Was harder than I thought it'd be.

A9

Meredith O'Hara

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The day I was suppose to move into my first apartment I was so excited. I was about to start my third year of university and after two years in residence with a roommate sharing a 10 x 14 foot space, I couldn't wait to have a whole apartment between three of us. We had signed the lease months before. Worried that all the good places near the university would get snatched up we set out in February to find our home for next September.

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Sometimes student apartments are far from perfect.

The first two or three places were dumps; bad carpet, bad layout, and roommates we didn't want to sign up for. Then we found the perfect apartment. Yes it was on Graham Avenue a somewhat notorious street for student parties etc... in Fredericton, but it was a secure apartment building and the apartment was just what we wanted. The living room was huge and though the kitchen was kind of smaller it came with a new fridge, new stove and best of all a dishwasher. From the kitchen, the hall went back to three good-sized bedrooms. This was the place. We paid the first month's rent, signed the lease and went back to finishing school and then enjoying our summer.

September 1 came and it was time to move in. My roommate was the first to move up and I'd come up two days later with our third roomie moving in a few days after that. Well I got a phone call that first day of September and it wasn't to say how great our new home was. My roommate, Heather, had arrived bright and early, ready to start the move-in, but to her surprise that wasn't going to be the case.

The apartment was trashed. No freshly painted walls, no bedroom waiting to be decorated, just old furniture left everywhere, deliberate scrapes all over the walls, old food still in the fridge and unwashed dishes in the dishwasher. It was a nightmare, no one was impressed. Thankfully the building manager was with Heather and her mom. He was on the phone bringing in cleaners right away "" but Heather had to move all her stuff back to Saint John and make the drive again the next day. She moved in on September 2 and this time actually got to move in. I arrived the next day and all seemed to be going smoothly.

Someone from Rogers was supposed to come in the next couple days to hook up our TV, internet and phone. The appointment time came and went with no Rogers people. So we made a quick call. Very politely, in that fake call centre polite way, the girl said we owed them $600. We tried to explain that we'd just moved in, but the computer system was telling her that one of us used to live with the people from last year and therefore we'd have to pay the bill. So we had to fight just to get Rogers to believe we moved in that week. Eventually it worked out and we got our services, but that wasn't the end of our troubles.

Something small but so very, very annoying was sharing our apartment too. We had fleas.

Turns out not only did the old people leave bad furniture for us but their cat left us a present too. So we Googled "how to kill fleas" and spent a week trying everything from daily vacuuming, to Pinesol spray and anything else we thought would work. But by the end of it we still woke up each morning with new red spots on our ankles.

It was time to call the landlord, which we probably should have done in the first place. He sent over an exterminator and once we were allowed back in we finally settled into our home. It wasn't the way I had thought it would be, but I learned a lot for next time.

I would say most important, talk to your landlord before you move in. Make sure the place has been inspected. And as far as the Rogers thing goes, change the phone number when you set up your account and remember to write down the date and time you call your service company and the name of the person you were talking to. They record those calls, so if you need to fight something having that information means they can look up the call and find out what was said.

Peter Kessek from the New Brunswick Rentalsman Office says renters should make sure they do their homework before they even sign the lease.

"They should do a little bit of homework of the neighbourhood. They should try to find out what kind of a landlord he or she is," he says. The lease is the most important thing when dealing with renting. Kessek says people should read as much of the lease as possible before signing. Also he says landlords may make promises like painting or putting in new appliances before you sign the lease and it's important to have more than just that person's word.

"Make sure you have these things in writing, that's a key point here," he says. If it's in writing the rentalsman office can step in and enforce an agreement.

Kessek says before moving in it's important to inspect the apartment, be aware of the rules for terminating the lease and make sure to do everything officially so if you need help, the rentalsman can step in. Though his advice can't stop all the trip-ups new renters will face it should make for smoother sailing.