The House of Pooping Parties

This year has been pretty intense and crazy. I started out by having my ACL replaced, then decided to move to Salt Lake, starting dating a guy, moved my office to Salt Lake, got dumped, moved my personal stuff into my office, got the Orem house ready to sell, went to Europe, and now finally moved myself to Salt Lake. Did you notice that moving was in there a lot? Yeah, me too. I started packing up my things in May and just now, 5 months later, have most of my stuff situated in my new house. 

I found a cute and quaint place in June, but after talking to the landlord decided that I would move into the unit he was finishing next door. He said it should be ready by mid July. By the end of July he said the end of August. By the end of August he said the first of October and then I promptly gave up. I looked for new places as soon as I got back from Europe (the one silver-lining of that place taking forever is that I used my rent money to go to Europe for two weeks by myself), found one on a Friday, saw it Saturday morning, and started moving in Saturday afternoon.

This seemed like a match made in heaven. It was the quickest apartment search ever and it had everything I wanted. It is recently remodeled, within walking distance of Trader Joe's and Williams and Sonoma, close to my office, has more than enough living space, a pantry, washer and dryer hookups, a bathtub and new appliances. (the photos below are the new place)

Then I moved.

My U-haul had so many problems that they ended up refunding everything but my mileage.

The previous tenants stopped paying their gas bill so it had been turned weeks before I moved in, so no showers, cooking or laundry for the first 5 days...

Then my neighbor introduced herself. She asked how much I wanted to know about the previous tenants and before I could answer she plopped down on my couch and opened the floodgates about how the guy was a tatted-up gang member who manufactured and sold drugs and the girlfriend only entered the house by climbing through the kitchen window. After she left, I had to check my house for signs of meth... something I never thought I would have to do.

After getting over the shock of living in a drug dealer's house and being assured (well half way, he is not a very assuring type) by my landlord that they did not cook meth I moved in, but so did the mice. 

I saw the first lying in the middle of my floor; he was very much dead. He was surprisingly cute and pretty tiny, gross yes, but not the most alarming thing. A day or so later I found his friend hiding in my laundry room. Naturally, I put on rainboots, grabbed a trashcan (to catch him in if it came to that) and stood at my cracked door until my friend could bring me some traps. After setting it up we sat down to talk. Then, the mouse decided to venture out. After our initial shock, we were determined to get it out. He conveniently ran into a pile of moving boxes and got trapped. Once that happened we were able to make a box exit for him and my friend literally kicked him out the front door. 

I texted my landlord that night and he said that he would get an exterminator. Four days and five huge bait stations later my house was ready for the mice. The bait takes at least 10 days to kill mice so I had to wait. I had to wait through the nights where I would bolt up in my bed because I could hear them in my walls. I had to keep all food stored. I had to vacuum up their poop. But, it seemed like they were going away.

Then last week I did a load of laundry and noticed dropping again. I grabbed the vacuum and went room to room and sure enough there was poop in EVERY room. As I went to grab my shoes--that were on a shoe rack a couple rows up--I found poop. POOP IN MY SHOE! I texted my landlord and he only texted me back after my second attempt the next day saying this was a huge deal (he has a track record for telling me things like, "a mouse here and there isn't a big deal" and when asked if he would fix a baseball size hole behind my oven that I realized mice used as a door he said "no, holes don't attract mice." He is an idiot). An exterminator came out yesterday but the bait isn't working. The mice are getting food from somewhere so they are not interested in the bait and won't until the food disappears. I have never found droppings on my counter and my food has never been touched so they are obviously going elsewhere. The only thing that we can think of is that they are eating at the neighbors (I live in a duplex) and then they just come to my house to poop and party. I can't decide if I should be flattered or not.

So, I basically am living with mice until my landlord hires a contractor to fill in all the gaps from the outside, fixes my unfinished pantry where the plywood floor opens to the creepy stairs that go to the dirt basement (the mice are literally walking up the stairs and straight into my pantry, they don't even have to try with how ill-fitting that plywood "door/floor" is). I am loosing faith in my landlord but the bigger problem is that it is getting cold and if this isn't fixed the mice will not leave until spring, so if he can't get his act together I need to move. 

Moving in my least favorite thing.

