Oakland: It’s time to get wet

Oakland is a mess, and we’re pretty used to it. It’s not that we like living in squalor —… Oakland is a mess, and we’re pretty used to it. It’s not that we like living in squalor — I guess it’s presumptuous to speak for everyone, but I certainly don’t like feeling that my own kitchen floor is going to give me tetanus or that I should be showering with shoes on.

Apparently we aren’t the only ones that have noticed the eyesore that Oakland has become.

The Post-Gazette reported a week ago that ailing Mayor Bob O’Connor’s “Let’s Redd Up Pittsburgh” campaign, lead by Deputy Mayor Yarone Zober, toured the streets of South Oakland with the media in tow. Chancellor Mark Nordenberg joined the tour as a gesture of commitment from the University. Shortly after that tour, before I had even read the article, I noticed a small army of crews pulling weeds, painting over graffiti and removing trash. Their work could have been lost in the chaos of moving season if it weren’t for the little signs advertising the campaign that were displayed at the sites.

Apparently Pittsburgh really is trying to clear the junk from its trunk. But what happens when the trunk fills up again?

But as I said, we are used to it. We aren’t surprised by the mess because there is a certain level of filth we will turn a blind eye to for the freedom of living off campus. No one forced me to trade the clean, well-kept carpets of my Forbes Hall pad for the ’70s-era tattered brown carpeting in my first apartment. I eagerly did it in the name of not having to sign people in to visit me. I did it so I could have a toaster. I wanted a stove and a real refrigerator that I could keep regular-sized food in. I was tired of having a meal plan. I wanted candles!

While Pitt does offer housing options that accommodate the desires I outlined — all except the candles — there’s just something attractive about not giving all of your money to Pitt. I wanted to fight shady landlords, battle with realtors and haggle for the best cable deal possible and, well, be free.

The beauty of moving out of the dorms and into South Oakland when I did was that I was green and excited for slum living. It all seemed so new and so great. Two years later I’m a little bit older and a lot wiser and my ability to turn a blind eye to the dirty mattress in my boyfriend’s front lawn is waning.

Certain times during the year, the poor condition of Oakland becomes more visible. Maybe it was my mom crying as she helped me clean up my old apartment this weekend that got me thinking about slum life. It’s always hard to see a parent cry or react in disgust when referring to your place of residence.

See, the problem with the rat shack that I formally called home was not that I had let it get so unlivable — during the year and a half I spent there, I improved the condition of the apartment exponentially. The problem was that the house itself is rotting, becoming more twisted and gnarled with each year. The landlord only repaired things that were absolutely crucial, and sometimes he didn’t even do that.

He’d show up randomly, let himself into the apartment, wake us up and yell at us because someone threw beer bottles onto our lawn. Never mind that bathtub is rotting through the floor, there are maggots in the decaying caulking and the cabinets are falling off the walls. We were terrible tenants because while we were sleeping, some sauced kids threw a bottle or two into our dirt and gravel garden.

But I digress.

These landlords and the realty companies that represent them can get away with providing sub-par rental units for students because we are hungry for them. They are cheap and convenient and unless we want to pay more and travel farther, we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (unless the rumors are true and the Cathedral is a large teleportation device). Even after everything I went through, I just moved three blocks away to a nicer apartment building.

Chancellor Nordenberg said in the article that Pitt is pushing to build more residence halls to put the squeeze on negligent landlords. However, increasing enrollment in the University’s undergraduate population mean that upperclassmen are still out of luck — if they even want campus housing.

While the program seems promising in the short term for the facade of South Oakland, hopefully this program will segue into a larger initiative, targeting delinquencies in the rental system. Along with targeting “the man,” students have to be more proactive about preserving some sort of standard in the neighborhood. Is Oakland ever going to look like suburbia? Hell no — that’s not why I came to Pitt.

“Redd up” isn’t just Pittsburghese — it has Middle English origins. Now she doesn’t have to feel bad about being from Western Pa. E-mail Sarah at letters@pittnews.com.