As the school year winds down and many students plan to leave town, desperate apartment renters are searching for summer subletters.
Tanya Stansielv of the Tenant Resource Center said that with so little time left to sublet, people are becoming frantic to get tenants into their apartments.
\People are desperate to sublet when you start getting down to the wire,"" she said. ""It's still going to be a mad rush for the next week and a half.""
Procrastinating and unlucky renters are scrambling to find students without summer housing. This is especially difficult when trying to rent out large houses. Danielle Barneman spent a month trying to find subletters for her five-bedroom apartment before finally succeeding last week.
Barneman said she dropped the price around $500 from their original offer, but she still had difficulty finding a group of people looking for such a large house. So she and her roommates divided the apartment up and found five separate subletters.
Ryan Seal is returning to Milwaukee for work this summer and is planning to sublease his efficiency. While he hasn't gotten any takers yet, he said there are three prospective tenants still mulling over their decision. He, too, has dropped his original asking price.
""I had a number that I was going for and I've already dropped it down a little bit,"" he said. ""But obviously it's better off if you start high and work down from there.""
There are more problems inherent in subletting than merely finding tenants. Stansielv said many people don't understand that they are still legally responsible when they're subletting their apartment.
""Basically what they're doing is they're adding the subleasee on the lease,"" she said. ""That means that everyone on the lease is jointly liable. So if their subleasee does damage to the apartment or doesn't pay rent or anything like that, everyone is ultimately responsible.""
Some renters offered tips for successful subleasing. Borneman recommended that students subletting large apartments follow her strategy of splitting up the rooms.
""Start early and divide your apartment into separate rooms, then try to sublet it separately rather than the whole thing,"" she said.
Stansleiv said people having problems with subleasing should call the Tenant Resource Center.
""It can get kind of confusing with all the contract stuff and leases and everything like that, exactly what the subleasee's responsibility is and what the original person's responsibility is,"" she said.
