on the cover / By Bob Doran, Matt Jackson and Julie Woldow

Disorientation Week — Your student guide to housing, transit, surfing and weed

Humboldt housing hell
One woman’s warning — know your rights

By Julie Woldow

I have become a case study. The case in point: housing discrimination, of the kind young people endure seeking simply to rent shelter in Humboldt County, live a responsible life and not get the shit hassled out of them. I write to inform you — my fellow Gen Y’ers and anyone else who cares about our rights as consumers and people — that a lot of us regularly run the risk of getting truly screwed out of our basic rights to shelter by hardened screwers who assume that we, the screwees, are too stupid to realize we’re being screwed, and too passive or ignorant to do anything about it. Hear my tale and cringe. Then fight back.

My profile: 25 years old. Recent college graduate. Embarking on serious post-college life and career. Potential solid citizen. No felony convictions (or misdemeanors, for that matter). No time spent in the Big House. Do not regard myself as sucker-bait. Five-year history of paying my rent religiously in Los Angeles. Armed with a list of rental references befitting five moves to various parts of L.A.: Eastside, Westside, South Central and a few corners only the locals know. So this house-search up in Humboldt County is not my first rodeo — I’m an all-around apartment rental cowgirl, and I didn’t come up with yesterday’s grass.

Yet none of my hard-won L.A. experience has prepared me for the bias, discrimination and shifty moves of two local property managers. We’ll call them Timothy and Crystal. Timothy, Crystal: You stand accused . And that goes for any other of your kind who think it’s okay to rip young people off

The true facts: I see an apartment Timothy and Crystal manage listed on Craigslist, which is how I found my previous places in L.A. I show up early on the day of the showing, and I am the only person to request an application.

I fill out the app, cringing at its amateurishness. “This housing application was created by idiots!” I say to myself, as I skip the section called “Bank Account Information.” Do they honestly think I’m going to provide my account numbers? As if! But yes, I provide the name of my last landlord in the City of Angels and fill in the rest of the application. I drive the application to the managers’ house, turning it in within two hours of receiving it, complete with my $20 check to pay for a credit report.

I’m feelin’ hopeful: Timothy and Crystal tell me there was only one other applicant, who still has not returned his form. “Score!” I think as I drive home, imagining how I will arrange the furniture in my new space.

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