Lyndsay Davis doesn't take off her shoes anymore.

In almost every nook and cranny of the journalism junior's Cedar Village apartment, stacks of blankets are stuffed behind chairs. More blankets and towels line the windows, where chilling winter air leaks in and frost often accumulates on the inside.

As temperatures in East Lansing plunge, home heating troubles have left some off-campus students reaching for an extra blanket.

Since winter break, the heat in Davis' apartment hasn't been working properly, rarely reaching 65 degrees, no matter how high she turns up the thermostat.

"You always have to have a sweatshirt on or be wrapped up in a blanket," Davis said. "It's definitely uncomfortable."

Davis and her three roommates have contacted their landlord, DTN Management Company, three times, but nothing seems to get done, she said.

"They give us different excuses," she said. "They beat around the bush and never really do anything."

Maintenance personnel visited Davis' apartment Monday night and told her that there are too many apartments to keep heated, and that she'd be lucky ever to get the temperature up to 70 degrees, Davis said.

Heating is included in the rental bill for Cedar Village apartments, but Davis said she would rather pay it herself if she could have more control over it.

DTN area director Colin Cronin did not return multiple telephone calls Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Across town, political science senior Haley Hanna has some heating problems of her own.

The heat in her University Terrace apartment has two functions - off and on.

Although there are various levels the heat switch can be set to, they all pump out the same amount of heat, Hanna said.

"It's terrible," she said. "You can either turn it on or turn it off.

"You go to bed and you wake up at 3 a.m. every night either freezing or sweating," she said.

Haley said she has complained to DTN, which also manages her University Terrace apartment, 424 E. Michigan Ave., but they have told her that nothing is wrong with her place.

A solution for area renters might reside at City Hall, where tenants can voice their housing complaints to the city's housing division.

"Tenants don't realize that they can come to us," said Annette Irwin, a problem property specialist for the city. "You should first go to your landlord, and then if nothing gets done, you can write a formal complaint here."

Irwin also suggested a number of steps tenants can take to make sure that they are getting the most out of their heat, including checking all of the heat vents for warm air flow and replacing furnace filters annually.

But some East Lansing renters said they don't mind the chilled atmosphere, and in fact, prefer it.

"We'd rather leave off the heat than have to pay all the money for the heating bill," said social relations junior Neil Hansen, who rents a house on Gunson Street. "Our house is pretty cold, and I have the coldest room in the house."

But as the city bears the brunt of another winter storm, Davis and Hanna both said they're not looking forward to dealing with it.

"Since it got cold, it seems to get worse and worse," Davis said. "We all wake up with frozen noses."