Process Description

I conducted a survey about renters’ rights in Cahokia Heights for my data collection assignment. I chose this topic because I feel that it is an important aspect of living in Cahokia Heights. Cahokia Heights is an area where renting homes is very common and with the constant flooding and damages to homes that are known to happen in Cahokia Heights, it is important for a tenant and a landlord to know their rights. I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet reading about what living in Cahokia Heights could be like, but a survey would be able to give me more personal information and give me different perspectives on the water crisis and what renting in Cahokia is like. 

I used the platform Qualtrics to create and publish my survey along with creating physical paper copies of the survey as well. The physical copies were given out at the Cahokia Public Library. To start the survey off, I figured that it was important to include a consent form that assured the participants that their responses were anonymous. It is especially important to assure confidentiality in a survey like this because the survey asks questions about experiences with a tenant’s landlord and that tenant could very well still be renting from the landlord that they are discussing.

The survey that targets people who rent or have rented a home in Cahokia Heights consisted of eight questions about their experiences as a lessee in the area. 

The eight questions were: 

  • When you were originally looking at the listing for your home, did it include deceptive pictures that showed the home in better shape than it was, or were the pictures accurate? 
  • In your personal opinion, is your home in suitable living conditions? 
  • Does your landlord respond to you quickly when you contact them? 
  • Does your landlord respond and make repairs when you request them? 
  • Have you personally had to pay for repairs to your home that you were not responsible for? 
  • If yes, did the landlord refuse to pay for the repairments themselves, or did you not know if you could ask? Please explain as much as you are comfortable with. If no, please type “N/A”. 
  • Has your landlord ever raised your rent or threatened eviction because of a complaint or request from you? If yes, please explain as much as you are comfortable with. If no, please type “N/A”. 
  • Please give any other thoughts or opinions you would like to share about renting property in Cahokia Heights. 

Between the Qualtrics survey and the physical surveys, there were six fully active participants to collect data from. 

Preliminary Analysis

Before looking at the data, I had the prediction that the majority of my responses would display a certain theme. I predicted the common theme of my responses would be that tenants would be moving in when they didn’t know what they were getting into. Their landlords would be hard to reach and/or neglectful to requests on repairments of the property and possibly even threaten eviction or to raise rent.

One question that’s data stood out to me was my question that asked about tenants being deceived by listing photos. 4 out of the 6 respondents stated that the listing pictures of the properties were pretty accurate and not deceiving. Although I did not expect the data to look like that, I understand it because I do know how expensive renting property is in general no matter where the property is located. So even if there were red flags while checking out the property, because of how expensive it can be to live anywhere, it can be easier to just decide to deal with whatever the issue might be.

All but one respondent answered that their homes are not in suitable living conditions and every single respondent stated that their landlord does not respond to them quickly when contacted and does not make repairments when requested. This particular data is why I chose to make my implementation plan about renter’s rights. Over the past year I have read and heard from multiple sources that flooding occurs and damages homes leaving tenants to have to plead with landlords to make repairments so they can live in a safe environment. Often the landlords do not respond with urgency leaving the tenant to pay for repairments themselves which legally they are not obliged too.  

I recognized that my six survey participants do not accurately reflect the entire renting population of Cahokia Heights. However, they do suggest that there can be more lessees in Cahokia Heights who have similar experiences when it comes to renting property. I understand that a limitation to my survey could be that people of Cahokia Heights could possibly be tired of talking about the problems they deal with and not seeing much being done about them. Another limitation is simply time. This survey was created, published, and analyzed over the course of just one semester. I believe that with more time to reach more people, this survey can collect enough data to give a relatively accurate depiction of renting in Cahokia Heights.