One student’s account of her landlord entering her locked bedroom through her window when he thought that she wasn’t home is just one of the many cautionary tales in the Student Renter’s Survey binder in the Off Campus College office.

The Student Renter Surveys are conducted by the OCC Meeting, a group comprised of off-campus BU students. The surveys have been circulated to students living off campus for more than 20 years, and input on landlords has ranged from great experiences and enthusiastic recommendations to pages of complaints and warnings.

Items in the binder (which can be found in the New University Union) range from letters from attorneys threatening legal action against disappointing landlords, to notes handwritten by students proclaiming ‘STAY AWAY FROM ‘ The accounts are compiled for students who are deciding if or where to move off campus.

Approximately 8,000 graduate, undergraduate and international students live in off-campus housing.

The collection of reviews is just one of the many resources students have available to them through the OCC office. OCC provides material on tenants’ rights, lease consultation and free weekly legal clinics.

Stephanie Adamec, assistant director for Housing and Commuter Services at OCC, stressed the importance of a student’s education of his or her own rights as a tenant.

‘Being educated about what a good lease is, that is crucial,’ said Adamec, who reviews leases for students in her office. ‘We recommend that we [OCC] go through the lease with a student before they sign it.’

‘After you sign it, it’s pretty hard to make changes,’ she added.

Adamec urged students to take advantage of the free lease review that OCC offers, noting that two of the most common problems she hears from students moving off campus is either signing the lease without seeing the property or, after signing, returning in the fall to find their new home to be a complete mess.

To avoid bad situations like this, Adamec again stressed education.

She suggested that students use checklists for damages and other priorities, all of which are available on OCC’s Web site, occ.binghamton.edu.

Other helpful literature includes the OCC’s Tenants’ Rights Series, which highlights how to get one’s landlord to make repairs and how a tenant can protect his or herself.

Though Adamec said that there are many students who use services from OCC, she noted that one of her primary objectives since she took her position in August has been to expand the OCC’s role in off-campus student housing.

‘We provide services to help students deal with these types of problems and also not just deal with problems, but prevent them as well,’ Adamec said.