Local organizations offer help for housing problems

Many IU students choose to live off-campus or sublet a place during their time in Bloomington, but not everyone has a good experience. However, IU and Bloomington offer resources to deal with housing problems.

For sophomore and IDS employee Maggie Morrow, subletting for the summer in Bloomington has meant switching roles from college student to rat exterminator. Morrow lives in a rental home. Unfortunately, she is sharing it with a rodent.

Morrow said she called her landlord every day for two weeks, but nothing was resolved until she got rid of the rat herself. Because of the landlord’s neglect to get back to her, Morrow’s lawyer is contacting the Monroe County Health Department.

“What made me so mad wasn’t that there was a 7-inch rat living in my kitchen – that happens – it was that no one called me back to acknowledge my complaint,” Morrow said.

Hiring a lawyer can be expensive, but there are cheaper alternatives that yield results. Student tenants can contact the Bloomington Housing and Neighborhood Development Department or Student Legal Services.

The housing department enforces the Bloomington Housing and Neighborhood Development Property Maintenance Code. If tenants carefully follow the process the department requires, landlords can be forced to fix anything from leaky toilets to rat infestation.

Lisa Abbott, director of Bloomington Housing and Neighborhood Development, explained the process IU student tenants must go through.

For the department to help students, they must have already tried to contact their landlord. If the landlord is unresponsive, the department requires tenants to fill out a rental complaint.

When the complaint is filed, the department sends an inspector to the rental unit to inspect the situation. If the inspector finds any violation of the property maintenance code, the landlord will receive a complaint inspection report.

“If the landlord doesn’t correct the issue within that period of time, then we refer them to the legal department for action,” Abbott said.

Bloomington landlords have a different perception of how they handle tenant concerns.
Varsity Villas staff member David Kerber said he attributes many issues, such as mice, to tenant mishaps.

“It’s usually because the trash isn’t being taken out.,” Kerber said. “Tenants are sometimes inviting them in.”

Other students said many issues are not caused by their own doing.

Junior Meredith Hanrahan, who lives with nine other roommates said she has a good relationship with her landlord.

Hanrahan said she was surprised when her landlord did not respond to her phone calls about a power outage in her rental unit.

“Everything is on the landlord’s schedule,” Hanrahan said. “He was the only one with keys to the basement to get to the fuse box.”

Hanrahan’s landlord finally fixed the power outage 72 hours later, but Hanrahan said she was not pleased with the amount of time it took to resolve the issue.

Hanrahan and other students have options, such as IU’s Student Legal Services, for legal help and advice to tenants struggling with their landlord’s policies.

“Generally, landlord and tenant cases comprise between 34 to 40 percent of our practice,” Student Legal Services Staff Attorney Stacee Evans said.

Some cases result in a court appearance.

“We will assist the client in seeking reimbursement of rent, or rent reduction, as compensation for having paid rent for a rental unit that was not up to code,” Evans said.

There are a number of issues that can be avoided if tenants pay strict attention to the lease.

“I think it’s really sad that these rental companies take advantage of students,” Morrow said. “We provide such a huge demographic for a real estate market in Bloomington.”