Students struggle to sublet Brottier apartments over summer

By: Duke Staff 

By now, you’ve seen the advertisements.

Splattered across bulletin boards, stuck to the back of bathroom stall doors, hanging in the stairwells – these are the paper pleads of residents begging other Duquesne students to sublet their Brottier apartments for the summer.

Residents are forced to advertise on their own, often times without much response, because Duquesne does not provide assistance in finding tenants for anyone looking to sublet.

Considering that students must sign a full-year lease for Brottier at the beginning of the year and are not allowed to rent to those who are not Duquesne students, this seems absurd that no help is offered.

Many students live out of state, and if they are unable to find another student willing to pay the rent on their Brottier apartment, then they are stuck shelling out for an empty room that they aren’t using for the next three months. This is even worse for students who are also paying for housing back home at the same time.

One of the major issues why students are having such a tough time finding others to sublet is because Duquesne allows anyone taking summer classes to stay in the regular dorms for free during the duration of the class. Students who choose this must stay with a roommate, but why would anyone choose to rent a Brottier apartment for $2,530, according to Duquesne’s website, when they can stay in a different building for free?

Not only that, but students who want to have their own bedroom can easily find places to rent in South Side for the summer. These are apartments that have much more space for a fraction of the cost and are only a short commute away from campus.

The university is also not transparent in letting Brottier residents know when they should begin looking for others to sublet apartments that will be vacant during the summer. This leaves many scrambling at the end of the semester to find people to fill their space, which only adds unnecessary stress to the upcoming days before finals and graduation.

If Duquesne wants to run its apartment complex like an actual business, then it needs to compensate by leaving its amenities open for residents to use as perks for renting. Places like Gumberg Library and the Power Center have truncated hours of operation during the summer, which are often inconvenient times for students taking summer classes or working.

As an organization devoted to “serving God by serving students,” Duquesne needs to have a program in place for helping students who must sublet their Brottier apartment for the summer.