An apartment located at 617 Mendota Ct. was named the Worst House in Madison"" Tuesday in a contest held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Student Tenant Union.
The apartment, currently rented by UW-Madison sophomore Karley Gifford, is owned by Patrick Properties and won the title because of safety concerns, needed repairs and landlord problems.
Madison Housing Committee member and Ald. Brenda Konkel, District 2, said students are vulnerable to poor housing because it is so common for college living conditions to be substandard.
""[Students] can definitely be taken advantage of pretty easily,"" Konkel said. ""Year after year people see that their friends are living in crappy houses too and at some point it just becomes the norm and people stop trying to make things better.""
District 8 Ald. Eli Judge, who represents the area where the Worst House is located, said he frequently receives complaints about area housing. He said STU's contest can benefit students and landlords by exposing widespread problems and act as a catalyst to correct them.
""I think that contests like this can help bring to light a lot of the rights and responsibilities that both tenants and landlords have,"" Judge said. ""In the example of the worst house contest, it can show students '¦ these certain characteristics are the things that are not acceptable.""
For winning the contest, the STU will document problems and call the Madison Building Inspector to look at the Mendota Court apartment. Additionally, Gifford won small prizes including gift certificates to Hawk's Bar & Grill on State Street.
Entries that did not win will receive a response from a STU volunteer outlining tenant/landlord laws applying to problems with their apartment. Additionally, all entries will be saved in a database for future tenants to look up information about past landlord or property problems.
