Being a tenant means things could go beyond your control, leaving you at the mercy of your landlord to make any necessary repairs and maintain your living space. Ceiling leaks, mold, bedbugs, the sprinkler system … sometimes resolving these issues with the landlord can be an exhausting task.

What’s more, students should stay watchful of safety alerts around the neighborhood. The following suggestions could be helpful in making sure you are living in a safe and habitable environment.

Before signing a lease, check out the website crimereports.com. The site allows you to type in the address of the apartment and view past crime reports around the neighborhood.

The Tenant Union on the third floor of the Illini Union could also be helpful in deciding whom to lease from. The Union keeps record of all the complaints filed against different landlords at their office.

Before signing, you can walk in to check the complaint record of your future landlord. 

The record serves as a reference to help you know more about your landlord and how they handle the repair and maintenance requests from other tenants. You can even look up who ranks top in number of complaints.

The cities of Urbana and Champaign help conduct similar but different procedures for housing inspections.

Urbana requires all rental houses to be registered under the city’s Rental Registration and Inspection Program. A current list of rental inspection grades is available on Urbana’s website. It can be a good reference when choosing a house or apartment, and you can contact John Schneider, the city’s building safety manager for inquiry.

In Champaign, however, if the landlord fails to respond to your repair or maintenance request, you can “request an inspection of the inside of the apartment and the outside public areas of the property,” according to the Neighborhood Service Department in Champaign. “Property owners are given a limited amount of time to correct the violations. If corrections are not made, the property owner is subject to legal action.”

A typical lease won’t cover any loss against theft. Buying renter’s insurance is a good way to deal with that, putting you back as little as $9 per month. 

Make sure to distinguish the difference between cover of “replacement cost” and “cash value.” Say you bought a laptop a year ago for $1,000 and it got stolen, under “replacement cost” the price will be fully compensated, while “cash value” would only cover the value after depreciation, which is a lot less.

“We counsel students when they are in here, getting a lease reviewed,” said Rebecca Hartmann, director of Community Life and Tenant Services at the Tenant Union. “We also talk to them about renter’s insurance, and how that’s a really great way to replace their stolen items.”

Unfortunately, no matter what happens, you are most likely bounded by that one-year contract. So stay vigilant and take everything into consideration before putting your name on a lease, especially issues regarding a safe living environment.

Xing is a graduate student in Media and can be reached at [email protected].