Also, I have already totally moved in, had friends instal Ikea shelving (which equals me driving to Ikea no less than 7 times to buy the correct shelves...) bought furniture solely because it fits in this house, and spent DAYS organizing. If i have to move I will require that my landlord lets me kick him in the shins on the way out.

I can tell mice have been in my house because they poop, how awful would it be if that's how I identified my friends or family coming to visit? Thank you for never pooping on my floor or behind my appliances, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. 

Hurricanation

there's a storm a brewin'

(Before the storm hit i managed to get out of NYC on one of the last subways/trains. I thought it would be a better option to wait out the storm with my sister's family. This turned out to be the best idea since many of the subways did not run for a full week and the apartment I was couch surfing in took in 4 other people that lost power.)

I have never been through a hurricane before. I have been through one natural disaster in my life--a flash flood--which i was in the thick of, completely unprepared. But the difference with that terrible storm, even though all of us that were involved thought at one point or another that this might be the last day the Davis family had ten living children, is that only a small portion of people were involved. The storm passed, phone lines weren't down, no houses washed away, no one was looting, and within a few hours we were warm and dry and doing okay.

you also spend a lot of time doing this. which takes a very long time i might add.

For us Sandy passed relatively quickly and little damage was done. Two trees fell, one knocking out part of the back fence and one doing a little cosmetic damage to the car, and the power went out for a day--but that was it. When it is over and you are unscathed, you think all is well. We couldn't watch tv and our phones couldn't make calls or use data so we had no idea what was going on outside of the community we were in. It wasn't until i would get calls from my family in the west that i heard of cars floating in parking garages of the Financial District (where that apartment i coveted and almost recently moved into is located). It wasn't until i was texted by my boss that i found out that lower Manhattan had no power and she watched water pour down her street, sure it was going to come flooding into her apartment at anytime. And it wasn't until i got back to work a week later that i heard of apartments getting looted, even the baby's clothes were gone. But when you are in an area that wasn't hit very hard, it is easy to have a good time because you have no idea that somewhere else houses are washing away and over a hundred are on fire, until of course you are back in touch with the world and hear of the people that came out so much worse than you.

you spend a lot of time doing this during power outages

what we like to call 'Hurricane-opoly'

The thing that does amaze me though, are the attitudes that i have witnessed in upper Manhattan. These people never lost power and could see the news. They knew that the subway wasn't running because of flooding, they knew that lower Manhattan was out of power. They heard stories of looters. They saw footage of houses burning in Queens. They knew that houses were washing away in the Rockaways.

I heard these people complain that they couldn't get anywhere because of the subway, that they were getting fat from eating so much because they were cooped up inside (with a working fridge and means to cook...), that they wished people staying in their house (because they had lost power/heat) would leave. And then i went to church were someone said that they knew they would be okay even though they didn't prepare at all for the hurricane because God wouldn't let anything bad happen to them.

these are our 'we are sad that the power is out' face. BUT we could still shop at target--as long as you didn't buy any perishables--and play monopoly so all was right with the world. 

Last time i checked the church adamantly preached being prepared.

Not to mention that we are all God's children, are the people that lost everything somehow less so?

I was appalled. 

This week though, that person had a chance to redeem themselves. Instead of having church for the normal 3 hours, we met for 30 minutes in our work clothes and then headed out to the Rockaways to help rip out carpet, tare out drywall, move mounds of soaked belongings, and give hope to people that lost everything. For me, i think it was really good to go. There is a difference between knowing of the destruction and seeing it first hand. 

this is Gloria's house, the one I worked in.

in my family we call these toys Dudes. this broke my heart a little, but seeing family photos litter the street broke my heart a lot

Mormon Helping Hands goes into areas after first responders check the stability of structures and after insurance companies calculate damages. It blew my mind that two weeks after a hurricane hit things like fallen trees and soaked carpet hadn't been removed yet, but i guess that just goes to show how bad things are. We found a women who was trying to figure out how to take care of her 90 year old mother's house. She lived down the street and moved her mom to her house during the storm, which turned out to be the best decision. Her house was not damaged in the living area but her mother's main floor and basement flooded. The main floor was a good 5 stairs up from the street and still water poured in and soaked everything. One step on the carpet and your feet were wet clear though, all this after two weeks.

