Apartment-hunting: How to avoid big mistakes

Tove Wiggs, a 19-year-old Winona State University college student, was desperate for a place to live last summer, Her friend, Elizabeth, who was leaving town, mentioned that she needed someone to sublease the place she shared with two other students. "I was relieved so I immediately agreed," Tove said. Tove knew the couple she would be living with, Adam and Annie. But when Tove signed the sublease, she was not yet aware that Adam and Annie had broken up in late May. She moved in on June 1 expecting that everything would be grand. "For the first two days, they seemed OK," she said. "Annie was a little bit more quiet, and Adam wasn't around much, but I didn't notice anything too weird."

EXPANDED COVERAGE Reporter: Kelly Kirby The names of Anne and Adam are not real because of the sensitivity of their relationship.

About two weeks into June, Tove realized that things were not good between Adam and Annie. Finally, Annie explained that Adam had broken up with her for another girl but that they were trying to work things out. Well, they did and they didn't. "It was roller coaster hell," Tove recalled. "One second, they would be fine and almost look happy together, and the next they were yelling and swearing and throwing things." Tove remembers coming home from work one day and finding Adam and Annie trying to assemble a new entertainment center. "They were on the stairs, moving pieces one by one to the living room. They were screaming so loud they didn't notice I came in," she said. "At one point, they started spitting at each other, and I had to tell them to calm down because it was late and I was afraid someone would call in a domestic dispute." Tove's experience may be an extreme, but even worse stories abound about off-campus living. The lesson: Make the transition from freshman dorm life to an apartment with your eyes open. No matter how weary you are of living with 450 other people in a dorm and with false fire alarms at 2 a.m., and no matter how attractive it would seem to decrease the number of your housemates by 449, you owe it to yourself to get the whole picture about moving into an apartment. Some things can be learned only from experience -- or perhaps by reading this article on what experienced renters have to say. The advice here was compiled by interviews with college-age tenants who ranked the tips 1 through 10. The compilation process included: Interviewing 30 tenants about their apartment experiences, most interviews lasting about 15 minutes. Asking the interviewees if they had any stories that fit into a list of apartment-hunting mistakes. Ranking their stories into the list of apartment-hunting mistakes. The following are the most important factors to consider to avoid a hellish apartment experience that makes a snoring, obnoxious dorm roommate look like a best friend and to avoid following Tove back to the dorms.

1. SELECTION OF ROOMMATES. When deciding with whom to live, the most important asset is keeping an open mind.

"Sometimes you end up with someone you didnÕt consider a possibility, but it works out so much better than the alternative," said Trish Schneider, a senior at Winona State University. Although it is often hard to imagine, the person that someone is "in love" with, figuratively or literally, in December may have grown in different directions by June when the lease goes into effect. Selecting with whom to share a chosen space for an entire year is the most important decision to make off-campus living enjoyable or absolute hell. The most common mistake is choosing to live with the "flash-in-the-pan" best friend or love who happened to be hanging out at the same place on the day of the apartment search. It is these people who eat other's food, do not believe in doing dishes, think the bathroom cleans itself and do not understand why someone would want to be asleep before 3 a.m. Selecting roommates needs to be a process, not a guess.

2. RENT. The benefits of an apartment begin with a comparison of the cost of living on-campus versus off-campus. The minimum that a dorm room will cost is $1,715 per semester. At the rate the university is going, this minimum includes a single room shared with at least two other roommates, since space is limited every year. The average apartment costs about $200 a month, according to the latest off-campus listing, provided by the housing office, making the semester total $1,200. This includes much more space and fewer rules to deal with, a definite benefit.

3. LOCATION. In Winona, cheap and close to campus rarely exists. If it does, itÕs called a cardboard box located at Huff and Whatever, which is only cheap if shared with four other people. If location is of primary concern, the search must commence in early November. "My freshman year, I didnÕt start looking for a place until February and I ended up having to share a small bedroom with another person," said sophomore Greta Simpson. "This year I had a lease signed in the first week of December. The choices are much better then." Each person needs to decide how far away from campus to be and still be transportation-happy. If tenants do not have cars and have jobs, then the location is best if between work and campus.

