Renting Room Out for Inauguration Week
 

Being the generous soul that I am, I have decided to rent out my room for Inauguration Week. It is currently being sold on ebay at a starting price of $4,500.00 for the entire week stay. The room includes two twin sized beds and can comfortably sleep up to three females and is only 3.6 miles away from Capitol Hill.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=130273812956

The university will let you "sub-let" your dorm room???
:confused:

You might not want to have your "full names" on your Ebay ad. Just a precaution.

When I was in college, the Front Desk was very strict about non-residents going up to our rooms. If you didn't have a key, they took down as much information as they could about you because it was THAT secure.

The Howard Resident Directors are okay with this?

My friends found better, more spacious accomodations for the week for well below your asking price.

Yeah, but did they get free shipping? ;)

I'm afraid they didn't. They'll just have to deal with it, I guess.

I won't be surprised if someone's already contacted Howard about this.

Actually they're letting us have extended visitation during that week. They've implemented a program that will allow us to let individuals stay in our room and in exchange we would recieve RSVP points. However, I figured that we might as well get paid for offering our room to others.

So technically you're not allowed to charge rent, then.

Exactly. No housing agreement -- visitation or not -- allows you to sublet a room.

If I sign up for the program, then no, I can't charge rent. I would only recieve the points towards the RSVP program.

So if you don't sign up for the program, you're not supposed to have extended stay visitors? Are you saying you haven't even signed up for the program yet and you're putting your info out there on eBay to let strangers stay with you even though you're not supposed to?

No, the extended visitation is for everyone in the residence halls regardless of their participation in the program or not. Those who sign up for the program are also allowing Howard to find strangers willing to stay in their rooms for the week.

But you're not supposed to charge rent.

Doesn't Howard require its residents to accompany their visitor(s) while in the residence halls? This seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen. I would be really surprised (and, frankly, disappointed) in Howard's administration if they've actually agreed to this.

Nothing has been stated to me or put into writing about not being able to charge rent.

I'm not quite sure how administration plans on dealing with this issue. I do know that the visitor(s) do recieve a temporary "pass" during their stay at the dorm. This "pass" is basically the equivalent to our school ID's so they might check state ID against the pass :confused:

Are you sure about that?

Why is everyone so pressed about this? I imagine that once Howard finds out, and if there's no technicality making this perfectly legal, they'll find a way to snuff it out.

I'm not going to Inauguration, so it doesn't matter to me.

Yes ma'am, maybe next month we'll get something verbal or written about it, but thus far I would still be in compliance with the University's rules.

According to their residence life website, they do. And I'm willing to bet that the housing contract signed by the OP prohibits sub-letting.

A word of friendly advice, OP. I wouldn't proceed with the eBay auction until you know for sure that the University doesn't have a problem with it. Sure would be a pain to have someone take you up on your offer and plan accordingly, only to find out later that you can't keep up your end of the bargain.

Point well taken, however, if they are bending the rules for that week then I'm sure that can't expect students to be around their potential guests on a 24 hour basis. But as you said, it would behoove me to do a bit more research on the requirements for the week.