All of these people are still without power and heat. Many of them also lost their cars, some just up and floated away... If you are in the New York/New Jersey area i would highly recommend finding some time to go out and help. There is no feeling like having a complete stranger let you into their home and then give you the biggest hug--like they have know you for years--when you leave a few short hours later. It makes you realize how lucky you are and how much more grateful you should be for your health and basic necessities.

carry on carry on carry on

I had a friend that used to always say:

"life sucks and then you die"

I never really thought that was true, but i'm finding more truth in it the longer i live in manhattan...


My last blogpost was written from my office--after i had finally found my way back to my trusted SoHo in a cab--and successfully dried my sweat drenched body. At that point i thought i had braved the worst part of my day, little did I know that i would lug that stupid suitcase to a photo shoot, then haul it in the back of a cab, drag it up and down 34th street--as the MegaBus directed me to line after line, pull it along in downtown Philly and finally load it on a train. All of that was grand but exiting the train caused some fuss and loss of bodily fluid.

When i was at the train i called Jenny, 'um, something is wrong with my foot, i am pretty sure my heal is bleeding into my shoe and i have a growth on my toe...'

sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.

I was kind to my dear old foot on the train, that is until i almost missed my stop. I frantically jumped up, grabbed my suitcase and with one awkward gesture made it land directly on my toe growth. By the time Jenny picked me up i was hobbling along with my shoe was full of puss.

I went to Philly for a number of reasons:
      get out of NYC for some TLC
      unload extra crap from my apartment since stupid connie isn't letting me stay
      do laundry
      chew on the babies (or snuggle my nieces and nephew)
      babysit nora so jenny could run the Ragnar
      cheer on sarah and jenny on said Ragnar

      oh and photograph jenny and sarah....

yeah, if you couldn't tell, i forgot that one.

I not only lugged a 50lb suitcase to Philly (with only 1/2 of one wheel...) but I also had my camera bag that weighs about a bajillion pounds.

Oh the way to the Ragnar, after getting all three kids, a weeks worth of food, and my camera bag in the car, Mike asked, 'did you grab your camera off the piano?' Well crap, i have a bag full of extra batteries, lens, film, cards and no camera. FAIL.

i took this. i pushed the shutter and THIS came out. FAIL.

Turns out i am really bad at using a point and shoot camera. All the photos that i took on a borrowed camera were terrible. Like real bad. So this is why everyone has ditched small cameras for the iPhone...

Rough Rough Rough.

Monday i came back to the city, but the weekend had more in store for me. Somewhere amid my countless hours on public transportation, train to bus to subway, i caught the flu. Did i mention that i have a friend who has been staying with me and sharing my bed? Yeah, not so great when you have the flu and sleep for 14 hours straight...

luggage losing wheels, people losing housing, shoes full of puss, only 3.583 friends in the city, and an unpaid internship--new york apparently never got the memo that i love it and it should treat me kindly.

this is what a race looks like when i remember my camera...

On the plus side, i am finally going to see Sleep Walk With Me this weekend and hopefully find that Awesome Brownie that i found my first saturday here. Oh and i found out i get $30 a week from my internship. That makes me like thiiiiiiiis happy, that's like 5 Shake Shack burgers a week! (or a week metro card--which is what i think i am supposed to use it for...)

On days like this, you just got to throw on Fun. and listen to Carry On:

If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground
Carry on

Carry on, carry on

Breaking Amish

(this is totally the theme song for that new TLC show about a group of Amish teens that leave the faith and move to Manhattan, if they can do it, I can too, right? Right?! I mean, television never lies or anything, right? RIGHT?!)


oh did i mention that i am still haven't found a place to live for the next two weeks? The only two weeks that i have people flying out to visit me...

I might love nyc this weekend, but right now--at this very moment--i kinda loathe it.

if you would like to send me a package, i would not deny it. Especially if it was this camera to keep in my purse at all times so i never have another epic photography fail. This is a point and shoot i can trust!

what was i thinking?

