With regard to housing, the last week of July is our busiest week of the year, when thousands of students are moving from one apartment to the other, changing roommates, getting ready for a new semester. Drive through town this week and you’ll see mattresses, old furniture, desks, mounds of trash piled up in front of multi-family complexes, condos, and even single family homes. The Waste Management Department of College Station and Bryan really have their hands full. I’m grateful for the fine job our city workers do. Our problems are unique in a college town with this many students. By mid-August everyone will have their housing figured out, and by September 1 the chaos will be over, the students will be overwhelmed with school again, and it will be life as usual around here. But until then, students and landlords have to deal with ‘move in-move out condition forms, final walk through’s, lease guarantors, refund deposits, and transporting furniture and all the paraphernalia that comes with moving.
Learn how the game is played for sanity’s sake: Moving doesn’t have to be stressful if you will heed a little counsel. If you want your deposit back:
***Clean the baseboards, behind the refrigerator/washer/dryer and blinds. If your landlord has to do it they’ll charge more.
***Repair the dog and cat damage. If there’s a pet odor the carpet may need to be removed. Guess who pays?
***Leave your unit in the condition that you would like to move into it. If the damage wasn’t on your move in condition form, saying, ‘Oh, that was there when I moved in’, doesn’t cut it!
***If you lease by the unit and not the room, and someone did more damage than another tenant it doesn’t matter. You all signed one contract. You’re all responsible.
***If you wait till the last minute to start cleaning and doing repairs and prevent another tenant from moving in on time, then you may be charged for holding over
***If you don’t think you can get your apartment in move in condition, it is SOOOO worth it to hire a cleaning crew and divide the cost between roommates. But the last week of July every cleaning crew in town is swamped. Should have thought of that sooner!
***If you’ve been a good tenant all year, but leave your unit on bad terms, you may be added to a ‘DO NOT RENT TO LIST’ that all the landlords have access to. 😥
***It’s always worth it to go the extra mile. Be a good boy scout. Leave the unit better than when you found it. 😉