Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about changing the housing situation for students across campus. For years, I've watched injustice after injustice plague friends and roommates. Now, given that I will not be living in Ann Arbor next year, and I have lived here as a student nearly consistently for nearly four years, it's time to share my wisdom about the reality of housing for University students here in glorious Ann Arbor.

1. On-campus housing is lousy. The largest dorm - Bursley Hall, home to 1,240 people - is about as far as you can get from Central Campus. It's also the most recently constructed dorm, though it was completed nearly 40 years ago. The cleanliness of residence hall bathrooms, especially community ones, leaves much to be desired. And whoever thought that not building a cafeteria in every residence hall was a good idea probably never had to trudge through snow (uphill) to the neighboring residence hall.

2. Off-campus housing is worse. If you thought a cramped cell in Markley was bad, try living in the slum tenements located just off campus. The prices are outrageous, the houses and apartments could easily be confused with crack dens, and student neighborhoods are a major target of crime. While the Ann Arbor Police Department practically sends out a SWAT team to off-campus neighborhoods to enforce alcohol laws, the police were missing when a friend of mine was almost mugged and assaulted less than a block from the Law School.

3. There is a special circle in Hell for bad landlords. In college towns, a good landlord is the exception, not the rule. Most landlords are oppressive profiteers who see no shame in robbing students. And this isn't just an Ann Arbor problem. Last spring I read about the case of Central Michigan University students Courtney Hernandez and Kathryn Mahanic. Hernandez was killed in a crash with a drunken driver while Mahanic barely escaped with her life. At the advice of her friends, family and therapist, Mahanic moved out of the apartment she shared with Hernandez, getting assurances from her landlord that a new tenant would be found. Six months later, her landlord sued the still-grieving families to get the unpaid rent.

4. Avoid the truly slimy landlords. Student Legal Services should provide a list, based on the number of lawsuits in which it represents students against their landlords, of the worst of the worst. The slimiest in my experience was Jeffrey Gallatin of Gallatin Realty. In order to maximize profit, landlords like Gallatin will get around the city ordinance that allows only six non-related people to lease a single unit by just keeping extra tenants off of a lease. That's what Gallatin did to fit nine people into our house.

Keeping track of what part of the unit is responsible for what utility bill is always important, unless you want to pay for something you aren't renting. In our case, we ended up paying for a basement that Gallatin used exclusively while we were only allowed use of the first two floors.

Finally, while security deposits are legally - under state law - the property of the tenant, in Ann Arbor it's more like a communal fridge the landlord can raid at will. Out of more than $6,000 in our security deposit, Gallatin initially returned less than $150.

5. Student Legal Services isn't that great. A relatively unknown rule is that SLS cannot represent students against each other. In theory, that's a reasonable idea; in practice, it provides an excuse for SLS to bail when the going gets tough. When we sued Gallatin for our security deposit back, at first SLS was ecstatic about representing us. This enthusiasm turned to disdain, and eventually SLS refused to continue being our attorneys, forcing us to settle. Coincidentally, this was just several weeks before we were to go to trial. In the end, Gallatin unfairly, but legally, kept well over half of our security deposit.

6. Make sure your roommates are up front with you. There are too few statutes outlining landlord and tenant rights, but there don't seem to be any at all defining rights between two tenants of the same property. If a roommate does something objectionable, there aren't a whole lot of options to pursue. My current roommate has had his freshman girlfriend stay over every single night, despite my recent protests. Lindsay has a room in Markley. That's where she needs to stay.

These are six simple rules to surviving the pit I like to call Ann Arbor. You can heed them or you can ignore them. The choice and its consequences are yours.

Jared Goldberg can be reached at jaredgo@umich.edu.