With the demolition of Ridgewood set to expel an additional 109 students onto the mean streets of Waltham next year, and with over 30 percent of the junior class studying abroad next semester, now is a good a time to look into off-campus housing. Not only will there be more students living off campus, but also many of the more desireable places to live are being taken now, as opposed to late February, when all those with bad housing lottery numbers scramble to search for apartments.Given the inevitable increase in students looking for homes off campus for next year, here are some things I wish I had known before moving off campus, in hopes that at least one person will benefit from my experiences.

When push comes to shove, college students are lazy. That should be a no-brainer, but it's one thing to know something intuitively, and quite another to experience it every day. The bulk of upperclassmen live in Lower Campus, and because there are a lot more people concentrated there, many Villagers, Zivites and Ridgewoodians don't have much incentive to make the trek off campus-unless you offer them lots of free booze.

Add that to the fact that you will often be too lazy to hike over to campus, and the result will be that you won't see on-campus friends as often as you'd like. All this even before the winter cold sets in!

You also have to be able to deal with the added responsibilities that come with living off-campus. If you're too lazy or grossed out to clean the bathroom, it's going to stay disgusting. The same goes for the sink, the floor and everything else.

In the dorms, you've got a CA to help mediate room and suitemate disagreements, but off campus, all you've got are your wits. Reverse psychology doesn't work on anyone older than fiv e, so telling people that you're done doing their dishes will only make the pile higher.

As in any relationship, communication is key. In the landlord-tenant relationship, if you don't do the landlord's bidding-like pay the rent on time-he can make it so he is no longer your landlord, if he should so desire. The absolute worst a CA can do for not returning the Room Condition Report in a timely fashion is ask you for it again.

It's also vital that you communicate frequently with your housemates. If the landlord tells one of you not to leave trash by the sidewalk before 8 p.m. Thursday or else you have to pay the city a $100 fine, make sure that you share that information with each other. Otherwise, you will all get stuck owing Waltham money that you could have spent on frivolities, like food.

If you want to live off-campus with someone who will be studying abroad spring semester, it might be worthwhile to reconsider. Most people looking to sublet a house for the second semester are probably not undergrads, and while that isn't necessarily bad, it may not be as fun. In any event, you'll probably get too attached to the guys who are leaving, and the thought of replacing them will only make you mopey.