I read the article about Students vs. Landlords, and I loved it. These instances are bullshit and it’s ridiculous how much college students everywhere, not only at Winona, have to put up with landlords taking advantage of them.

I’ve also been through the same thing. Last year, I and three other girls had a terrible experience with a landlord by the name of Deb Parrish. The house had soft spots in the walls, where you could push on them and hear the plaster within crumbling. Then, in the fall semester of 2016, there was a huge storm, and we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the fire alarm blaring. Rain water was leaking through the roof, through the smoke detector, causing it to go off. Upon further inspection, a sketchy patch in the ceiling of my room was leaking a huge puddle on top of a dresser and all over the carpet. I lifted up my small stereo to find it dripping from the puddle it was sitting in. This means that there was water all throughout the ceiling and it leaked through the two lowest points, probably causing all kinds of problems we couldn’t even see. It took weeks for her to send someone over (apparently it was her husband??) and all he did was plaster over the spot in the ceiling (accomplishing nothing), even though it was the roof that was years past needing replacing. There were always shingles scattered around the yard that had fallen off the roof, and nothing was ever done about it. And even though we hadn’t done any real damage to the house, none of us (to my knowledge) got our security deposits back. She sent explanations, such as we didn’t shovel the sidewalk once in a while, but she charged us all way too much for these same instances. I’ve heard other renters of hers having horrible experiences as well, including a ceiling fan falling from the ceiling, and a bug problem. No one ever gets their security deposits back from her, no matter what. It’s all free money to her, apparently.

Great article, I love reading the Winonan every week, keep it up. I really hope these kind of things stop happening to college students.

Have a nice day,

Taylor Laur