COMMUNITY MAGAZINE May 2008

30 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE husband to rethink the location of their home. “This is certainly not the quality of life you would ever in a million years expect to be exposed to, living in the heart of the community, on a community populated street. It was a truly horrible experience and we decided to move very soon after.” Another community member, Abe, describes a similarly trou- bling incident. One Saturday night, students decided to throw a late night party in a home nearby. Predictably, drunken college students besieged the area and a few of the stragglers even proceeded to break down Abe’s fence and loiter on his lawn well into the early AM hours. .The next morning, Abe’s family awoke to the sound of loud banging and obscene screaming at their door. Apparently, one boy, who had passed out in Abe’s yard the night before, had awakened there so severely disoriented, that he believed he was in front of his own house. In his frightening efforts to gain entrance to the home, the boy sustained a serious cut on his hand and was bleeding uncontrollably. The police and Hatzalah were called and the student was in effect saved by Hatzalah members, one of whom ironically was Abe himself. When the police finally arrived, the boy was given a summons to appear in court, which resulted in a charge of criminal mischief, as opposed to the more serious breaking and entering. “Community members saved this kid’s life… and he wasn’t even arrested for breaking and entering,” Abe points out. Like many families living in the area, Abe feels that the presence of wild college students is parasitical to the neighborhood, bringing no tangible benefit to the area, LANDLORDS LAMENT Even from the perspective of Sephardic landlords who are ostensibly benefitting from rents paid by the college students, the relationship is often far from lucrative. “Tons of money is needed to repair houses because of the college rentals,” Abe protests on behalf of his neighbors who rent their homes out. Though landlords typically charge about $500 per student per month and cram five or more students into a medium sized house, many landlords are find- ing that after all their expenses are calculated, renting to college students is not all that profitable after all. Aside from the heat and water expenses landlords must cover on behalf of tenants – which are usually well over $1000 per month in the winter – the cost of repairs each semester can easily run well into the thousands. One homeowner, Barbara, who rented her house to college students for two years, decided last year that it just wasn’t worth it anymore. “What they do to the houses is absolutely disgusting. We had to paint the entire house again after the first season and we had to replace two major appliances,” Barbara explains. “But because the damage was a result of abuse, the warranty didn’t even cover any of it.” Even the security deposit left by the tenants barely put a dent in the repair and cleanup costs because according to New Jersey state law, a landlord cannot hold more than a month and a half of rent from residential renters. The next season, Barbara rented to a group of female students believing that they would be cleaner and less likely to cause dam- age. She found out quickly that such was not necessarily the case. “It was nauseating the way they lived. Garbage was everywhere, there were holes in the walls, cigarette burns in the carpet, roaches crawling over rotting food in the oven and even vomit in the wash- ing machine; I couldn’t believe how revolting it was,” Because the tenants also routinely left garbage all over the lawn outside and threw late night parties, Barbara received several summons which required her appearance and carried fines. “With all the time, effort and grief I spent working as a landlord, I could have gotten a job and netted three times as much,” she estimates. NAGGING THE NEIGHBORS The Sephardic year-round residents of the Shore area and the Brooklyn-bound landlords are not the only victims of these cir- cumstances either. The surrounding populace, many of whom are gentile, are just as unhappy about having college kids right next door. Unfortunately, these homeowners often blame the Sephardic landlords who rent to the college students as a source of the prob- lem, straining the relationship between the Sephardic and gentile communities, as year-round resident, David, attests. “We have definitely felt a sense of anger towards us from the non-Jewish neighbors because of the rentals to college students by people from the community – even though as a year-round resident, I’m in the same boat as them.” Often the behavior of student renters is so out of control that it is repeatedly brought to the attention of local town authorities. “The loud, all-night mayhem and drunken revelry found in scenes from ’Animal House‘ pale in comparison to the disturbances caused by college students renting homes in the Oakhurst section…” accord- ing to one gentile complainant. “[College renters] are often found ‘hanging out’ outside their rental homes, many times intoxicated and conversing loudly, using obscene language at all hours of the day or night,” another neighbor describes. In 2006 alone, University police reported 73 arrests of students for drug or alcohol offenses – but there were another 159 other people caught in such offenses who were not arrested but referred for campus disciplinary action due to lack of information to charge criminally. Most notably though – all of these statistics refer strictly to on campus cases, where only about one in four students live. Aside from the disturbing acts, the destruction of the rented properties is also a major problem. The often dilapidated and messy appearance of rental homes not only makes them an eyesore to neighbors, it can also potentially affect property values by making it more difficult for neighboring homeowners to sell their homes. “It’s easy to see which homes are rented to college kids,” says David, “just look for beer bottles scattered on the lawn.” The situation has even threatened to cause friction between Brooklyn homeowners and their year round Deal neighbors. “People who rent out their homes can’t be held to blame for the expansion of Monmouth University,” argues Jack, whose summer home in Long Branch is near the college but remains unrented. “Even if [the Sephardic residents of Brooklyn] were not renting their summer homes out to college kids, this problem wouldn’t go away because one way or another, the students have to find a place to live in the neighborhood.” THE SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS Several individuals who live in the area year-round have already approached their landlord neighbors about their rental decisions. In some cases, the landlords have agreed to make an effort to address the issue. On a larger scale, local town authorities have taken action to protect the quality of life in the area by instituting laws and regu- lations regarding seasonal rentals and zoning. Beginning March