HALIFAX—If we weren’t in the throes of a global coronavirus pandemic, Glen Creaser, a fourth year student at Queen’s University, would be chipping away at his final papers at Stauffer Library, dipping into Kingston’s bars with his buddies, and soaking in the last days of his undergraduate degree.

Instead, the Nova Scotia native has been left in the lurch. Like countless other university students, he’s trying to navigate a dwindling summer job market while figuring out how, exactly, he’ll safely move into a new house at the end of the month.

“Pretty well everything to do with this move is up in the air … and it’ll be full of paranoia,” Creaser said. “The house will be filled with six people, all from different places, who have come into contact with different things. Even though it’s a month away, the stress is most definitely weighing heavily.”

Isabelle Roach, a fourth-year student at the University of King’s College in Halifax, is in the same boat. Roach says that even though she’s subletting from a friend come May 1, she’s “absolutely” worried about the health risks.

“I’m confident in her being a clean and healthy person, but I can’t trust anything in all this. I don’t know who she’s been in contact with, I don’t know who her roommates have been in contact with … there’ll definitely be some deep-cleaning happening before I settle in,” Roach said.

Typically scaled to the school year, most one-year student leases start and end on May 1.

Usually, cleaning up after past tenants isn’t an issue: You give the washroom a scrub, mop the floors, spray down the fridge — and celebrate your new-found cleanliness with a beer on the porch. But times have changed. With the threat of COVID-19 seemingly looming on every door knob, banister and cupboard, students are stressed and, maybe rightfully so.

When asked about how long COVID-19 could viably “live” on household surfaces, Dr. Jeff Kwong, an epidemiologist and Professor at the University of Toronto, cited a study from March, which found that COVID-19 can exist on certain surfaces (plastic and stainless steel, for example) for up to three days.

On cardboard boxes — ever-present on moving day — there was no trace of the virus after 24 hours, and on copper, after around four hours. Importantly, the authors note that the virus, and its viability, gets considerably weaker as time progresses.

Perhaps more worrying for students who are on the move is the reported presence of “silent spreaders.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. suggested last week that nearly 25 per cent of COVID-19 carriers could be “asymptomatic” meaning that, without a test, these people wouldn’t necessarily know they’re carrying the virus, or that they simply have very mild symptoms. One related study, published last month, found that 18 per cent of the passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were “asymptomatic.”

As a result, students are wondering how they’ll be able to totally disinfect their new homes, and if the past tenants were unwitting, “asymptomatic” virus carriers.

“My plan, if it’s an option, is to let the house stand with nobody living in my space for a few days before moving in, since I certainly do not trust myself to wipe down every single inch of the room,” said Creaser.

Harry Fine, a paralegal in the Toronto area, says that it’s the new tenant’s responsibility to clean and disinfect the space.

“If it’s a sublet, approved by the landlord for a fixed period of time, the sublessee needs to make sure they clean the place thoroughly … In a sublet, the landlord (owner) keeps all his or her obligations. The subtenant takes on the identity of the tenant.”

Fine says that landlord isn’t responsible for cleaning the subtenant’s unit for cleanliness and health, but that the landlord is required to clean common spaces like entryways and shared laundry rooms.

The flip side of the fear around moving is that some students can’t find a subletter and have to absorb the costs of an empty room for months, compounding the financial misery of losing a summer job.

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Zoey Richards, a third-year student at McGill University in Montreal, was studying abroad in Bogotá, Colombia, until she fled to be with her parents in Italy on March 19. After being forced to spend thousands on a plane ticket out of Colombia, Richards said her subletter, who had planned on arriving from France, cancelled over travel restrictions and health fears.

Richards says her landlord hasn’t said anything about rent relief and since “half the city has left,” there are very few potential subletters looking. She’s been in touch with McGill about a travel bursary, but says “everything is still up in the air.”

Her roommates are still in Montreal and are all self-isolating. But as the end of their lease approaches, Richards says they’re all “pretty stressed about how they’ll move their stuff into the new apartment.

“Everything is closed, and the new apartment’s too far to carry everything over on foot. Right now their options are renting a car or U-Haul, but those are both expensive and everyone’s stressed about money.”

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