CTEC-like ratings for off-campus housing at Northwestern may be available as early as next Winter Quarter, so, you know, you can find out about those leaky pipes before signing the lease. ASG’s External Relations Committee is spearheading the off-campus housing evaluations—OCHE for those in the know. The committee just launched a survey to ensure enough data is collected before the January 2012 launch. Respondents are asked to provide basic general information for their apartment like the address, number of bedrooms and cost of rent. Then, students are asked to rate the apartment and their landlord on a 1-10 scale as well as provide additional comments. So naturally, we took this opportunity to pool our off-campus living experiences. Our comments after the jump.
Evanston Place: Living here requires you like only one thing: cream-colored carpet. The guy from Empire Carpet must have done well at EP. But in all seriousness, who wants to eat on almost-white carpet? Or how about try and throw a party casual get together? There’s not enough Tide-to-Go and Oxi Clean in the world to rid the carpet of those wine and cranberry and vodka spills. So stick to vodka sodas or say bye bye to your security deposit.
Park Evanston:The outside may look like a glass castle, but the interior leaves much to be desired. Let’s start with the all important flooring situation: linoleum. Are you kidding me? For this price, I’d expect marble. At least the doorman makes me feel safe in the glass fortress—you know because suburbia is oh-so scary.
Clark Street Apartments:When the ownership touted these apartments as newly remodeled, we thought perhaps we’d found a little oasis, safe from the layers of spilled beer and congealed Easy Mac that accumulate in every other college dwelling. Alas, we were so, so naïve. Instead we found chintzy appliances and a tiny bit of plaster slapped onto the walls—not nearly enough to withstand a tipsy slump or a high-heeled kick during our first party. As it turns out, we didn’t need remodeling, we needed baby-proofing. This, coupled with the fact that the first-floor windows were so low that the homeless woke us when they rifled through the dumpster, made it feel even more claustrophobic than the six people we already had living in the four-bedroom apartment.
The Reserve: Like Evanston Place, except farther away, just a little bit cheaper, and with marginally better free coffee. However, the leasing agent is really, really hot. Huge bonus.
Garnett: Our landlord specified that we should call the after-hours number for emergencies only. So when someone innocently runs the vacuum cleaner and subsequently throws the house into an irreversible electrical black hole on the Sunday night before finals, that counts as an emergency right? What about when the entire house smells like gas? Nope, landlord is incredulous that we would dare call him. He says, seething, that the only reason to use the after-hours number is a house fire. Buddy, then we would call the FIRE DEPARTMENT. Not our crap landlord. No wonder the house is crumbling.
