Nothing quite like the start of the fall semester, eh? Football season, new classes, new faces, new apartment leases…. Apartment leases?

If you live off-campus, you probably signed a lease that’s about as one-sided as a history textbook in Nazi Germany. Here are some rules apparently made by fools that appear on my lease.

“A fine of $100 per occurrence…will be assessed for any gathering of over 10 persons in an apartment house.”

O.K. I’m not exactly a party animal, so this shouldn’t be a problem. But you never know what kind of crowd those scrabble games can draw. Sometimes this nerd’s apartment can turn into a pocket protector pleasure paradise when scrabble breaks out. Here’s some advice for all you freshman looking to “fit in” and “go along with the crowd.” Scrabble dude! Everbody’s doin’ it! Why don’t you?

Seriously, though. If you look a little deeper you’ll see this as a corporate front to make it harder for students to do some organizing to plot some strategy to take on the plutocrats that run this city, university, and country. O.K., maybe I’m expressing some conspiratorial paranoia here. Sure. And I suppose we’re supposed to believe the government line that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or that J. Edgar Hoover had nothing to do with Martin Luther King’s assassination. Conspiracy theories? How else do you explain Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Savings and Loan Scandal and Whitewater?

Anyway, I do think some folks in the power seats at Iowa State would be happy if we were all just mindless consumers rather than pesky STUDENTS holding the university to the standard of “service to the people of the state through the delivery of knowledge that improves the quality of life.” (Quoted from the Iowa State Bulletin.)

Mary Jo Mertens and company at the Memorial Union are doing everything they can to turn a World War II memorial into a shopping mall. You used to be able to have some engaging discussions in comfortable chairs there.

Now the food court has the look and feel of a hospital. The message seems to be, “Carry on. Get your food and go. Either consume or leave.” Or how about the Mcdonald’s virus that people in the anti-McD’s movement are looking to cure. Hey, John Dasher: Have a Coke and a smile and keep your heart-stopping, artery-clogging, greaseball franchise OFF OUR CAMPUS!

All right, back to the original subject. Maybe my landlord assumes any gathering of 10 or more people equals loud, drunken people causing trouble. While this may often be the case, a fine for having over 10 people in an apartment or house on that premise alone sounds a lot like guilt by socialization.

“Occupants shall not have a gas or charcoal grill in use in the dwelling unit, on a deck of a dwelling unit, or within 25′ of a dwelling unit.”

I guess if you want to grill you’d better get an electric grill. Maybe they left a loophole in this rule. So maybe this one isn’t so bad. What do you think?

“Tenants will be responsible for repair to all broken windows, screens, or doors. Tenant accepts responsibility to repair all of the above items IRREGARDLESS OF CAUSE OF DAMAGE (emphasis added).”

So if a maintenance worker is having a bad day and feels like playing a cruel joke on you by busting your window, you pay. Alright, I realize this is pretty unlikely. But shouldn’t the language of the lease give you a loophole somehow?

“Tenants must have carpets professionally cleaned within 10 days prior to lease termination. All apartments must have carpets cleaned annually.”

Here’s another way greedy landlords exploit the market (high demand for apartments with a supply close to full capacity).

My roommate from last year lived in university towns in Virginia and Utah. He said the landlords there never passed this expense on to the tenant. He said he couldn’t believe how landlords here try and take every last buck in your pocket.

Here’s an interesting rule that was on the lease of my apartment last fall.

“No live Christmas trees.”

What the hell is this? Oh well, you know how some people abuse the privileges of live Christmas trees and ruin it for everybody.

Wait a minute. It only says “Christmas” trees. How do you prove in the court of law that an evergreen tree is in fact a Christmas tree? Beyond that, does this rule illegally discriminate on the basis of religious belief? Where’s the Christian Coalition when you need them? Here’s an opportunity for them to do something useful for once.

Anyway, my point is that as tenants we have next to zero power over anything in our leases. And the rent seems to go up a hell of a lot faster than inflation.

Is this how it is across the country? Are there some places where tenants actually have some power? Should tenants have power? It’s possible that part of the problem may be the collaboration of property managers to charge high rents and have certain rules. In this way they band together and leave our pockets with lint and restrict us in other ways.

But step back for a second. We, as tenants, outnumber the owners. If we BAND TOGETHER in some sort of civic association, maybe we could have some power. Could we pressure the city council to do something?

We could use some tenant solidarity, folks. Rolling up our sleeves and doing some work as public citizens may be our only hope.

Andrew Chebuhar is a junior in journalism mass communication from Muscatine.