends they never clean up from events held in the apartment.

Similarly, Lily Talerman, who lives in an eight-person suite, says that she has a constant problem of people not cleaning up their things from the common area. The common area is just that, a shared space, and it can be frustrating when someone takes it over like it is only theirs.

Also, if you are subletting an apartment, the current residents may not show you the whole site. I was a subtenant in the summer, and when I walked into the apartment, I had to spend the first two days scrubbing it down. Julia Green, living in western Massachusetts, reports that her roommates tend to not clean the dishes.

5. Space

If your apartment comes furnished, be aware that it may not be furnished to your normal size standards. I moved into my room this year knowing I would have a closet, dresser, and bookshelf, but I still have to keep my sweaters piled up in a corner. Additionally, Donahue said refrigerator space is the #1 problem she has had since moving in with her friends. For us too, the refrigerator is pretty small, and with five girls living together, things get tight.

6. Package pickup

Amazon lockers are a godsend because sending packages to your building is a gamble. My old building had packages stolen almost always, but no problems yet this year,” Allan said.

Looking for an easy way to furnish your off-campus apartment? Renting furniture from CORT saves you time and money. See how easy it is to get great looking furniture without breaking the bank.

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