Living at the beach next year? Do you have one too many people living in your house? Planning on throwing crazy parties?
If you answered yes, then it’s time to think about protecting you and your housemates from being evicted.
Beach evictions can happen for a number of reasons. Mike Chaconas ’06, a resident of the Sea Ranch, faced an eviction threat due to house damages.
“Basically, our landlord’s brother came into our house unannounced the night after we had a party. He started taking pictures and told our landlord,” said Chaconas. “[Our landlord] told us we could let his person fix the house or get evicted.”
After the Sea Ranch’s landlord overcharged the tenants for the damages, they hired a lawyer and saved $2,500 by hiring someone else to fix the damages, said Chaconas.
“We would have been served with eviction papers, but we fixed the damages ourselves,” said Chaconas.
During the Off-Campus Housing meeting, Off-Campus Coordinator Duane Melzer said that students can be evicted if they have too many people living in their house.
“So far [an eviction] has only happened when students violate the zoning law of four or five students per house. Four if they are on the odd side of Fairfield Beach Rd. and five on the even side and elsewhere in the beach area,” said Melzer.
Beach resident Dicky Faro ’06 also faced a potential eviction.
“Our house was only supposed to have four people in it and we had more people,” Faro said. “One of my housemates gave all of our names to the cops. When we got back from Thanksgiving break, there was a note saying three people had to move out.”
Faro said he was nervous that the town would just “show up and do a random check.”
“Luckily, nothing preceded forward with the eviction process and we are moving out after graduation,” said Faro.
If students are evicted from the beach, they run the risk of having nowhere to live.
Director of Housing Operations Gary Stephenson said students must “secure housing on their own” if they break a contract with their landlord.
“Say a student is running a Meth-lab in their house” and is evicted by their landlord, the Dean of Students office would be reluctant to give them housing, said Stephenson.
“If we have beds open when a student is displaced due to an emergency at the beach we would try to accommodate them,” he said. “An eviction indicates to me a contractual problem with a student’s lease and the landlord.”
Students living at the beach next year are nervous about the possibility of being evicted.
“If I got evicted, it would be horrible; living in Kostka or Claver as a junior or senior would be awful,” said Kristine Mackenzie ’08.
Morgan Donahue ’08 agreed.
“Not having anywhere to live is the scary part. What am I going to do when all my friends are at the beach?” she said.
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