Now that the semester is ending, many students will be seeking new living arrangements. For those desiring new apartments or houses in the UNM area, my experiences between the beginning of the 2016 spring semester and spring break may serve as a wake-up call to older students, especially if they happen to be questioning, assertive women. In my opinion, my experiences reflect, at best, a subjective attitude on the part of landlords, and at worst, age and gender discrimination.
It is important to note that I am both a senior citizen and a life-long learner. I chose the area near UNM not only for its convenience, but also for the abundance of individual apartments, duplexes, and small, one story complexes. I detest large apartment complexes! Besides, when I arrived here in late January, many rentals were advertised both on Craig’s List and in the Daily Lobo.
The following is an enumeration of some of my apartment hunting experiences.
1. When I went to meet the immediate neighbors in a duplex I had seen the previous day, I was told that the apartment was not for rent, since their landlord was planning on staying in it for several weeks. A relative of the landlord had shown me the apartment!
2. In a 24 hour period, two landlords told me that they had decided to rent to relatives. One of these was an individual owner and the other a management company owning property in the UNM area and throughout Albuquerque.
3. Two days in a row, a company representative said he would open an apartment at a set time for my viewing. On the second day that I walked over and the apartment still had not been opened, I left a bitter voice mail saying that he should experience what it was like to be homeless. I received only a terse text message saying that they had decided not to do a 6 month rental--this, after several conversations in which a higher rent had been agreed upon for the shorter lease. Signs for rentals from this company still abound in the south campus neighborhood.
4. A small complex continuously advertised vacancies, as well as “move-in specials”. However, whenever I called, I was told that nothing was available. When I walked by the complex, a sign outside read “Vacancy”.
5. Several different people that I called addressed me by my first name, even when I hadn’t identified myself at the beginning of the conversation. Did they identify me by my telephone number from a previous call (no name ID on my “dumb phone”) or from information from another landlord? I recall asking a landlord of multiple properties if she always connected names and telephone numbers. Her response was “sometimes”. Then she proceeded to tell me that she recognized my voice (although I didn’t recall speaking to her for many months), and that I stood out as “different”, as it wasn’t the norm to ask so many questions. (I would always initially ask filtering questions such as price, utilities, lease terms, etc.) Finally, I remember that those recognizing my voice tended to say that the apartment had “just been rented”.
6. When I called a landlord who had previously shown me an apartment, he referred to me as “the older woman”. He then stated that he couldn’t fathom having a landlord/tenant relationship with me, since I was “so intense.”
7. A management company representative showed me an apartment that was on his vacancy list, and I liked it. When I went to the office to get an application, I was told by the manager that it had been rented, not that day, but two weeks ago.
8. In a complex not in the UNM area, I was told by the manager that they only had a two bedroom/two bath apartment available. However, when a young couple returned from a tour of the complex, she handed them an application and said that it would take only 20 minutes to approve them--this, in an affluent Northeast Heights neighborhood. I then asked the couple if they had seen the two bedroom/two bath apartment. They answered “no”, that it was a one bedroom. The manager then defensively stated that they were looking for July. Possible? Yes. Probable? No
After these frustrating experiences, I decided to suspend my apartment search. I have become very familiar with motels, camping places, and even Wal-Mart parking lots. Needless to say, a plethora of rejection experiences such as these has not been without cost, most notably psychological stress, diminished self-esteem, and the inability to complete a major, graduate-level research paper.
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Iris Kramer
UNM alumnus and graduate student
