Sewage leaks up from the laundry room, the first-floor ceiling caves in and the heat never comes back on.
No, this isn't the set of a bad horror movie.
This is student housing gone awry.
"Students may feel excited about the liberation of living off campus, until they find out things can really go awry," said Alan Levy, public affairs director for University Housing.
For LSA senior Shane Russell and his housemates, housing problems went beyond leaky faucets and drafty windows.
"We lived in a condemned house for nine months," Russell said. "We didn't have heat, hot water or even electricity for the majority of last year."
Russell said he and his housemates never met their landlord and had trouble getting any of their minor problems solved. However, the real nightmare didn't start until after winter break in January 1996, when Russell returned to find a notice on the front door deeming the house "unlivable".
"Between first and second semester our first floor caved in from the ceiling down," Russell said. "The first floor was flooded by eight inches of water... and full of debris."
Russell estimated the damage to the house around $50,000.
"Russell said the cleaning consisted mostly of one of the landlord's 'cleanup guys' sweeping the debris and mopping up the water."
The problems didn't fall from above for LSA senior Thara Nagarajan - they seeped in from a drain in the laundry room.
"We had plumbing problems," Nagarajan said.
Nagarajan and her fellow tenants' problems started when the toilet stopped flushing and couldn't be unplugged.
"We opened the laundry room door and some sewage had come up through the drain," Nagarajan said. "By the time someone got over here the floor was covered in water, complete with feces and pieces of toilet paper."
Both Russell and Nagarajan said they received less than sympathetic treatment from their landlords.
When the building management was called, Nagarajan said she was told in a "condescending" tone that the situation was "not an emergency."
After several hours, a roto-rooter company was called and arrived to unclog the drain, after water seeped into an adjacent bedroom's carpet.
"It was on Labor Day weekend and they told us no one would be able to come until Monday. They didn't offer to put us into a hotel either," Nagarajan said.
The landlord replaced the carpet, and Nagarajan and her fellow tenants were refunded for three days' rent, although "it wasn't a whole lot of money," Nagarajan said.
Russell and the other tenants were forced to live with friends during January and February 1996 while repairs were being made to their house, even though they were paying normal rent.
Even after repairs, the problems continued. "Our heat and electricity went out repeatedly even though we paid the bills on time," Russell said. "We had leaks throughout the first floor."
"It got to the point where you would go to go sleep at night and not know how you would wake up," Russell said of his biggest fear while living in the house.
Russell and his housemates filed a lawsuit against their landlord and found there were five other lawsuits pending against him for "similar, if not worse, problems."
After living through a year of constant turmoil, and ultimately winning the lawsuit, Russell learned a little about shopping for a house.
"This is my last year and we took a great deal of time and effort to find a house," he said.
Nagarajan's sewage seepage situation made a repeat performance soon after winter break. Although the carpet wasn't replaced, it was cleaned, Nagarajan said.
Nagarajan said she will never live in a basement apartment again.
"What we were most afraid of was the infection and disease that can come from feces," Nagarajan said. "The apartment just never feels clean to us."
Nagarajan's landlord, Campus Rentals, and Russell's private landlord could not be reached for comment on these incidents.
Students with unresolved problems have several options in correcting the situation, Director of Student Legal Services Doug Lewis said.
"(Students) can, by law, withhold rent until the landlord makes the desired repairs," Lewis said. "Students can - for minor repairs - make it themselves and then deduct the cost from their rent."
Tenants do need to inform the landlord that a problem first exists, preferably in the form of written notice, before taking legal action, Lewis said. He added that in some cases, landlords are repeat offenders, so often when their names are mentioned, the problem can be identified.
"We've got one group who comes in and gives us the landlord's name and we know its bugs," Lewis said. "It's a never- ending cycle."
Although problems change with the time of year, some of the more common problems include lack of heat or water leaking, Lewis said.
Students aren't the only ones who lodge complaints, however.
"The big (complaint) we see is where the carpet is ruined and the landlord wants to blame the present tenants so they can buy new carpet with the security deposit," said Lewis.
Students with tenant-landlord disputes also can seek help from off-campus housing advisors.
"We have a mediation services program where we try to offer students informational advice and counseling to assist them in resolving their own disputes," Jeff Micale, housing adviser for off-campus housing services, said. "We can help walk people through the steps they need to take."
Off-campus housing services has a registering service for both large leasing companies and private landlords. The service helps to keep leases on file and with mediation services.
Although some landlords are unresponsive to their tenants, many are concerned with the upkeep of their properties.
"We're pretty responsive as far as maintenance goes," said Colin Khan, the assistant manager of CMB property management. "We have four guys who work 40 hours a week on staff to improve the buildings and keep up the worth of the buildings."
Khan said the most popular complaints he receives have to do with plumbing problems.
"Disposals not working, we get a lot of that and toilets being stopped up - that's a popular one, too," he said.
ADDIE SMITH/Daily
LSA senior Thara Nagarajan shows off the flooded basement of her Lawrence Street home.