Community Guidelines

You must be at least eighteen (18) years old to create an account or submit content. Reviews and reports can only be submitted by registered users whose accounts are tied to a .edu email address. Parent/guardian accounts can browse and save listings but cannot post reviews, file reports, or vote.

We confirm your .edu address by sending a one-time verification code; we do not independently verify current enrollment or institutional affiliation. Your content is your responsibility.

The reviews and reports that help future tenants most:

• Are based on your own direct experience as a tenant of the property.
• Are specific — dates, what happened, what was promised, what was delivered. Vague praise or vague complaints help no one.
• Stay factual where you can be factual and clearly mark opinion as opinion. (“The deposit was withheld” is factual. “I think the management is unfair” is opinion.)
• Are relevant to housing — condition, maintenance, communication, lease terms, safety, value, move-in/out experience.
• For tenant reports: include evidence. Photos, lease excerpts, correspondence, receipts.

Every review and every report carries an attestation that what you submitted is truthful and based on your personal experience. We take that attestation seriously, and so do courts — see the Misrepresentation section of our DMCA policy for analogous principles.

The following content is not allowed and will be removed:

• False, misleading, or fraudulent claims. Including reviews about properties you never lived in.
• Defamatory, libelous, threatening, harassing, or hateful content. Honest negative experiences are welcome; personal attacks are not.
• Content that infringes intellectual property. Don’t upload photos, floor plans, or copy you don’t have the right to use.
• Personal information about third parties (e.g. roommates, neighbors, individual employees) without consent.
• Extortion, coercion, or retaliation. Don’t threaten to leave a negative review unless someone does what you want.
• Impersonation. One real person, one account.
• Malware, spam, or illegal content.
• Fake reviews of any kind — including positive reviews of your own property if you’re an owner, or negative reviews of competitors. The FTC’s Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 C.F.R. Part 465) makes these illegal.

We moderate in good faith. Submitted reviews and reports may be auto-hidden pending human review if they trigger quality-score or pattern checks at submission time. Once a moderator has acted, the disposition is recorded in our audit log.

Moderation is not verification. We check that submissions meet these guidelines and our Terms — we do not independently verify the factual claims in any individual review or report. The underlying claims are the author’s.

If you see a review that you believe violates these guidelines — for example, because it’s defamatory, off-topic, spammy, or impersonating someone — use the flag button on the review itself. A moderator will look at it.

Flagging is not a vote. Flags don’t hide reviews automatically; they put a review in front of a human moderator. The same review can be flagged by multiple people, but a single user can only flag a given review once.

If your review or report is removed and you disagree, you can appeal once. Each appeal is reviewed by a moderator who was not involved in the original decision. Their determination is final.

Owners who object to an approved tenant report on a property they own can likewise file one appeal through their dashboard.

Property owners agree not to:

• Use the Platform to intimidate, threaten, or retaliate against tenants who leave reviews or file reports;
• Create fake accounts to submit positive reviews of their own properties or negative reviews of competitors;
• Attempt to identify anonymous reviewers for the purpose of harassment or retaliation; or
• Use information obtained through the Platform for any unlawful purpose.

These rules exist because the Consumer Review Fairness Act (15 U.S.C. § 45b) protects honest consumer reviews, and because retaliation against reviewers is a fast way to lose access to the Platform.