The 6 People You Meet When Subletting Your Apartment

By Francine Fluetsch on September 1, 2015

This article is brought to you by CORT, a subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway and the world’s largest furniture rental and relocation services company. To learn more about how we can help college students like you, click here.

Subletting is a stressful journey that students don’t particularly want to embark on, but they need the money so they put up with all the annoyances.

The main headache is finding someone who you won’t mind living in your house for a while. They are going to be using your things, sleeping in your bed, and may be partaking in crazy adventures when you aren’t there.

There are definitely some odd characters out there, so we are going to explore the six people you might meet when you are trying to sublet your apartment.

The messy one

image via www.collegerentals.com

On paper, everyone will say that they are neater than they are. Remember that survey you had to fill out when you were first moving into the dorms and they asked you to rank yourself on how messy you were from 1-10? I’m sure most people gave themselves at least a five, even if they were more deserving of a one.

Watch out for these messy people; it would be horrible to come back to your place after a summer away and not be able to see the floor.

To see if you have a messy one on your hands, show the person where the cleaning supplies are and gauge their reaction. If they look revolted by the cleaning utensils or don’t even know what they are, you my friend have a messy subletter on your hands, so you probably shouldn’t pick them.

The one who won’t leave

image via www.ign.com

Subletting can get complicated when you only need someone to sublet for a month or so or just while you are studying abroad. Make sure to specify to your potential subletter how long they will be allowed to stay, because you wouldn’t want one on your hands that will refuse to leave.

Did ever see the episode of “Friends” where Chandler gets that crazy roommate that refuses to leave even after Chandler kicks him out a bunch of times? You definitely don’t want to deal with a crazy situation like that.

If the person seems at all hesitant with how short or randomly timed the sublease is, you might want to run, or you’ll have a squatter on your hands, and if they are crazy enough, they’ll keep your bedroom for themselves and let you inhabit the couch.

The one who complains, a lot

image via tanamatales.com

There are some people who are going to try everything in their power to pay less on the rent. How will they do this? They will start to complain. Your bed might not be fluffy enough for them and it’s giving them back pain, or the fridge doesn’t run properly and the landlord won’t fix it, or the neighbors are being loud and they can’t get any sleep.

If they keep pestering you, you might get so annoyed that you give in and lower what they have to pay you, but you don’t want that to happen of course! When you are showing the person around, make sure you diligently check (with them watching) that all the appliances are working and everything is in order.

If they already are making faces or raising an eyebrow in an evil/suspicious manner, you have a complainer on your hands, and you should drop them like a hot potato.

The one with all the excuses

image via myhealthyishlife.com

When you are subletting, you are trusting someone else with your stuff as well as trusting them to send you their portion of the rent on time so you can pay the landlord. Unfortunately, some people only have excuses to offer.

Maybe you go to visit your place and you see a lamp is broken, but the subletter blames it on your cat (you don’t have a cat). Or if you haven’t gotten their rent check and you call them up, they might blame the post office or tell you a sob story about having other expenses.

Whatever it is, you don’t want one of these people living in your place.

They will hand you all the excuses in the world and will take none of the blame. When you are showing the potential subletter around, tell them when you need the rent check and how much it will be. If they are already trying to negotiate the timing or tell you about other things they have to pay for, you might not want to pick them, or you’ll be paying the full amount of rent and having someone break your stuff on top of that.

The one who parties, hard

image via blog.edjing.com

Everyone loves a good party now and again, but do you really want a party going on when you aren’t there? There will be random people in the house that you don’t know, and they are doing who knows what in your place and with your stuff.

If this does not sound like the ideal situation for you, you do not want to sublet to a crazy partier. This could give you a bad rap with your landlord, especially if the neighbors are always calling the cops on your place, and if there are a bunch of wine stains in the carpet and beer cans scattered across the yard, you might be held responsible.

To see if you will have a partier on your hands, mention to the potential subletter that your landlord has banned parties and see what they do. If they moan and groan or tell you it’s no big deal, they might not have a problem breaking any of the rules you set, so beware!

The one who is obsessed

image via memegenerator.net

You do not want some person who is obsessed with you living in your place. I mean, you might not know they are obsessed with you, but they could be.

How did they find your subletting ad? Do they even go to your school? If you show them around and they are far too interested in your personal life, sniffing your bed, and oodling your pictures, you might have a stalker on your hands and you don’t want to even go there!

Like I said, the subletting process isn’t easy, and if you run into one of these hard-to-handle subletters, I hope you can spot them before they get your house keys. Good luck out there.

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