We all know finding off campus housing is a complete disaster. We scramble to find roommates, and apartments or houses that fit all of you. And not even that. You want the luxury of living off campus but living on the common streets of Walnut St, East Nields St, Price St, and so forth. You try to live here because it is the closest to campus and closest to the parties and bars. No more than 7 minutes. What's better than that? But, we all know West Chester living off campus is the biggest scam. The landlords charge six hundred to seven hundred dollars in rent each month to live in a thirty year old house with no updates to it.

If you live in a house in West Chester, here are some commonalities that we all share with one another:

1. Your Door is Always Unlocked. Your door is an open door. Meaning you and your roommates are always forgetting your keys. You constantly have people over at your house, your friends are constantly coming in and out of your house day in and day out. Sometimes it can be annoying, but that is the beauty of it. You will never have this type of living lifestyle again. The beauty of all your close friends living in a matter of a mile or two away and living in a house with six to eight of your best friends is the most fun and exhilarating experience. This is the start of independence by doing things for yourself. Cleaning, cooking, paying bills, etc. You are becoming more responsible and more mature step by step, by having the best time in your life living off campus with all your favorite people.

2. Your Cooking is to the Minimum. Us college kids are always on the go. We are always constantly running to classes, work, and extracurricular activities and meetings. Therefore, with our 1980 stove tops and finding time in our schedules, our cooking is very basic. Commonly you can find us college kids making macaroni and cheese, pasta, chicken nuggets, eggs, and frozen meals. This is the quickest and easiest thing for us to make due to the oldness of the appliances we have in our kitchens and the time management we have in college.

3 Thermostat. We all dread the beginning months of school and when it gets hot again in April and May. Within our houses it is stifling hot and is even worse when we cook in the kitchen. It is disgusting and most of us get air conditioner units, but it doesn't make the house that much colder. It is unbearable to even focus on homework or even just do daily activities within your house. On the opposite end, the heating units in West Chester housing is horrible, due to the fact that the vents and heating units are barely warming up the house to it's full capacity. If you put your thermostat on 70 degrees in the winter, it is just barely heating up your house. You are tempted to move that thermostat up to 80 degrees or higher, but you know your Peco Bill will be off the roof, so you suck it up and buy a heated blanket and bundle up in layers.

4. The Handy Man is Always At Your House. There is no way to sugarcoat it. These houses look and feel eerie, and empty like. Your parents move you into your house and they start crying and are stunned by the place that you will be spending the next year or few. Day in and day out, there are constant issues going on at your house. Whether that be you find mold, bugs, or pieces of your dilapidated house falling apart, the handyman is always at your house fixing things. He becomes your best friend.This just shows how old and not updated these houses are. Living in a house like this you tend to feel dirty, gross, and sometimes creepy. Your house always creeks and sometimes you are even scared to sleep home alone if all your roommates aren't there. These houses are needed for updating and need to be modernized, when you know how much money your landlords are all making off of you when they keep raising the rent every single year to live in a horrific house.

5. "Porchin' it". Last, but not least during the fall and spring months you can without a doubt find all the streets of West Chester filled with students hanging out on their porches all day and all night. We use the common phrase of "porchin' it." Our porches are very important to us to sit outside on a nice day to do homework or to have people over to hangout. This is one of the only pluses of West Chester Housing.

Living in a West Chester home can be disgusting, but can be the most fun, and crazy living style you will ever have. You will laugh about this after you graduate. Take it all in :)