With days running out on his current lease, Lewis is in a race against time to get an apartment before he starts his final year at the University of Waterloo next month. With limited availability, rising prices and an increasing number of scams to deal with, Lewis may be spending the first few days of the semester couch surfing. It may be his only option as he tries to find an affordable place while soaking up the last days of summer with his family at their home in Saint Lucia. Spending hours searching for rental options isn’t exactly how he thought he’d spend his final days at home in the Caribbean. “I’m not going to lie, it’s very stressful at this point,” he said from his home in St. Lucia. Apartment hunting in the past usually took no more than a day and was simple, he said. “There’s something different this year.” Working with a tight budget, Lewis mainly looks at subletting, which can often be cheaper for students who only need a place for the school year. It is common practice for students to sublet their unused spaces to other students, with many posting ads online on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji. With rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Waterloo reaching more than $1,700 per month in August, Lewis said many of the sublet prices may seem “too good to be true” by comparison. As he learned over the past two weeks, many of them are. His first experience with a scammer came when a woman he was talking to offered to have a video call to discuss the apartment she said was available. “That was a good sign,” he said. “I thought if they wanted to see me and talk to me, that means they’re serious.” The call started with no video — he could just hear a woman saying “hello” over and over. Louis said he answered but didn’t feel like he could hear him. The call changed to a detailed video of a woman showing an apartment, moving from room to room. The woman never addressed Lewis, and the apartment she was shown appeared to be more luxurious than the initial photos she had seen. Then suddenly the video cut out. When Lewis raised his concerns about the call, he said the person he was texting became defensive and wouldn’t answer his questions directly. He decided to leave and continue searching. Then it happened again — with a different apartment, a different Facebook account, and the same video. “There were a lot of red flags when I saw the video the first time, but you never really know for sure,” he said. “When I saw it the second time, I knew for sure it was clearly a scam they’re running.” In the past two weeks, he said, he has encountered several other scammers. She reported each case on Facebook and alerted other potential tenants by posting a warning online. Burhan Tayab was not so lucky. The 19-year-old from Pakistan is finishing his final year of high school in Waterloo to improve his chances of getting into a top university. Like Lewis, his current lease expires on Saturday and he’s on the hunt for an affordable room for the school year. He called 10 to 15 places a day and began to despair as his eviction date neared. He has uncles in Toronto who he could stay with if needed, he said, but it would make it nearly impossible for him to go to school. When a woman advertising an apartment for rent asked him for $100 to secure the place, he sent the money, not wanting to miss the opportunity. He heard nothing for a few days before she replied asking for the first month’s rent. Then he realized he was wrong. Tayab reported the account on Facebook and is now back on the hunt for a room. “My lease is up and I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a place,” he said. “My semester is about to start so I’m not sure how things will go.” International students typically have a harder time landing an apartment, said Kitchener-based real estate agent Harman Goyal. Many landlords do not accept foreign students because they are only allowed to work 20 hours a week and so cannot prove reliable income, he said. That can make it difficult for them to compete in a tight rental market, he said. This is why many will end up looking for subletting, which can be difficult to navigate in a foreign country, especially as scammers become more sophisticated. Waterloo Regional Police are investigating at least three rental scams in the University Area in Waterloo. Police are advising all potential tenants to research what is a reasonable rent, view the property before paying and be suspicious if there is pressure to close the deal quickly. “If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is,” police said in a statement. For international students like Lewis trying to find a place outside the country, knowing who to trust isn’t always so easy. With so many potential scams, she said, students should work together to expose scammers and talk about their experiences. “Since I’ve been making these posts about my experiences, I’ve had a lot of people trying to help me find something now,” she said. “The best thing we can do in this situation is not only look out for ourselves, but look out for each other, because there are a lot of us stuck in this situation.” SHARE:
