Amanda Lea - Six Inches of News

Students Mad About Apartment Policies

“Three Strikes—you’re out!” The all too familiar baseball slogan is a common saying, but for students and residents living in Springfield’s TLC Properties, it holds much different meaning.
TLC owns a number of apartment complexes around Springfield, 14 to be exact, and for some reason students flock to them.

“All my friends live here and we have a pool,” says Brooke Tindall, 20, a tenant of TLC Properties. “It’s like a big party!”

The party, however, is where the problem lies. An estimated 80-percent of TLC residents are students, and in order to keep control, management follows the “three-strike rule.” An apartment gets a strike when another resident complains about them, usually concerning noise. After strike three, tenants are evicted.

“Usually people straighten up on strike two,” says Wes Butterfield, manager of Marion Park Apartments.

Many students feel this system is unfair. Kristin Ries, 20, is a junior at Missouri State University and has been living at a TLC site for two months. Already, she feels the system is flawed.

“I think it’s stupid,” says Ries, “If your neighbors don’t like you, all they have to do is complain three times and you’re gone.”

According to Butterfield, management disregards ‘he-said, she-said’ and strictly goes by security reports. If security sees the complaint invalid, no strike is filed. Still, some students feel they have been wrongly accused.

“I was getting out of the shower when I heard knocking. I answered the door in my towel to find a security guard telling me to turn my music down. It wasn’t even during quite hours,” says resident Ashley Johnson. “The next day, we had strike two.”

If evicted, tenants have 10 days to move out. If they decide to move into another TLC complex, they automatically start out with one strike. Even TLC management thinks that is harsh.

“I do think that part is a little extreme,” says Butterfield.

Johnson and other students have already looked for other places to live saying,
“It’s only a matter of time before all students are kicked out.”