Katie Wilson and her boyfriend, Adam Gorzelsky, say their off-campus apartment near the University of Pittsburgh came with a leaky shower, cracked walls and an indifferent landlord.

It's the age-old saga of student housing complaints -- nothing out of the ordinary there -- except their frustration spawned an idea.

The two students, newly graduated from Pitt, have rolled out a Web site they say could do for student apartment hunters what sites such as ratemyprofessors.com have done for students trying to avoid clunker classes.

The Web site, www. LandorSlum.com, invites tenants to give their landlords a grade between 1 ("slumlord") and 5 ("great") in such areas as maintenance, availability, friendliness and overall tenant satisfaction.

Most of the 38 landlords listed as of yesterday were in Pittsburgh, and a couple others were in State College. But the 10-week-old Web site also carries a smattering of out-of-state landlord reviews from Indiana, New York, Colorado, Texas and California.

A yellow smiley face -- apparently so happy that it actually waves -- appears next to the names of highly rated landlords. A purple face that appears alternately to frown and yell is positioned beside landlords who fared poorly.

Site users getting ready to reveal the good, the bad and the ugly about their landlord experiences are given one simple request: "Keep it clean," the Web site asks.

Some reviews are quite favorable, like the one involving an Oakland landlord that begins: "Gary's a nice guy."

It continues: "We feel bad asking him to do a lot of maintenance because he's on the older side with a bad heart, but when we do need something, he gets it done."

Other landlord reviews weren't nearly so kind.

"Our roof was leaking water and tar into my roommate's bedroom and he [the landlord] told her to cover it with rugs and then yelled at her for spending too much on the rugs!" writes one disgruntled Oakland renter. "We eventually had to call the health inspector."

Another renter's tale of woe about a Squirrel Hill landlord extended from the front door key to the toilet bowl.

"First off, he only gave me and my roommate one set of keys, which is normal, but they weren't to our door," the individual writes. "It took me three weeks to get a hold of the owner, to get that fixed, and the toilet, which had no handle when we moved in, fixed."

The Web site made its debut as Pittsburgh continues a push to improve student housing in Oakland and elsewhere in the city. Neighborhood sweeps by inspectors have resulted in hundreds of building citations.

Still, some say success depends not only on landlords practicing better upkeep, but also on students treating their apartments and neighborhoods with more respect.

"An educated consumer is extremely important," said David Blenk, executive director of the Oakland Planning and Development Corp. "To the extent that this Web page does inform students, I would agree with the effort."

He wondered, though, how much work was put into verifying the accuracy of postings.

He said he's heard that some Pittsburgh landlords are interested in creating a similar service rating tenants.

"I think that's fine," Mr. Blenk said. "It's not a one-sided problem."

Likewise, Rita Dallago, executive director of the Pennsylvania Residential Owners Association, said ratings from tenants could be instructional for landlords. But Ms. Dallago, whose group represents 8,000 to 10,000 landlords statewide, said anonymous postings deprive owners of the ability to know who their accuser is.

"That does concern me," she said.

Authors of the site say it's still in its infancy, and they are hoping to promote it in the coming weeks as fall semester approaches.

Ms. Wilson, 22, of Greensburg, who plans to pursue a graduate degree at Chatham University, said the idea isn't simply to bash bad landlords. On the site, there are nearly as many Pittsburgh landlords dubbed "great" as there are owners given a "slumlord" rating.

"We want to reward the good landlords who are holding up their end of the bargain," she said.

Mr. Gorzelsky, 21, who plans to pursue a law degree at Pitt, said negative reviews could nudge a landlord to make changes so as to avoid losing future customers, and he defended the anonymous reviews.

"I don't want anybody to be afraid of posting," he said.