So Morris and other Renters First members built Rate Yinz Landlord<\/a>, a website where renters can leave anonymous reviews of their landlords. Users can evaluate management companies\u2019 and landlords\u2019 communication, maintenance and respectfulness on a scale of one to five. The site prompts reviewers to share their monthly rent and asks if they\u2019d rent from that landlord again.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of protections<\/a> that exist for tenants right now in Allegheny County,\u201d said Morris. \u201cWe want to make sure that people feel empowered to tell the community about situations they\u2019ve been having with either their current or former landlord.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A model familiar to students<\/p>\n Last fall, Morris and other Renters First members began discussing how to make it easier for Pitt students to hold landlords accountable and share more information about their experience as renters. They threw around various possibilities \u2013\u2013 a Reddit thread, a forum-based website \u2013\u2013 before Josh Small, a committee member, suggested they make a landlord version of Rate My Professors, a site launched in 1999 to review college instructors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarabeth White, a fellow committee member, thought Rate My Professors offered an ideal model because of its familiarity among college students.<\/p>\n \u201cResources online and files, they\u2019re great, they\u2019re helpful, but they also don\u2019t incentivize a lot of interaction,\u201d said White. \u201cWe do know that Rate Your Professor has a lot of online interaction. That was a big inspiration because us students, like most people, like to be entertained and stimulated online.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n To launch Rate Yinz Landlord, Morris recruited her friend Sebastian Castro, who coded the website in his spare time as a computer science student. Making the site approachable was a priority, and continues to be under Maryn Dubay, who in January took over as chair of Renters First after Morris graduated in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe actual process of filling out a review or adding a landlord, we tried to design to be straightforward and accessible and not super time-consuming,\u201d Dubay said, \u201cbecause we didn\u2019t want it to feel like a burden or another thing to add to a to-do list.\u201d<\/p>\n By January Renters First members purchased the website domain and quietly began sharing the site with friends ahead of a Feb. 23 public launch date. Committee members plan to push the website to Pitt clubs, hand out QR codes at Oakland bars and eventually canvas apartments. Though the Renters First committee is focused on Pitt students, they encourage all renters in the city to add ratings to the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n Who will \u2018complain the most\u2019?<\/p>\n Committee members said the fledgling site hasn\u2019t yet drawn complaints from landlords. John Petrack, executive vice president of the Realtors Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, thinks some might take umbrage at not being able to respond to the reviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no mechanism where what\u2019s being placed on the site can be measured or tested, or validated,\u201d Petrack said. \u201cIt might be the three drunk frat boys that tear the apartment up that complain the most.\u201d<\/p>\n Users with University of Pittsburgh emails can post reviews without verifications, but website administrators will review submissions by external users. All posts are anonymous to protect renters from retaliation by their landlords.<\/p>\n Petrack said the site could be useful in warning renters about bad landlords, but he\u2019s not convinced it will endure. Websites for reviewing landlords have come and gone before, he said.<\/p>\n LandOrSlum.com<\/a>, created in 2007 by Pitt graduate students, has been defunct for more than a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Landlord review sites have launched outside the Pittsburgh area with varying success, including a recent effort led by University of California, Santa Barbara students titled Rate My Landlord<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Small said keeping a narrow focus is core to the strategy for Rate Yinz Landlord. \u201cThe ones that have tried it to become a national service have teetered off,\u201d said Small, \u201cwhich is why we\u2019re very focused on our target audience \u2013 every property that\u2019s rented by students in Oakland \u2013 before we go out and expand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Student-heavy South Oakland and Central Oakland are represented on City Council by Bob Charland, the only elected city official who doesn\u2019t own a home<\/a>. Pittsburgh has recently become a majority renter city<\/a>, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating that 52% of housing units are renter-occupied.<\/p>\n At some point this year, Charland intends to buy a house. He said he\u2019d probably add a (positive) review of his landlord to Rate Yinz Landlord to add to the database. It could be useful for those in the housing market to know if a landlord is particularly strict about the lease or doesn\u2019t return the security deposit, Charland added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRenters in the City of Pittsburgh are at such a structural disadvantage because the landlord has a lot of the power,\u201d said Charland. \u201cA renter maybe wants to rent a location or rent the space or be in a neighborhood; there\u2019s not a whole lot of bargaining you get to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Abby Rae LaCombe, co-founder of RentHelpPGH, said the website has the potential to start a conversation on the aging houses and apartments around Pittsburgh. She\u2019s unsure, though, whether RateYinzLandlord will reach the people who most need information about landlords.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll hear from people who are inclined to spend a portion of their time sharing their experience and their frustration,\u201d said LaCombe. \u201cIn reality, really poor housing stock impacts really busy people. It\u2019s college students, it\u2019s working parents, it\u2019s people who oftentimes are carrying two, three, four jobs. They don\u2019t have a lot of spare time.\u201d<\/p>\n RentHelpPGH workers share Rate Yinz Landlord with people when they seem inclined to publicize their experience with their landlord. But the website is all for naught if robust policy changes don\u2019t follow, La Combe said, noting a recently introduced anti-retaliation ordinance at County Council designed to protect tenants against evictions if they\u2019ve filed a complaint about housing conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Top of LaCombe\u2019s agenda remains a well-funded housing registry allowing the city to keep tabs on who owns rental properties and conduct inspections. Efforts to adopt one, first advanced in 2008 by then-Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, have hit obstacles in court. Former Mayor Ed Gainey launched a voluntary rental registry<\/a>. The Apartment Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, a litigant against Pittsburgh registry efforts, did not return a request for comment for this article.<\/p>\n \u201cHousing in Allegheny County is really complicated because we have allowed it to fester without meaningful regulation and oversight for so long,\u201d LaCombe said. \u201cIt\u2019s like we took what was a paper cut and allowed it to go gangrenous, and now we\u2019re like, \u2018Well, how do you fix it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Pitt\u2019s housing plans<\/p>\n Members of the Renter First Committee maintain Rate Yinz Landlord isn\u2019t a solution to litigious landlords or aging housing stock. But they hope it could help to hold the University of Pittsburgh accountable for the wellness of students, even when they\u2019re no longer living on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are really advocating for Pitt to not turn a blind eye to these issues, to commit to its institutional master plan of building more dorms if it is going to increase enrollment,\u201d Small said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pitt is working toward a new dormitory potentially including around 400-beds that could be open in late 2028<\/a>. By that time, the university hopes to have around 600 more undergraduates studying in Oakland than it has now.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3-2-AJ-RateYinzLandlord-Beck-11.jpg\")
Renter\u2019s First Committee member Josh Small speaks during the committee\u2019s meeting inside the University of Pittsburgh Student Government Board office in the William Pitt Union on March 2, in Oakland. The committee recently released the Rate Yinz Landlord website which allow tenants to anonymously assess landlords. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3-2-AJ-RateYinzLandlord-Beck-14.jpg\")
Renter\u2019s First Committee chair Emilia Morris speaks during the committee\u2019s March 2 meeting. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3-2-AJ-RateYinzLandlord-Beck-10.jpg\")
Renter\u2019s First Committee member Maryn Dubay speaks during a meeting inside the Pitt Student Government Board office in the William Pitt Union on March 2, in Oakland. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n![\"Four](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3-5-AJ-RateYinzLandlord-Beck-6.jpg\")
Renter\u2019s First Committee members (from left) Josh Small, Maryn Dubay, Emilia Morris and Sarahbeth White pose for a portrait outside of the Bouquet Gardens dorms on Mar. 6, in Oakland. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n