By Katie Clary
News Assistant
“Hi, Mrs. Jones,” the phone conversation begins. “We’d like to rent your apartment.”
“We?”
“Yes, we’re Pepperdine students and—”
Click.
Another victim to the P-word paranoia.
As students begin to navigate Malibu real estate to find a place to lay their heads at night, many experience strong community apprehension towards college-age tenants.
Often property owners want families, not students for renters, and recently one local apartment complex decided to restrict Pepperdine occupancy. As summer vacation approaches, many students are beginning to ask how they will land an off-campus lease.
Christyn Garrett, a sophomore telecom broadcast news major, has found the house hunting process “frustrating and unsuccessful.”
In the past week alone, Garrett has been hung up on four times and stood up twice by landlords less than thrilled to rent to Pepperdine students. After waiting an hour at one apartment complex for a leaser who never showed, she was fed up.
“In our case, we’re just five little girls who want a house to live in,” she said. Garrett transferred from Auburn University in Alabama, where she lived in an apartment, and now she is ready to live off campus again. That is if landlords give her a chance.
While Garrett understands owners’ concerns, she believes they should treat renters on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m sure we (Pepperdine students) earned this reputation,” Garrett said, but this stigmatism makes getting one foot in the door very difficult.
But local renters say they have good reason to be wary of students.
Maria Killian, director of operations at the Bella Mar Apartments, said too many Pepperdine students are “out of control.” In her apartment complex, located about six miles northwest of campus, she estimates approximately 20 percent of her Pepperdine tenants are troublemakers.
“I’ve gone through more fire extinguishers in these four months than in the past 13 years,” she said.
Currently Pepperdine students occupy 24 of the 68 residences, basically one building. Next year, she will allow 15-17 units, those students who she considers well-behaved to continue their lease, opening up only five new spaces to students.
“They’re too much trouble,” she said, adding that she is not concerned about finding new tenants.
Down the Pacific Coast Highway a couple miles at the mobile home community the Point Dume Club, manager Debra Miller echoed Killian’s sentiments.
“Remember it’s not a dorm room and it’s not your room at home,” Miller said.
She said the most frequent complaints against students are excessive wear and tear on the buildings, failure to maintain the landscaping, and on rare occasion, noise complaints, particularly around graduation and summer terms.
“Treat it like a home,” she said.
While Point Dume Club does not restrict whom the homeowners can rent to, most owners choose not to rent to students. Of the 299 mobile homes in the community, only three are leased to students.
Fortunately, not all renters in the Malibu community steer clear of Pepperdine students, said Dawn Enrich, associate director of housing on campus. She helps organize the Pepperdine Web-page listings of off-campus housing and remembers one woman who essentially begged for student leasers.
But even the Pepperdine listings aren’t a sure thing, said Garrett. One of the women who hung up on her had actually listed her apartment on Pepperdine’s Web site.
Sophomore economics major Jordan Benshoof brought up another concern: timing. Earlier in the semester, he visited a real estate agent, thinking he’d beat the crowds. The real estate agent looked at him and chuckled, “You mean you’re not looking for a place this month?” He told Benshoof to try again in mid-April.
But then there’s the summer gap, Benshoof realized. If he successfully finds housing for himself and two friends, what happens from May to August? Most leases begin in April, and for students who aren’t living in Malibu during the vacation months, summer rent presents an added headache.
The off-campus rejection is only intensified by the on-campus housing crunch.
Last year, roughly 1,250 returning students applied for on-campus housing, in addition to the nearly 700 freshmen and transfers who are guaranteed housing, creating a pool of approximately 1,950-strong vying for the 1,800 undergraduate beds available (clearly some students may choose to live at home, but that is a small portion of the freshman class).
While Director of Housing Jim Brock said HCL managed to place most of the waitlist applicants by the end of the summer, the grinding uncertainty was too much for some students. Many opt to live elsewhere before receiving on-campus housing.
HCL expects a similar number of applicants this year, Enrich said. Once again, there are more contracts than spaces available. But Enrich assures that the lottery system provides an equal opportunity for students to get housing and even those who are denied have a good chance if they stay on the waitlist.
Furthermore, she said at least one recent rumor is unfounded. The Drescher Honors Apartments will not be reserved exclusively for graduate students next year. Undergraduates students will still live in eight of the 13 buildings, which is one less than this year, but that means only 20 less beds, explained graduate housing assistant Kim Laydon. Yes, the honors apartments were originally intended as graduate housing, but that is years down the line and with the high demand for undergraduate housing in mind. Brock doubts undergraduates will ever be completely phased out of the Honors apartments.
So for now, students wait. On-campus housing assignments should be e-mailed to students by April 11, if not before, Brock said.
He encourages students who truly need to live on-campus to communicate this to the housing office if they are not placed.
For Benshoof, still looking for an off-campus apartment for three guys, the hardest part is not knowing. The real estate agents he spoke with were all very helpful and nice, he said, but they didn’t allay his fears, he said. “What happens if you honestly don’t find a place?”
Brock encourages students to be patient and persistent. “Hang in there,” he said. “We really are dedicated to do whatever we can, on or off campus.”
Submitted March 25, 2004
