For many UT students seeking their first non-dormitory home, the Fort Sanders neighborhood is prime real estate. Every spring, starry-eyed 20-somethings quickly snap up leases in the Fort, eager to live in the sole residential district within walking distance of campus.

But what happens when those leases – and the crooked landlords that accompany them – don’t quite live up to the hype?

“There was black mold in the kitchen; there was standing water throughout the entrance hallway and into the kitchen and living room,” Marissa Scribner, senior in BCMB, recalled of the apartment she nearly moved into this month. “We found out it was sewage water when we had been told it was just a regular leak.”

While touring the apartment a mere two months prior to move-in, Scribner and her roommate were appalled to discover how startlingly far the Clinch Avenue home had degenerated.

“I ended up talking to the prior tenants who said there was a fire there earlier and management never fixed anything, so their pipes burst about twice a year,” Scribner said. “The landlord was just trying to talk his way through it and if it were not for our parents, then they would have screwed us over.”

Scribner and her roommate were lucky to have parents in town who could intervene; others are not so fortunate.

“A lot of kids won’t stick up for themselves and some of their parents aren’t in range to come rescue them,” she said.

The Fort’s underhanded landlords are well aware of college students’ defenselessness and naivety, said Brooke Carpenter, a junior in physical therapy.

“You’re excited about your first house and they have to know that,” Carpenter said. “In your excitement, you probably overlook some things that you might not initially see or not think to check for — like fleas.”

When Carpenter and her three roommates moved into their Forest Avenue home, they were shocked to find they shared the address not only with fleas, but rats and cockroaches as well.

“We had, and still have, a huge pest control problem,” she said. “We notified our landlord of this and he didn’t seem to care at all. At one point he did flea bomb the house but he didn’t even give us a day’s warning, and we had to find somewhere else to stay that night.”

Failing to receive help from the landlord on behalf of rat and cockroach issues, the girls were forced to address the issue.

“We got a trap for one (rat) but the other was one was really smart and would eat the peanut butter off the traps,” she said. “We used a trashcan and had to trap it with a broom. It was the most horrible thing.”

Carpenter believes many Fort residents simply accept absentee landlords, unsure how to demand better treatment.

“Certain people wait until the last minute to find a place and then panic, because they’re hearing about other people who have already signed leases,” she said. “It’s later in the year so they don’t think they have many options around here, but they want to be able to walk to campus. So they just pick something close and deal with the issues.”

Noah Campbell, junior in accounting, believes that male tenants are especially prone to settle for less-than-ideal living situations.

“I think that some landlords are discriminatory toward male tenants because there are all of these stereotypes about college guys not taking care of their apartments,” he said. “They think that guys won’t complain or will care less about bad conditions. I think maintenance requests made by guys are given less attention because of that.”

Campbell found this particularly true of his Highland Avenue apartment last year.

“Something would break or stop working and I’d put in maintenance requests and sometimes never hear back,” he said. “When they did respond, it would take a while, maybe a few weeks.”

Pests, neglected maintenance repairs and mold aren’t the only issues; security can also be a problem, as recent UT graduate Emily Centko can attest. After leaving for a few weeks during winter break, Centko returned to her apartment at The Commons on Grand Avenue to find her television and Bose headphones missing.

“When I contacted The Commons about it, they didn’t recognize the problem and said it wasn’t their liability,” Centko said. “They told me I must have left my window unlocked, which was definitely not true. I didn’t even know how to open it. Someone else told me there had been several break-ins and they didn’t notify us.”

The incident was blamed on her carelessness. But Centko’s window had, in fact, been shattered.

“I found out that someone had broken several ground-floor windows to get in and all The Commons did was fix the windows… Considering that over $300 of my stuff was stolen, I should have at the very least been contacted.”

Not all landlords in the Fort are apathetic, but Centko encouraged prospective tenants to do some digging before signing a lease.

“Definitely do your research,” she said. “You should not only visit the place but also talk to former tenants and ask about their former experiences. Meeting the landlord in person is helpful too.”

Ultimately, Scribner noted, a tenant has the right to refuse a landlord’s shoddy offerings.

“A lot of college kids don’t know what to do and just need a place to live, so they accept bad conditions and try to make accommodations,” she said. “A lot of them don’t realize they can just say, ‘No. We’re getting out of our lease.'”