I must admit, I too am a little bit tired of reading about the goings on in the University Heights district, but being a resident there, I feel that I might as well jump on the bandwagon one last time, but with my own little warped, dismal perspective on the issue.
Unlike my predecessors, I will not write about how I enjoy my dismal apartment. I don't. I hate it.
I've been living in an apartment without heat. My toilet is broken. My dryer is broken. I am forced to hang my clothes over the balcony, making myself the self-proclaimed princess of the trailer park that is Merrimac Street.
Nor will I write of the devastation I have inflicted on my poor wonderful neighbors, rather the havoc they have wreaked on me.
Contrary to the popular belief that all college kids that live in the Heights are the spawn of Satan himself, I believe that there is something to be said about the kids of the families that live there.
Don't get me wrong, I engage in a rowdy game of beer pong on the balcony more than I care to admit; however, I have had more than my share of unwelcome house guests.
Kids can be nice, even cute at times when they are in their own house. This is not the case when they walk into mine. When I first moved into the neighborhood, more often than not I would walk into my apartment and see two children, making themselves at home, playing with their putty knives and lighters on my living room floor.
After I started locking the door when we were in the house, the children stopped being a problem, but what should a couple of kids be doing in a complete stranger's house sharpening their makeshift utensils anyway?
Before the good people of University Heights point fingers at UB students, they should take a look at their own kids attacking each other with putty knives in their own front yards.
Did the families of these delinquent children stop to think about why the college kids were there when they turned to UB for help to get rid of us? Or did the university ask that same question when proposing a plan to ensure bank loans for UB employees if they buy homes in the Heights District? No.
Maybe if either party took the time to think about why college kids make up so much of the population here, they might actually come to a conclusion about what to do. Students living in the Heights aren't doing so to inflict pain on the poor families that live there, or to make a display of their wet panties drying in the wind. Perhaps, and I know this is far-fetched, some of the students live there out of financial necessity.
According to the Student Affairs Web site, to live in an on-campus apartment with two bedrooms and one bath, it costs roughly $500 a month, utilities included.
To live in most of the on-campus apartments, you have to sign a 12-month lease. In Hadley Village, you may obtain a 10-month one, but it is roughly $60 more per month. This, I would imagine, is so that they can charge you just as much as they would if you were living there for the full 12 months.
Now, I did some extensive shopping for apartments last year, and all of the ones that I saw in the Heights area were priced anywhere from $180 a month to $250 a month. I doled out somewhere in between. Even utilities considered, I'm probably saving roughly $200 dollars a month by living in my seedy, ramshackle apartment.
I'm sure that this argument is irrelevant to most, considering a lot of kids get money from their parents for school. However, there are a few kids here struggling to try to pay their own way. An apartment in the Heights seems like a viable option.
A viable option, yes, but not the one for me. Next year, with any luck, I will leave my world of panties and putty knives behind. I think I just might invest in that cardboard box I've been thinking about and put it right in front of Capen. I'll have all the amenities of my Heights apartment with even a better location than the campus apartments.
