For many students, the stress of finals comes with another added hassle: moving out of their current living arrangements.
Whether they live in the dorms, in campus apartments or off campus, polls conducted by radio station KRQU found that about two-thirds of Laramie students leave the city for the summer. While August is the most common move-in time, May is the most common time to move out.
For some students, this year will be their first time moving out without the help of their parents. That can lead to a few challenges.
“The biggest thing that we see very often is that people don’t clean their apartment before they leave,” said Steve Sallis, a landlord of various Laramie properties. “It means that we have to clean it ourselves or call in a cleaning crew to come do it. It’s good for me, though, because it means I get to keep the security deposit.”
While there are procedures in place in the residence halls and in campus apartments to ensure that everyone cleans their space before they leave, there are no similar rules in an off-campus rental. If a renter leaves their space dirty when they move out, their deposit is forfeit.
Sallis has seen all sorts of apartment messes in his time as a landlord. Most occupants are aware of their responsibilities and leave their apartment looking nice for the next person. Others, however, are not so courteous.
“I’ve seen piles of pizza boxes to the ceiling. I’ve seen moldy dishes in the bathroom sink,” he said. “One time we had to fumigate the whole house because there was such a pest problem.”
Another problem many students face is what to do with all their furniture. While a coffee maker and a microwave might be useful during the semester, these items are often hard to take back home to mom and dad.
“A lot of people, they have this appliance and they realize, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be able to fit this in my compact when I drive back to my parent’s house,’” said Sallis. “So we get a lot of people just leaving things like microwaves, lamps and desks.”
Sallis recommends taking these appliances to a thrift store like Goodwill or trying to sell them on Facebook or Craigslist. Sarah Forrester, a University of Wyoming student who works part-time at Goodwill, has problems with that idea.
“This time of year, we have tons of this stuff,” she said. “Everyone’s moving away, and all the stuff they don’t want to take to their next house or whatever, they just dump here. We have piles of microwaves in the back room. We’re never going to be able to sell all of them.”
Forrester recommends that, rather than dumping unwanted things at a thrift store or trying to sell them, to find a friend in Laramie who would be willing to hold on to them until the fall.
“A lot of people, they won’t mind having another microwave for a bit, or having another lamp in the corner. If you ask, the worst thing they could possibly say is ‘No thanks,’” she said.
There are many other pitfalls that plague renters this time of year, but even just by deep-cleaning their space and finding a home for their stuff, students can avoid that extra hassle.
