Eek! Where’s My Bed?: Adventures in Graduate Housing (e.g. what to expect from an unfurnished apartment, how utilities work, and troubles that may arise)- Written by Darby Vickers

My first day in my PhD program, a member of my cohort, who hailed from Europe, walked into a meeting about 20 minutes late. He apologized to the professor running the meeting and the rest of us, and told us that he had moved into his graduate apartment to find that there was no bed, lights, or furniture of any kind. Since he arrived, he had been sleeping—rather poorly—on the floor while he tried to figure out how to acquire these necessities without a car. I had been a little luckier than my European peer. When I arrived, I knew that my apartment was unfurnished and I had spent the summer trying to find sales so that I could furnish the apartment to my satisfaction, while still remaining within my limited budget. However, even I was surprised to find that my apartment was not just devoid of furniture, but that my bedroom and living room were devoid of lights or light fixtures of any kind.

In order to help those of you who do not know what to expect from an American apartment, I decided to provide a little bit of help.

Furniture: Most of the apartments available in graduate housing are unfurnished, as Laia noted in her excellent post on campus housing. I thought I would elaborate on this point a little bit. Here is a list of all of the available options and what furniture and amenities they include.

• Palo Verde: stove, oven, refrigerator, kitchen light, bathroom light. Potentially closet and hallway lights, but it will depend upon the apartment.
• Verano: stove, oven, refrigerator, kitchen light, bathroom light. Potentially closet and hallway lights, but it will depend upon the apartment.
• Campus Village: Most, but not all, of the graduate apartments are unfurnished and their amenities will resemble the lists for Palo Verde and Verano (above). Some furnished graduate units are available. The furnished units will include: “a stove, oven, refrigerator and microwave, and furnishings include a bed, dresser, desk, lamp, and chair for each resident, as well as a sofa, chair, coffee table, end tables, and a lamp for the living room, and a table and four chairs in the dining area” (http://www.housing.uci.edu/housingOptions/Campus_Village.html).
• Vista del Campo, Vista del Campo Norte, and Puerta Del Sol: their website is unspecific about exactly what pieces of furniture are available.

If your apartment is unfurnished, you should coordinate with your roommate. You don’t want to duplicate furniture your roommate has already bought and you may want to negotiate who has the choice of what furniture in the common spaces in the apartment. Some apartments contain legacy furniture, as in, furniture that was bought by a previous tenant and left there. If you and your roommate are both new, this won’t be the case (because the apartments are required to be cleaned and repaired before new tenants move in). However, if your roommate lived there before, then only the room you have will have been cleaned and repaired, so furniture and appliances may be in the public spaces. You also may want to buy things together and may want to work out sharing various appliances in the kitchen (like a microwave, toaster, coffee pot, etc.).

Fairly cheap options: Let’s start with your bed. Fortunately, a Target just opened at the University Town Center which is a short walk from campus and graduate housing or a short trip on the Anteater Express. This means that you can buy bedding and mattress pads there (as well as desk lamps and various other items). However, you probably won’t be able to buy an actual mattress or bedframe. So, I suggest bringing a sleeping bag or buying an air mattress or a futon until you can arrange to get a mattress. If you have access to a car, you can get a mattress at IKEA. Moreover, graduate housing on campus does not have elevators, so if you live on the third floor, getting a mattress up the stairs is tough. Instead, you can buy a mattress that can be delivered to your apartment. I bought my mattress and bed frame from Amazon.com. You can also get them from Tuft and Needle.

• If you do order a mattress and bedframe online, make sure you know the dimensions of your apartment and check the size of the mattress.
• If you are without transportation, Amazon.com is extremely useful for floor lamps, filing cabinets, and various other items of furniture and they will be conveniently delivered to you at your address. Since the apartment tend provide little lighting, I highly suggest buying floor lamps and LED lightbulbs (the bulbs last forever and you can choose the tone of your lighting).
• If you are inclined to be adventurous about your furniture, people regularly leave furniture outside graduate housing for free. Obviously, you need to be careful—you don’t want to acquire something that has been out in the elements for too long or has managed to acquire some stowaway bugs. If you’re really adventurous and you have access to a car, I got the majority of my furniture at a quirky place called Hotel Surplus up in LA. The store is rather bizarre and has an eclectic collection that ranges widely in style, quality, and value.

Utilities: In Palo Verde, Verano, and Campus Village, water and internet are included in rent. More importantly, while Palo Verde, Verano, and Campus Village have internet, they do not have wifi. In order to set up wifi, you need to purchase a Wifi Access Point or router (see information on OIT’s website). In some of Verano, electricity is included in the rent as well. If you are not in this part of Verano, you must pay for electricity separately. In Vista del Campo, Norte, and Puerta del Sol, water, internet, and electricity (up to a monthly allowance) are included.

Concerning Electricity: If you are not in privately-owned housing (or one of the parts of Verano where electricity is included in the rent), you will need to set up your electricity separately from your rental agreement. In order to do so, you must call Southern California Edison (SCE), the company that provides the power to this area. Be forewarned about some quirks of SCE electricity:

1. Electricity bills are one per apartment. This means that, if you have a roommate, the electricity bill only goes under one of your names. You then are responsible for dividing the bill between the two of your. The good news is that if you’re moving in with someone who already lives there, the electricity is already set up. You just have to figure out how to send your share of the money to your roommate.
2. Electricity bills will require credit or something to take the place of credit. SCE needs to know that you will actually pay your bill. If you have not had an account with them before, they will provide you with a number of options. Options include things like letting them take the money directly out of your bank account or paying a deposit of somewhere around $120.
3. There are ways to get cheaper electricity. Certain public assistance programs will allow you to get cheaper electricity if you qualify. You can take a look at the options on SCE’s website.
4. If your energy bill is more than $25-$30 per month per person, something is probably wrong with your refrigerator or oven. Generally, energy bills are about $10-$20 per person per month.

Troubles that might arise in campus housing: There are all sorts of potential issues that might arise in campus housing. The first, and most obvious, is that something might break. For example, in Palo Verde the locks have a habit of what is called ‘rolling’, which means you can turn your key as many times as you like but the door will remain locked. If this happens to you between 9am-5pm on a weekday, you can just walk down to the housing office and have them let you in. If it is not during business hours, you need to call the housing assistant number: Palo Verde (949-651-3579), Verano (949-824-5964). If the problem occurs after 11pm, you need to call the police instead (949) 824-5223. Don’t call 911 unless your situation constitutes an emergency.

If your sink, garbage disposal, refrigerator, etc. break, you need to put in a work order or call the housing office. Keep in mind, the work order form only works on certain web browsers (e.g. Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, and Safari).

Despite the enormous length of this blog post, I have only covered a small fraction of the information that you might want about graduate housing. Please comment on the blog post and one of the peer mentors or I will try to answer your additional questions. You can also contact your housing office directly.