The first time I had ever rented a home was with five
friends back home in Iowa. We are all in college and renting a home off campus is very normal
after your first year in college. It was mid summer when we all moved in, and
the first night I spent in the house was when the problems began.
I woke up around 3:00am to something hitting my chest. My
hand hit something off my bed and that is when the fluttering started. I had
woken up to realize there was not one, but several bats flying around in my
room! My first terrified thought was to get out, but when I opened the door the
pack flew into the kitchen and throughout the rest of the house.
After this incident my roommates and I tried to call the rental
company’s complaint and emergency hotline, but received no answer. Due to
receiving no answer we all went into the office the next morning to sort out
how to get rid of the families of bats living in our home. We explained the
situation and our concerns – bats can carry rabies, their bite can’t be felt,
and their faeces is a health hazard. After the story and explanations of
concern, I was told that it was bat season; therefore there was nothing that
they could do!
After being told that there was nothing that our renting
company could do to rid our house of the infestation, we decided to be hopeful
and leave our front door open to try and let them fly out on their own. This
didn’t end up working; instead the bats went to sleep, hanging from the living
room ceiling away from the door, due to it being so hot outside. They liked our
house because it was nice and cool!
We had numerous run-ins with the bats. There were many times
when one would be hanging inside the door frame and then when the door was shut,
it would accidentally be smashed and injured or killed. Due to being concerned
about rabies and other diseases, we decide to keep a few of the dead bats to
send to be tested. After receiving positive results for the bats caring
diseases, we became increasingly concerned and continued to seek out our
landlord for help. The battle lasted for over 2 months and included several
sessions of the five of us planting ourselves in their office and asking to
speak to manager or company head. We even resorted to bringing in and leaving
the bats in the office that had died in our home to try and prove a point.
We could go no longer go into our basement and finally after
the two-month plea for someone to come out and do something about our bat
invasion, our landlord sent over a maintenance crew. These two men had no idea what to do about
bats and were only trained in carpentry; they claimed they couldn’t find any
bats. Since our landlord had sent someone out as we had asked, they acted as if
they had done all they could to help.
It wasn’t until a few days after the carpenters had visited
that a police officer was called and he kindly collected all of the bats in our
living room and removed them. This process took him over two hours to catch and
release the creatures, because they are protected in Iowa and much of the
United States.
Even though our bat problem had been solved, we continued to
have animal problems in the home throughout the rest of our tenancy. There was
a large nest of mice living in the basement and they would also get into
cupboards, but when we complained about this we were told the house is old and that
is to be expected. If we wanted anything done about the mice, we were told we’d
have to figure it out ourselves. Later we had squirrels and mice in our walls
and again we received no help and were told it is just part of living in Iowa
and in an older home. So, we dealt with the scratching noises that they created
at night in the walls. Another problem we had was the power would randomly go
out. When we complained about this, we were told it was due to the mice chewing
away at cables and they weren’t responsible for such instances, even though we
had complained about the mice problem previously!
The company we rented from was unhelpful and eventually
became rude whenever any of my roommates or myself even entered the office
building. We were treated more as a nuisance than customers, or even tenants.
All of our requests for help were met with excuses and explanations of “that’s
just how it is.” Unfortunately this isn’t an uncommon scenario in my college
town, because a single company owns a very large majority of the homes and
apartments for rent in the area. This allows the company to provide
unsatisfactory tenancy experiences but still not go out of business. This is a
huge problem where I am from and the company has been taken to court on many
different occasions for their actions (or inaction). In fact, they would often
only respond to tenants who were paying rent above a certain grade and the rest
of the tenants who didn’t pay as much were never helped or even received a
response to complaints or maintenance requests. Students have even come to expect
that they will never see their deposit money back, even if they were perfect
tenants and did not damage the home at all.
This company is the backbone of the renting industry where I
am from, which allows them to get away with their mistreatment of tenants.
Students are forced to just deal with their tenancy problems – like living in a
pest menagerie –, because we have no other option of places to rent from within
in a reasonable distance from campus.