First of all, a little plea on the blogsphere:

remember that one time when i posted a blog about photos and a girl de-friended me on facebook because she was so offended why what i--mostly sarcastically--wrote?

at least she gave me feedback.

and you don't want to be outshone by that mean girl, so you should give me feedback too with my new little gadget at the end of each post:

she choose to post on my facebook link

 'I just have to say that I read this and I am really disgusted by some of the things you said. I mean, utterly appalled. I'm practically speechless, I am so sickened by this.' 

but I assume she ment to click the box 'offended,' so i did it for her.

anyway, its takes .986 seconds to do, faster than a comment (which only like .2834 of you do) and it makes me feel like people actually read this thing. 

and now for my real post:

What Was I Thinking?

On days like today i sit back and think, 'why did i think it was a good idea to move to Manhattan?' You see, my day started at 7:30 when i checked my email (not a normal thing by the way, i loathe the fact that everyone assumes you should respond to emails within a fraction of the day, if you want to get a hold of me, make it pop up on my phone without having to go look for it...) and found a message from a girl that said i could come look at her apartment before work.  It was amazing I found the email in time, i don't normally get up until 8 or so.

Backstory: 

      You see, this one time i subleased a studio apartment from a girl who owned a studio in Harlem but moved to Utah. We agreed that i would sublease it until the end of the year, well, that is until she called me on Monday, only 3 weeks into me living there, to tell me that her, her husband, and her baby were moving back into said apartment on the 17th. 

      lets just pause for a moment here so you can take it in like i did.

      she is MOVING back into the apartment in 15 days (now 13...). Something she never mentioned to me. Please note that said apartment was for sale and i had to have it show ready every Sunday. Like she had no plan on moving back because she was trying to SELL it. (which by the way, if it had sold while i lived there it would have taken at least a month if not two before i would have to move)

        this girl sucks.

        a lot.

        and i sent one scathing email that might have mentioned that.

Any other day before work would have been fantastic but today i am going to Philly after work so now a HUGE 50lb suitcase is involved--i need to do laundry and store some of my belongings at my sisters in the event i do become homeless or sublet hop for the next two months. The girl failed to mention the address of the place and didn't get the memo where i asked for her to text me if she wanted to come, so i quickly sent her an email saying i was jumping on the train and to text me so that when i got service randomly in the underground i would know where the hell i was headed.

i then lugged my suitcase 0.3 miles to the subway, down two flights of stairs and then onto the full train. I finally got a text telling me where to get off, hauled my suitcase (and camera bag and purse with laptop) up two flights of stairs and then another 0.3 miles later, i had finally made it... to paradise.

The apartment is beautiful. It has a huge lobby, doorman, gym, lounge, roof with amazing view of everything you would want to see and a place to have bbqs and fires, and it is one stop away on the train from my office in SoHo. Nothing could have been better, nothing except for the fact that they need someone to sign a lease and if I did that then I would have to find someone to take over my lease after only two months AND i would have to shell out $2000 for the security deposit (which the subleaser would pay to take over the lease).

Is this a terrible idea? Am i so desperate that I am ready to shell out $2000 and sign a year lease in the city just to have a place to stay for 6 weeks to 2 months (I can't move in until Nov. 1st)?!

      and now i am back to hating the girl that is kicking me out.

So now i leave for work, which i am already late for, and walk out the lovely building that i want to house me. This is where things get worse.

pretend instead of rain that is sweat. THAT is how sweaty i was. and i looked THAT unhappy too.

First i get lost and go an extra .1 miles,  not a big deal if 80 lbs of luggage was not involved.

Two turns later (and one walk of shame past a man who saw me go the wrong way .765 minutes ago...) i find my correct route.

And now, one of the wheels fall off my suitcase.

Like a beacon in the night i finally see the J subway line. Two flights of stairs later i realize that it is headed to Brooklyn and i have no earthly idea where the uptown station is. 

Back up two flights of stairs, utterly defeated.

Finally I decide to use what the good Lord gave me and hail a cab with beautifully manicured orange nails (he gave me good hands, not the nail polish--obviously)

Old Navy Rockstar Jeans

$10 later i am finally at work. Everything i am wearing is sopping wet, the sweat cascading off my forehead down into my eyes. 

Rachel's 'birthday cake' made out of cookies the size of your head. almost a week later, they are still a pretty good breakfast.