4. EXTRA COSTS. In the next year, heat costs are not expected to decline from the 50 percent increase that took place last winter. This makes utilities included in the rent especially attractive. Many landlords are unloading the cost of heat onto tenants or raising rent prices to make up the difference. If an apartment has all utilities paid and the rent is reasonable, it is a good buy. "We got trapped into needing an apartment when the dorms were full after room draw," said freshman Jennifer Skinner. "The rent on our apartment is $275 a month, but it includes all utilities so we figured it to be a good deal." Be aware, though, that the phone is never included as a utility in the rent. Also, don't forget the cost of food. Do not stay on a campus meal plan if at all avoidable. The price of living off campus and eating oncampus with a meal plans is significantly higher than what dorm residents pay.

5. LANDLORDS.. When possible, talk to the people living in the apartment you are about to lease. Some landlords are absolute nightmares. "Our apartment is above a laundromat," said Katie Schwarzenbart, a sophomore. "We have insisted that there be two separate water heaters but the landlords have not put one in. We have no hot water from 4-9 p.m." Pay attention to what the tenants say. If the landlords drop in unexpectedly, a violation of the majority of leases, this is not beneficial to the off-campus living experience. Ask about repairs and replacements; How quickly do the landlords respond? Above all, make sure that they arenÕt the type of lessor who calls the second story apartment on Monday to see if the renters will be needing their stairs on Tuesday because they need to replace them. "Our apartment is maintained by the Elks Lodge," said junior Adam Gutt. "They called to tell us our stairs were not up to city standards and needed to be replaced. Then they asked if we would need to get in and out of our apartment between 9 and 4 p.m. the following day." Landlords check backgrounds. Renters should check too.

6. STRUCTURE. No apartment has the perfectly sized everything, nor does the layout always make sense. "My apartment has a false ceiling," said junior Angela Hines. "I wake up to the neighborÕs alarms . . . Well, I wake up to them whispering, itÕs so thin." Some apartments have bedrooms half the size of the bathroom. Some have kitchens that are hardly big enough for a stove but living rooms that could house a city in the case of a bomb threat. Roommates should decide before they look at apartments what rooms are most important. Also, decide how much stuff each person has in order to estimate the necessary size of bedroom each tenant will need. Remember that something always has to give and that nobody sleeps in a bathroom.

7. PARKING. Half the time spent in a one-year lease lease, from November to April, is what Winona likes to call the "Alternate Side Parking" season but that anyone who has a car calls "Forgot To Move My Car Again." It is surprising how much money can be spent for forgetting to move a car on a given night. Off-street parking is a definite benefit. Be careful about what the off-street parking lot is like. Carrie Erickson said, "Our parking lot is filled with inches of water. To get to your car, you need spikes or a swimsuit if it's warmer than the last time you went out. It's a death trap."

8. PETS. Ask if your roommates want pets and then check whether landlords will allow them. Animals are cute, but they smell. Think about a hamster crawling into a radiator, where you can't reach, and dying. Landlords do not often take well to pets that are added to an apartment against the lease's rules, although some tenants use pets as a bartering tool to make up for lack of repairs. Schneider said, "When we moved in, the apartment was a mess. I had two cats and didnÕt know the landlords knew about them. But one day when they were showing the apartment, I overheard them telling the potential tenants that they only allow us to have pets because they didn't check the apartment before we moved in."

9. PARTYING. Know the landlordÕs policy on parties and follow it carefully. Many leases have an anti-partying provision: "Automatic eviction for any party involving a keg." Eviction is expensive. Even more severe is the year-old Winona keg law that outlaws more than one keg on the premises. A violation costs $150. Fines are stiffer if underage drinkers show up to party, as much as $3,000 plus maybe a year in jail.

10. FURNISHINGS. Among roommates, decide who has what furniture and who will more. Most important, settle on who takes the furniture when the year is over. Keep track of financially shared furnishings and know how much each person owes toward each piece. This helps to avoid any problems on May 31, when the lease expires.