The Holy City is known for its many charms - beautiful people, heavenly eateries, and amazing nightlife. Everyone loves taking walks along the Battery, lusting over homes along the water, and as a freshman I remember thinking that moving off-campus for sophomore year would be my chance to really live THE Charleston life.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I couldn’t have been more wrong.You see, the kind of housing that students acquire is entirely different than the dream homes on post cards and city advertisements. Here’s a few struggles that I’ve experienced during my life as a lessee downtown, and I’m sure you have, too:
- Everything is falling apart. Literally, everything.
- If your landlord is anything like mine, they aren’t really all that concerned with the overall state of the house - just filling it every year. Seeing as that’s not hard to do, the repairs just... don’t ever happen. If you’re fortunate enough to have only experienced a cracked window or two, I applaud you - I've had the honor of a finicky circuit breaker that can only take about two hairdryers at once, and am currently the proud neighbor of a backyard shed that has a tree smashed through the roof and now provides shelter to feral colonies. But that’s not the landlord’s responsibility, or anything... - Floods & Leaks
- Those pictures on the news of people kyaking through the market? We actually get to do that all over town! When it rains downtown, it pours, so it’d be in your best interest to plug up all of your leaks ahead of time (believe me - they're there) and invest in some decent rain gear. And also an air mattress, because after watching a dude float past my house on one with a six pack last semester, I’ve decided to join him next go round. - Ghosts
- At one point I lived in my very old sorority house, and definitely woke up more than once to what I’m pretty sure was an elderly ghost of Chi Omegas past perched at the foot of my bed. Granted, I’m known to talk in my sleep and have other strange nighttime habits - but with all of the other strange noises one hears in historic Charleston housing, I’m pretty convinced that was legit. - Roaches/Spiders/Ants/Gnats/Rats
- You may as well start making them miniature sweaters and giving them names because they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Rat traps may catch a few, but you'll have dead rodents to dispose of, and the rest of those other pests have the capability of surviving a nuclear apocalypse. On the bright side - you’ll never be lonely with all of your new pets! - Insulation
- Energy bills - I want to meet the people that insulated my house and roundhouse kick them to the face. Kidding - it’s not their fault. Part of the beauty of downtown Charleston is the age of the homes, but the unfortunate consequence is that they just "don't know how to energy." As in, summertime hits, and the walls of your house are like “how do I cold?” and then you get your energy bill and it’s worth more than you. - Holes in the floors
- While the old planks have a certain aged beauty, they’re also set rather far apart and are a death trap for small things, including, but not limited to:
• earring backs
• chapter membership pins (seriously - be careful with those)
• bobby pins
• pens (for writing)
• and other pokey things that you don't want to step on, so you just start taping everything small to your hands to keep from dropping it. - Homeless peeps
- Invest in a can of pepper spray just to help your parents sleep at night, and never forget to lock your doors. The biggest nuisance behind living in an urban area, however, is people going through your trash. It happens more often than you think. Solution? Do your part and give back to the Charleston area to help these people get back on their feet!
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