Then i realize that i never ate breakfast and my beloved protein shake is still on the counter at home, but don't worry, i have a GIANT black & white cookie in my purse, the breakfast of champions.  (there was also a half a piece of pizza in there, but i didn't want to be that smelly co-worker)

Did i mention that the entire time i was sweatily trudging down the street in the Financial District--constantly backtracking and passing the same people for a second time--that i was wearing bright orange pants? There was no mistaking me.

Especially since you could hear me coming for miles with the wretched scrapping plastic sound screaming from my one-wheeled suitcase.

waiver has been approved

It is no secret that i loath the BYU Off Campus Housing Office. BYU has a lot of great things, i wouldn't be starting my 3rd senior year if that wasn't true, but the housing lacks even the most common sense.

A little background: this one time my terrible landlord did a slue of illegal things and then topped off my tenancy with threatening to ruin my credit and put a hold on my academic account at BYU (neither of which she had power to do anyway). I spoke with BYU OCH (Off Campus Housing) about my problems at least 4 times and they never helped me. Even though my landlord changed the locks without telling me, which left me locked out in the middle of the night with nowhere to go, the only thing BYU said was, 'well if you go to court and win let us know and then we will help you.'

Needless to say i went to court and won. It was glorious, my old landlord looked like a babbling fool. Her only defense was that: everyone hates Bethany so it was okay that i treated her like crap too. (don't worry, not everyone hated me, just those two roommates that i never care to see again if i live to be 107).

If you want the full story on housing issues at BYU and what I presented to the OCH, go to this blog post.

That was all a while ago. 

I had been to BYU OCH at least a dozen times since the beginning of my problems until last fall. After having a meeting with the entire OCH staff and telling them that said landlord even lost a master key to the complex and hadn't re keyed (the key was missing for 18 months before she recovered it, still she did not re-key the apartments), having a very candid phone conversation with Garry Briggs-where he pretended like he had no idea who i was even though i had been in his office less than a month ago presenting for an hour to his staff, talking to the rep over my old complex who said she wasn't sure of the laws regarding missing keys and therefore they weren't going to do anything, and then reading an article in the Daily Universe about housing, i decided to write a letter to the editor.

http://universe.byu.edu/node/15591

I thought that it was funny that on the same day this article was published i submitted my most recent housing waiver. I had forgotten about the letter since it was published almost two weeks after i wrote it, but it was very fitting that it was all the same day.


Meet my latest housing waiver that BYU approved today:

"Because of the many encounters I have had with the BYU Off Campus Housing office in the past two years and the lack of respect and due diligence on their part to keep me and my residential facility safe, I feel that I have no option but to not reside in housing that is affiliated with BYU, owned or accredited.

I have talked to every member of the OCH permanent staff, including attending and presenting at one of their weekly meetings. Though I brought a number of legitimate concerns and student complaints to them, they neglected to ever contact my landlord or follow up in any way to the allegations.

Once when speaking to Craig Thomas about my lackluster view of BYU Housing and that I did not feel safe living there and never would again, he simply replied, "I don't blame you."

And with that, I assume that there are no intentions of fixing any of the problems that students present, even when like me, they bring a court verdict in their favor from a recent law suit against their 'BYU Accredited' landlord. Because of this, I trust my own decision making skills over where I should reside and the safety of my residential unit, than that of BYU and an unit that they have not visited or reviewed in no one knows how many years.

In short: In the past I did not feel safe in my BYU Accredited unit and due to the lack of concern from the BYU OCH office, I feel that I cannot trust OCH opinion of which units provide appropriate living and safety standards."

I wonder if Craig Thomas or Garry Briggs saw either my letter to the editor or my waiver...

vigilante justice

In 2006, a survey of nearly 2,000 BYU students revealed the following percentages relating to different problems in their BYU Off-Campus Housing

Today I met with BYU Housing for about the billionth time about issues I had with my landlord a couple years back. They actually liked what I said and want me to work with their office to create a document that will be handed to every student when they move into a BYU approved unit. (my description of it is near the end).

Here is what my 15 minutes of fame in the Housing Department meeting consisted of:

Thank you for letting me come and talk to you today. Since I have not met many of you let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Bethany Davis and I am from Boise Idaho and the youngest of ten. My parents met at BYU in the sixties and all of my siblings have attended BYU over the last 22 years. I am a BFA student in the Photography department and will be graduating in 2012.

