It is hunting season again around Northeastern. Apartment hunting season, of course. While this can be a fun and exciting experience for many students who are moving off campus and out on their own for the first time, it can also be a perilous activity.
Boston housing – especially in the areas adjacent to campus – is a seller’s market. There is a low supply of rental units and a non-stop pipeline of students from Northeastern and other nearby colleges into the market to keep the ball perpetually in the court of landlords and realtors. This leaves students – especially first-time renters who do not know what they should be looking for – vulnerable to be taken advantage of.
Boston Magazine recently ran an eye-opening expose on Alpha Realty and the slumlord who runs the company, Anwar Faisal. Alpha is a behemoth among rentees in Boston, especially in Allston, the Fenway and other areas traditionally populated by students. Alpha has been subjected to dozens of complaints with Boston’s Inspectional Services Division, ranging from heatless apartments to “dog-sized rats,” according to the Boston Magazine report.
At the beginning of the Fall 2012 semester, an Alpha apartment rented to a Northeastern student steps off campus at 115 St. Stephen St. was condemned for a slew of violations. Tim Granger, a senior criminal justice major at the time, described his harrowing experience in the basement apartment to The News in October of that year.
“The person who used to live here before me shoved toilet paper into the door cracks so that cockroaches couldn’t get through,” he said. “There was also a radon vent installed in the tiny utility closet to allow the smell of rotting rat carcasses to go outside, but there was a hole in it so the smell ventilated into the bathroom.”
The horror stories do not stop with Alpha, and sometimes instead of just being disgusting, the results are tragic. Last April, a Boston University student died and 15 people were injured in a fire in an overcrowded house on Linden Street in Allston. The Boston Globe reported there were nine students living in the house at the time. City law stipulates no more than four undergraduates can live in the same residence together, precisely to prevent these sorts of tragedies. But clearly not all landlords care to follow the law or to see that their occupants are safe.
Students should keep in mind as well that realtors are not necessarily on their side during the apartment search process. In a healthy market, agents would need a good reputation and good word-of-mouth recommendations in order to maximize their business. In this seller’s market however, most can rely on enough students walking into their office regardless of how helpful they have been in the past. And in an area in which their clientele cycles out completely every four years, bad memories fade fast. If they can make an easy $3,500 commission on a sub-par overpriced apartment, why go out of the way to ensure their clients are getting the most for their money?
None of this is to say that all or even a majority of landlords and realtors are predatory, but there are enough of them out there and students – who have limited experience searching for and living in apartments, not to mention generally lower standards – make good prey. Luckily Northeastern has a strong and active Off Campus Student Services office to help navigate this process. Huskies, especially those new to the rental process, would be wise not to ignore their offers of assistance.
