five minutes inside before agreeing to take it. She
didn't notice that there was no dishwasher. She overlooked the mold in
the bathroom. And she didn't ask how much she could expect to pay for
utilities.
"When my mom asked if I did, I got mad," Keane
said. "I was like, 'No, it's perfect.'"
Now, Keane said, she
wishes she had. On top of $700 in rent, she and her roommate shell out
about $60 a month for energy, an expense Keane said is made worse by the
house's drafty doors.
In a city where rental properties make up
57 percent of the housing stock, lots of people -- especially
inexperienced students -- find themselves in the same situation, said CU
junior Christina Aalto. She is the author of a recent report published
by the CU chapter of the public advocacy group Colorado Public Interest
Research Group (CoPIRG).
The root of the problem is what Aalto
describes as "the split incentive" -- landlords don't want to bankroll
pricey energy upgrades to their properties because they don't have to
pay the monthly bills. Student renters don't want to either, because
they won't live there long enough to reap the benefits.
It's a
problem city and university officials know well. In response to the
city's greenhouse-gas reduction goals, a group of city officials,
housing inspectors and landlords has begun meeting to brainstorm ideas
for energy-efficiency standards for rentals that would be tied to a
landlord's license.
There are currently standards for new
construction and remodels -- how much insulation a property must have,
how efficient its heating system should be, what types of windows pass
muster -- but not for existing properties, said Neil Poulson, Boulder's
chief building official. He said the group's work is still preliminary
but it hopes to have a proposal to the City Council within six months.
CoPIRG
has some suggestions of its own, many of which mirror city and
university initiatives. One is a rating system that would rank rental
properties based on the "total cost of occupancy," which would include
rent and utilities. Instead of just looking at location and monthly rent
-- the two most popular factors for student renters -- students could
more easily take total cost into consideration.
That will be the
message behind a marketing campaign by CU's Off-Campus Student Services
office this year, said director Suzanne Stafford. The office sponsors
two off-campus housing fairs in the winter, and this year, they'll be
encouraging students to be smart about their utility costs.
"I
don't think they're schooled to think about it," Stafford said.
CoPIRG
wants to help school them. Aalto is organizing a group of student
volunteers to do 500 door-to-door energy audits, talking to students
about how they can keep their energy costs down. The city is planning a
similar, more extensive initiative aimed mostly at homeowners, officials
said.
"It's a matter of getting the students to realize it's a
problem, because they're the ones losing money," said Aalto, a
20-year-old environmental studies major.
But she's careful not to
point the finger solely at landlords. She said she wants students to
work with them, not against them.
Sheila Horton, the head of the
Boulder Area Rental Housing Association, said landlords sometimes have
to make tough calls when it comes to deciding whether to pay for energy
upgrades.
"If you insulate a building to the Nth degree and the
tenants leave a window open for a month, what good is that?" she said.
"Our efforts and our expenditures could be for naught. We all care about
the environment, but we have to do things in a prudent manner. We have
to look at costs and tradeoffs."
Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum
said he appreciates that CU students, which officials estimate comprise
half of the renters in Boulder, want to join in the discussions, as
well.
"For Boulder, it's an extremely big deal," he said of the
energy efficiency of rentals. "It's high on the agenda and we're working
towards it, and the fact that CoPIRG has this initiative going is all
for the better."