Craig Thomas asked me to come in today to describe my experience with living in off campus housing and how this housing’s office failures to enforce and oversee housing concerns between students and landlords forced me to seek vindication in court.

In May of 2007 I moved into a fairly large complex with around 120 units, each with 4 tenants. I knew that when I moved in that the complex was large and the involvement of management would be different than with a small complex or house, but I had never anticipated the problems that arose.

Early on in my tenancy I began to be frustrated with the way management ran the complex and voiced my concerns to them. It was not uncommon for the management to violate the terms of our housing contracts and in effect trespass by coming into our apartment without proper notice or no notice at all. When we did request maintenance it could take weeks, if they ever came, and the work that was done was shotty to say the least. The apartment was not cleaned thoroughly before my roommates and I moved in, leaving us to clean copious amounts of hair out of our carpet and take a load of items that were not ours to DI. My landlord was also abrasive from the beginning and once called me just to tell me that my roommates would hate me when they moved in. As time went on the problems only escalated.

In August of 2008 I returned from a vacation to find that my front door lock had been changed. There had been a notice placed on my door that said, “stop by the office today to pick up a new key, we are changing the locks.” I called the office to see if they could let me in but they were closed and the automated message said that if you are locked out it is not an emergency and not to contact the emergency number, because of this I had to frantically find a place to sleep at 1:30 in the morning. It was between semesters and many people were out of town. I did not know any girls in my complex so my only option was to sleep on my brother’s floor even though that is against housing rules.

The next morning I went to the office to confront Donnetta Knight, the manager, about the lack of notice for changing the locks. I knew that Utah mandates that the tenants are given written or verbal notice at least 24 hours before such maintenance is done. Donnetta did not seem bothered at all that she had rekeyed a building full of 20-year-old girls without warning them. This being the same summer that a rapist was on the loose in my neighborhood and we had a police officer constantly watching the area, I was even more disheartened by her actions. Seeing that she did not regard the safety of her tenants I sought help through BYU’s Housing Office.

I went to the Housing Office assuming that something could be done but instead I was asked to back down. I was told that if I filed a complaint at BYU Housing against the complex and it led to Carriage Cove losing their accreditation with the University, I would be solely responsible for making around 400 students that currently resided at Carriage Cove find new housing. The Housing Representative also informed me of what a caring person Donnetta was since they were longtime friends.

A few months later I attended the Off Campus Housing Q&A where I voiced my concerns about my landlord still feeling entitled to come into my apartment with no notice whenever she deemed fit. The representatives present asked me to speak with them after the meeting where they collected my information and informed me that they would contact the complex and call me to let me know that something had been done. After trying to follow up a few weeks later with them, they still had not contacted the complex or notified them of my complaint.

In April of 2009 I tried contacting BYU Housing one more time when things had escalated with Donnetta. She started singling me out of my roommates, blaming me for damages in common areas of the apartment and charging me alone to fix them. She also informed one of my roommates that “I don’t know who Bethany thinks she is, she has no rights. If she doesn’t fix this (regarding the ‘damage’ in the apartment) I will ruin her credit and put a hold on her academic account at BYU.” I had never paid my rent late, I was a quiet tenant and left my apartment much cleaner than I found it, and had, in my estimation, lived up to my end of our written housing contract, had respected the rights and property of Carriage Cove and had been a complying and high-caliber tenant and did not deserve this treatment. I told Craig Thomas about this encounter and the things that she said. I knew that Donnetta did not have the power to do either of the things she threatened but I do not take kindly to being threatened. While I was in his office I filed a formal complaint with BYU about the many violations Carriage Cove had committed ranging from harassment to trespassing, to endangering tenants. I then told Mr. Thomas that I would never live in a BYU approved space again because I felt that the landlords were given unlimited power by BYU and were held in higher regard than the students. To my comment he replied, “I don’t blame you,” this left me feeling even more hopeless that the situation had not and would not be being taken seriously. I then asked him what I was supposed to do about the situation and he said, “Well you can try mediation but I can already tell you Donnetta will not go, you could also take them to court. If you win, come back and let us know and we will file it as a claim being validated.”

