Household Leasing Service
We welcome you to Brown University and invite you to use our furniture rental service
As international graduate students arrive in Providence to begin their studies, they are confronted by one of the grim realities of life--how to furnish an apartment with little money and without accumulating things they will only have to sell in a couple of years. The answer is to be found at the Household Leasing Service (run by the Women and Men of Brown University) which rents used furniture and household goods to international graduate students, postdocs, and visiting faculty.
We rent tables and chairs, bureaus, desks, lamps, some baby items, kitchen equipment and miscellaneous items at extremely low prices. It is possible for a family to rent furniture for one year for a whole apartment (apart from beds and mattresses) for around $300, of which the 50% deposit is returnable at the end of the leasing period. We also rent single items: for example chairs, tables, bookcases, bureaus, desks and desk chairs. We rent furniture but no mattresses or bedding.
Household Leasing Service is a voluntary group that has been providing its services to the Brown Community since the late 1970’s. The people we have served over the years have said that the Household Leasing Service meets a real need and is a useful aspect of their welcome to this country.
Contact Mrs. Kosterlitz at 351-3526 or b_kosterlitz@hotmail.com
There is no telephone at Household Leasing, so on the morning we are open, you must simply go there.
Household Leasing Services have just been re-located to new premises. We are located in the basement of New Pembroke Dorm 4 located on Thayer Street but with access from inside the Pembroke Campus. The entrance door is at the northern end of the building — a sign with Household Leasing is posted by the door. Ring the doorbell to alert us of your presence.
Due to our recent move we have not been able to set up the facility as we wish but WE WILL provide service during the period 24th August to 14th September, Friday mornings from 10 am-1pm. Hopefully this will help some new and returning international graduate students to set up their lives here at Brown. From the middle of January 2013 we will resume our weekly opening hours. We do not provide moving help but you will find that usually colleagues help out — or you can yourself use a trucking service — or a large taxi.