By: Alexandra

Alexandra
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 18:56:58 +0000

Off-campus rental companies take advantage of students because students allow themselves to be taken advantage of. I don't know if most students realize that they have rights as renters and that there are actual laws and codes by which their rental companies have to abide. Instead of insisting on their rental agencies sticking to their end of the bargain, students simply deal with the issues. One friend lived in a house with four other guys when their only toilet broke. Instead of fixing the problem immediately, their rental company told them to go to the gas station down the street to use the bathroom and left them toilet-less for over a week. The renters used Student Legal Services to deal with the issue and within days of contacting them their toilet and the miscellaneous other problems in the house were all fixed. That being said, OSU could and should be doing much more to protect its students from the sharks that run off-campus housing.