We're Young, But We Shouldn't Settle For Less

Living in a college town and being a "poor college student" means sometimes moving into apartments/houses that have been lived in by hundreds of other "poor college students". Some of these places aren't too shabby while others look quite...dated. And I believe "dated" is being nice in some cases. Lessors/landlords don't always help keep the places up as nice as they could because college students will be living there. They figure that we don't really care how the places look, as long as they're affordable and the main utilities work. As long as we're paying good money, we shouldn't just get the bare minimum.

So here's the situation...

Three friends and I will be renting a house not too far from school. Actually, we are currently renting it (12-month lease, $1100/month, that started June 1st) and only two of my roomies are staying there for the summer. I went down to visit the place two days after my other roomies moved in to check things out and take photos and whatnot. A few major issues were discovered as well as many minor issues. I informed my one friend who won't be able to come down to the house until it's time for school to start again about the issues. Her response? Basically, she says that as long as everything is working, why do any of those issues matter, except for like one major issue. I love my friend, but I was actually shocked to hear her response to the issues in the house.

We weren't expecting to live in a perfect house, but we expected for some things to be fixed before we moved in. My one roommate who is staying there now is all "we can fix this, clean that", which is true in some cases, but some things are just not our responsibility at all. We shouldn't be spending our own money to fix a place that we're only renting for a year, repairing damages left before we moved in. It's not fair to us that we have to move into a house that isn't really "ready" for us nor that we have to fix ourselves. Whatever repairs we do to this house ourselves, we should be repaid for honestly, or we can take any additions with us (except for paint on the walls and similar repairs).

• There's a ton of chipped paint throughout the house, a minor issue, but it would be awesome if they gave us paint to fix these walls. 
• We're not responsible for grass care, so it would be awesome if they could cut down all of those weeds in our yard. It looks like they haven't cut the grass in months. I'd just cut the grass myself, but they claim we don't do any yard work, just shovel the snow during winter. 
• The outside of this house needs a paint job, especially by the door.
• There's a hole in the wall in the living room that is about the circumference of a baseball and more than a surface issue. One of my roomies' boyfriend hung a nice painting he did over the hole lol.
• Cracks in the ceiling- water damage maybe? 
• Rat/mice droppings in a cabinet near the floor in our little hallway outside of the kitchen. Do. We. Have. Rats?!!!! This is a major problem that needs to be fixed. No exceptions.
• And other random issues

My point is that as young adults, we have the right to demand nice things as well. People expect us to screw things up all of the time, but not all of us are "bad" or look to purposely damage property. As a lessor/landlord, I would want my lessee(s) to move into a nice and clean place, in hopes that they would want to renew their lease or rent another one of my properties. I wouldn't promise the lessee things that I wouldn't keep... But it's okay. This is all a learning experience.

As Blink-182 said, I guess this is growing up.