There are a number of different options for renting places near Duke.  I strongly recommend living dear Duke and Downtown Durham or 9th street. Part of the charm of the area is that one can walk to many places and don’t have to fight trafic to come to work.

The simplest option is to rent from a large apartment complex. Many people start by initially living in West Village. They are expensive and you have to make suer you get one of the units in the less noisy buildings. The first buildings renovated in particular have soem really bad noise issues.

There are also a number of new apartment complexes geared to professional (business/law) students and medical students and interns. They are also a bit expensive, but some people like them. In general people I know prefer West Village to them. Examples include : Station 9, Lofts at Lakeview

There are also a number of small apartment complexes sprinkled through Trinity Park. They take more effort to get a room in, but many find it worth the effort. There are also a large number of small houses and rooms for rent in the adjoining neighborhood.  I will list a number of options bellow and give the neighborhood email list. Posting on these list is often a good way to find a place.

• Trinity Hights: Built by Duke. Many of the houses have small apartments in the back. Some of the houses are also available when faculty take sabbatical. 
• Trinity Park: An old charmin neighborhood. Big houses but also a number of small apartment complexes. See TrinityPark@yahoogroups.com
• Watts-Hillandale. Just next to Old West Durham. Houses are bigger on average. See whhna-list-request@rtpnet.org
• Old West Durham. A lot of gradstudents and faculty live here. Very close to Duke and 9th street. See owdna@yahoogroups.com
• Duke Park/Old North Durham. A little farther from Duke but a great neighborhood with nice parks. A lot of post docs and young faculty live here. dukepark@yahoogroups.com
• If you are looking for a place downtown you might also want to look at abcddurham@yahoogroups.com as there are a number of postings about downtown properties on it. You should also look at the Bullington warehouse, the Addison,
• Golden belt is an interesting set of apartments near a collections of art studios.  It is on the other side of downtown from Duke however some postdocs have lived here. There is the free Bull City Connector which runs all the way to the Duke Medical center.
• People who want to live very close Duke often live off of Maureen road.
• Some people who are looking more for traditional apartment complexes have lived near South point or South Square region.