After being left with no options from BYU other than pursuing vindication and justice via a court of law, I sued Carriage Cove on November 6^{th, 2009} for violating my privacy and disregarding the wellbeing and safety of their tenants. The Fourth District Court of Provo found my accusations to have merit and a judgment in my favor was awarded me. Carriage Cove was forced to pay my court fees and I was awarded punitive damages in the amount of $200.

Preparing for and going to court was an enlightening experience for me. It was much easier to file in the small claims court than I had anticipated and if you go in with proper documentation of your allegations you have nothing to fear. When I went to court I had a copy of my contract and the BYU Off Campus Housing Guide that had the many infractions I witnessed highlighted, a receipt that showed the actual cost of an item Donnetta claimed I broke and charged me an outrageous amount to replace, notices I had received from Carriage Cove that showed the improper amount of notice for entry given, and past and current tenants who participated on my behalf as witnesses.

Prior to having a judge hear your case you are asked to go to mediation to see if you can work out a solution without the courts. In this meeting Donnetta did not want to discuss any solution other than me dropping the case. She also claimed that she had never, in all her years, received a complaint through BYU and that she had every right to treat me like she did. While I was in the mediation room alone with the mediator, she told me that they usually do not handle cases that involve punitive damage and if the judge listened to my case instead of throwing it out I would be lucky. Apparently the judge saw my claims as substantial and choose to hear our case. In court it became apparent that Donnetta did not document anything at the complex other than contracts that are being signed. She quickly became flustered when she could not back up the answers that she gave the judge and her only defense slowly became trying to convince the judge that I was a terrible, unlikeable person that did not deserve to be treated properly. Her defense was one that had no merit, was strictly based on unsubstantiated personal option and not upon fact, nor was it corroborated by the testimony of others.

Although I found vindication in a court of law, I am not quite sure it was worth my time and energy if significant and meaningful changes are not made here within BYU’s Housing office to help support honor-code-abiding students who are mistreated by the property owners and management companies who do not follow the policies that they have signed on to as BYU-approved landlords.

Though prior to going to court I was told that this was the only way BYU would act upon my complaints, when I turned in my court verdict to this office, I was told that it would be looked into to see if they needed to do anything. From a student’s standpoint, I had assumed the time to investigate such claims were when they were happening and a court verdict means they have been deems valid by a judge and therefore merit action.

Prior to this meeting today, I had met with different members of this office at least five times detailing the problems I had witnessed at my complex and each time I was not taken seriously and left feeling frustrated with the system. I documented everything I was told to and even went the extra mile by going court. In one of those meeting I was asked if the main reason I kept coming back was because of a violation of privacy, my answer was, no, this has become something much more than lack of privacy, this is now about the rights of students. The last time I came in it was also to inform this office that Carriage Cove has made the news recently because of numerous apartments being broken into. Even worse is the fact that if you ask Carriage Cove they won’t deny that they lost a master key to the complex over a year ago and never rekeyed the buildings. This, like when I reported being locked out, comes at a time when this area of Provo was the scene to a horrendous crime where a girl was brutally raped and left for dead on the river trail only a short distance away.

I, sadly, am not an isolated case at BYU. Over the last three years, since I have been more aware of my rights as a tenant, I have heard students talk about the following things happening to them: two students never received a deposit or itemized receipt from the same landlord, one student came home to find a random maintenance man in his apartment and when he confronted the office they told him not to worry about it and blew him off, one student was charged recheck fees for cleaning checks when her apartment was cleaner than when she moved in, one student was charged $100 to replace carpet that was damaged after she moved out-by a can of gasoline that her landlord neglected to remove from the outside storage of the apartment prior to her ever living there, a landlord tried to evict a student for not paying rent when he had-they felt justified because they wanted him to pay the next months rent early, another student had his landlord burst into his apartment without knocking for cleaning checks-he was only in a towel and the people ran around him and did not even give him time or ask if he wanted to put on clothes, 4 girls were each charged over $600 each when they moved out for damages that did not exist and for storage of items that were in there apartment before they moved in.

