Calm Before the U-Hauls
Neighbors Savor Last of Summer's Silence as College Students Begin to Return

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 16, 2007

It's quiet in College Park. Too quiet, some neighbors would say. They know what's coming.

The first U-Hauls have lumbered down side streets. Harry Pitt pointed to a red plastic cup rolling down his street, the kind purchased by the hundreds to fill with keg beer. It was like a robin, the first sign of the season: The students are coming back.

"It's a nice place to live," Pitt said, "in the summer."

A college town without college kids is like a beach town in January. In a week, two weeks for sure, these quiet streets near the University of Maryland will amp up.

The scene is common across the country as college students return to campus. And across the Washington area, tens of thousands are about to arrive.

Students and longtime residents have clashed since medieval times, said Blake Gumprecht, a professor at the University of New Hampshire who wrote a book about college towns. In Oxford, England, he said, people were killed over town-and-gown issues such as student behavior, especially drinking. "The classic university is surrounded by a wall almost like a monastery -- that is because of these conflicts," he said.

Many neighbors welcome the flood of energy and enthusiasm, the just-sharpened-pencils feeling of a new school year. "The students that I see are for the most part fairly aware and respectful," said Larry Mrozinski, who lives in Foggy Bottom near George Washington University. "They're young people trying to chase the American dream."

Others are braced for an onslaught.

"It's like elephants moving through a village," said Don Kreuzer, who has lived in Foggy Bottom for more than 30 years. He battled GWU officials as they expanded the school onto his block. He lives directly across from an enormous dorm, and he's dreading the students' return.

"The first sign is the PODS that come to town," he said. (Wasn't that a horror movie?) Trucks deliver giant storage bins to be unpacked by students, and the streets fill with parents, their children and carts. "You hear this clankclankclankclankclank over the sidewalk all day," he said.

If Kreuzer sounds tired, it's because he is. He's tired of picking up beer bottles in the morning. He's tired of hosing vomit off the sidewalk.

There could be 1,000 perfect students in the neighborhood, studying in the library and volunteering in the area -- GWU students give tens of thousands of hours every year, much of it in the community. But it takes only one sophomore screaming on the way home from the bars on a Tuesday night to wake up the whole block.

Chad Harlan, a senior who lives in a nearby apartment building with students and non-students, said he's heard horror stories. "People have gotten one or two noise violations and are thrown out in the middle of the semester with no place to live.

"They're definitely justified in complaining. The students can be crazy. . . . But they should be a little more understanding," he said of neighbors.

Maybe, Kreuzer said, he's just getting too old for this.

* * *

The population of College Park is about 25,000. The university has 35,000 students. No matter where those students live, no one's going to miss the start of the school year in this town.

As in many college towns, people argue over who is creating the problems around student housing -- the university, city leaders, students, investors who carve up homes to rent. And the debate intensifies when students move into neighborhoods that used to be dominated by families.

Pitt can walk down the street and -- bing, bing, bing -- label each place as owner-occupied or rented.

Grass mowed? Owned.

Bob Marley towel serving as a curtain in the front window? Rented.

No cars parked on the lawn? Owned.

Doors propped open? Rented.

Wicker furniture? Owned.

A couch draped with a sheet on the porch? Rented.

He paused by a home a few down from his, where a small mountain of trash was piled at the curb.

It's a sign of the season as students move and landlords clean a house to prepare for the next group. Similar piles can be found in yards all around College Park. In a yard choked with tall weeds, a foosball table with a broken spine lay next to an empty case of beer, an orange velour chair and a big plastic water gun.

Pitt doesn't mind rentals -- he owns a home with graduate student tenants. The students next door to him are quiet as church mice, he said. He just thinks the balance has shifted too far in a neighborhood that wasn't designed for so many people and so many cars.

Same with the drinking and partying. "I can promise you we partied equally as hard" at U-Md. in the early 1970s. "The difference was the mixers. The beer trucks were actually on campus -- not in the neighborhoods."

As for the students, many of them said: Why live here if you don't like college students?

And who goes to sleep before 10 p.m., anyway?

Most people want to live on campus, senior Sasha Karimi said, but it's impossible. The school gives precedence to freshmen and sophomores. "Everything is easier on campus," he said, from getting to classes and events to seeing friends.

Some local leaders say there's a 5,000-bed shortage at the university. Jan Davidson, associate director in the Department of Resident Life, said more students live on the U-Md. campus than ever. There are 1,575 students on a waiting list for on-campus housing this fall. Last year, there were 1,006. In 2005, 891.

Danielle Kogut, a junior, said her rental home is better maintained than some family-owned homes. "My neighbor, her yard is completely filled with junk and cats that roam into our yard constantly." As the liaison from student government to city leaders, she hears the complaints. "The knee-jerk reaction for a lot of students is, 'Well, these people moved into a college town.' "

But things have changed in town. "There was a big push to push alcohol off campus," Kogut said. "Now it's in the neighborhoods. "

One of the biggest problems is that permanent residents often lump students together, said Andrew Friedson, U-Md. student government president. A bad neighbor could get singled out. "But if it's a student, then it's, 'Look at that! St udents.' "

They're coming back. There are more cars. In a week or so, the parties will kick up.

"One of the things that attracted me to the area was the huge student base," Pitt said. When he moved to College Park more than 25 years ago, he loved the idea of living near the university. He walks to football and basketball games. His wife walks to the Metro to get to work. His 12-year-old daughter walks to school. They get to events on campus.

When there's a big Terps win, he said, he can walk onto his deck and hear the roar of the whole city celebrating.

He laughed. "But then they start burning couches."