Our apartment building was overrun with “international students” after 4 of 6 units were vacated around the same time. Just me and the guy below me (who they distrust because he is black).
First of all, there were obviously way too many of them moving in. Like not a tight squeeze but actually illegal (about 10 per unit). Strange, but I tried to be nice, and I was met with stares and open derision. They seemed mad that there were other (non-“international student”) tenants in the building. And they were, because it turns out they were illegally subletting and running laundry service out of their apartments (now I know why “no laundry in the bathtubs” is a lease requirement).
Are smoke alarms not common in most countries? Because they kept setting them off and seemed to have no idea what they were for. They simply saw them as annoyances and would disable them until property management talked to them about fire safety, which meant they also had to remove their shit from the hallway/fire escape and stop burning oil lamps (morons).
Another huge hurdle was the trash. They had no concept of disposing of their trash properly. They would set trash outside their doors and I guess expect someone to pick it up? I don’t know. Management was able to get them to take their trash to the dumpster, but putting it inside the dumpster was apparently too much for them. They would just throw it
near the dumpster. So of course that caused a pest problem. Management had to start threatening eviction for them to change.
The illegal subletting + laundry led to huge amounts of water being used. The students just saw that water was “free” took advantage of that to its full extent. Well, water here isn’t “free,” it’s included in the rent. So management sent maintenance around “checking for leaks.” Yeah, I’m sure that’s it and not the 50 students showering and doing laundry.
So they had to stop the laundry (no way to hide water usage), but they still attempted to let non-tenants reside here and wanted them to be able to access the building 24/7. So they just left the exterior door propped open. 24/7. Finally, I’d had enough and complained to management. They sent out an email to all residents about not leaving the door open or they may risk eviction, and suddenly, there were 200% fewer students hanging around all the time.
I’m pretty sure management rents to them because they know they will get to keep the security deposit
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