The Red and Black

Issue date: 8/17/09 Section: Variety

Media Credit: DANIEL SHIREY Freshman David Jiang moving into Rutherford hall. Transfer students who are unfamiliar with Athens have more complications without dorms. [Click to enlarge]

When settling in for the upcoming school year, missing furniture, fixing a broken air conditioner and trying to find a place to store 10 pounds of potatoes are all issues transfer students must deal with - aside from orientation, registration and figuring out what street they're on.

Finding an apartment was a semi-difficult task for Andy Bibliowicz, a junior from Atlanta, even in a town with "Roommate Wanted" fliers on every corner. With a skateboard as his sole means of transportation, Bibliowicz wanted to find an apartment near campus and browsed multiple Web sites and pamphlets before finally travelling to Athens to search for the perfect apartment. But it wasn't until he Googled "apartments close to Athens campus" that he found his match.

The transfer student from Auburn University signed a lease for a fully furnished bedroom, but two days before classes resume, his furniture is yet to be seen. Bibliowicz said he has spoken to the apartment complex, but they haven't been much help in locating the missing furniture and even charged him an extra $15 for paying his rent online.

At first glance, everything seems to be in order at HyoungSik Kim's apartment - a black shoe rack neatly holds more than 30 pairs of Kim and his roommate's shoes near the front door and the temperature in the apartment seems almost perfect, but that is where the problem begins.

"The air conditioner runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Kim, a junior from the Atlanta Metropolitan College. "It's not too cold, but I need to save money. I asked them to fix it and they said they'd come [Friday] afternoon, but they haven't yet."

When Kim visited the University more than a month ago, his initial thought was "country."

"The campus is good for running outdoors … but I cannot get any [cell phone] signal in my house," Kim said. "I can talk to my mom [in Korea] in the house, but I have to stay next to the window."

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