These instances were not all at one complex but at different areas of Provo showing it happens everywhere. Though these instances were all since 2007, problems like these have been going on for years. In my family alone, this is not the first time we have had major problems with management. In 2003 my brother came to BYU to seek help after his landlord tried to evict him and his roommates without cause. They had been in constant confrontations over a number of things; his landlord came into his apartment without notice many times, vandalized my brothers property and for vengeance only lied to the honor code office that my brother was doing drugs. Though this landlord had the police called on him after he got into an altercation with a tenant and was charged with assault, this office still chose the side of the landlord who was older over my brothers despite the facts at hand.

Some of these students, like my brother, came into this office and others did not. Some of the students that have come to BYU to get resolution for problems told me that they felt more like they were coming to a counselor, a good listener, rather than someone that would enforce housing guidelines. Others said that their concerns were listened to but the person they talked with tried to get them to change their mind about the complaint because they personally knew the landlord and/or alluded to having personal financial interest in the property. Others felt that because there is no form for complaints that when they turn in a concern typed out on normal paper that it is more like a comment for a suggestion box rather than a formal document to a large organization that demands and should enforce high standards.

Students that did not come in to voice their concerns told me that they either didn’t know how since there are no forms available or that they had heard of other students not getting their problems resolved. At this point they would rather move than try to get the problems resolved through BYU. Others also did not feel comfortable complaining since they assume that BYU is constantly checking up on the complexes enforcing standards and that they must be mistaken about their landlord treating them in such a un-church-like way. Many more are choosing to completely avoid the Off Campus scene by applying for housing waivers.

I understand why this system was created. It was created to give students an environment that would uplift them spiritually and academically. It creates housing where all of the tenants have similar beliefs, are living by the same standards, and are in the same social station of life. In theory, this system is flawless. It also extends the comfort students feel in their classes at BYU into their home life. I feel that many students come to BYU with the view that BYU checks out every aspect of their college life for them. They make sure the professors are upstanding saints, that the students are abiding by the Honor Code, and that the housing has been found to also employ the standards of BYU. Unfortunately housing is only a shell; on your website it says: “The university cannot guarantee that owners and managers are employing their best efforts to maintain our standards, that all residents are complying with BYU standards, or that contracted living units meet our physical criteria.” I think it is ironic that students can be kicked out of the university for an Honor Code violation at their home, yet the apartment that they live in is not held responsible to even maintain BYU’s standards. Because of this I feel that students do not realize that they need to be in charge and seek help though the city when they have problems. Once many of them do realize there is a problem, they would generally just move instead of going as far as I did. Many of them back down after confronting their landlord because they are told that their concerns are not important to the landlord and made to feel that they are in fact the ones that have made a mistake.

When I was here last week Craig Thomas and I had brainstormed different options for mass education of the students. One that I feel would be extremely easy to implement would be to create a document that landlords are required, by BYU Off Campus Housing, to give to their tenants when they move in. This document could have the top ten things tenants need to know whether this is their first or 20^th apartment. Things that should be included would be landlord’s rights, like the right to enforce the Honor Code and Curfew at the complex etc. It should also include a number of rights of students that are currently and all too commonly violated such as when a landlord has the right to enter the premises to how long a landlord has to give back a deposit or itemized receipt. I feel that if landlords are forced to give a document with information that is worded in common terms vs. legal jargon like the contact, they would be less likely to violate those terms since many more students would realize the injustice and call them out on it earlier. If the form also had a BYU Off Campus Housing header students would feel that BYU is truly involved and if they have a problem they can contact the office. Other documents could also be mandated to be given to tenants such as a Utilities Contract should be given to every unit that does not have utilities included in rent. I, unfortunately did not know that this contract existed until I moved out of my last apartment and was still owed utilities payments by my roommates.

I understand that BYU is frustrated if students do not come to them with problems but students also get frustrated when they feel that they have to do so much to go to this university and are still not taken seriously as adults. Every time I get a new ecclesiastical endorsement I am reminded how there are fewer questions and stipulations to get a temple recommend. I only wish that my landlords also had to go through an equally rigorous interview or at least be required to follow all of the Housing Guidelines.

I thank you again for letting me come to your meeting today to voice my concerns as a student. I am more than happy to answer any questions and aid this office in any way that I can in order to resolve the concerns that fellow students and I have.