Bingo is pretty large from what I hear so I don't think you'll have much difficulty to adjusting to even larger. As far as reputable apartments around south I do not know of any. It's mostly large houses around there. The area is bad, and since you're walking, I would suggest staying close to campus. There's no "good" areas really but so it comes down to trying to find an area with bad qualities you are more comfortable with, and steering away from the areas associated with bad aspects you're not comfortable with. Assuming you want to find a house around south, there's a few themes. One is the "used to a frat house" theme. Second is "next to a frat house" theme. Third is, "between two frat houses" theme. 4th is "on a road with, but distal to a frat house" theme. 5th is "no frats in sight, but mostly students" theme. 6th is "no frats in sight, but I got some sketchy neighbors" theme. And finally, number 7 is the "what was I thinking, I would practice my right to keep and bear arms in my household for protection, but those would probably get robbed too" theme. Here's where the hopefully useful advice comes in in regard to specific streets:
*a lot of these directions are given in relation to Main Street. So for example, South of main street means the side closer to South Campus, but is not technically perfectly south on a map.
- Custer Street: This is your standard, run of the mill, theme #6 for most houses. It is located on the north side of Main Street, and for practical and safety purposes, I wouldn't venture further west down on the north side of Main St past here. We'll call this your Northwest Limit.
- Minnesota Avenue: this is going to be either a #4, #6, or a #7 theme in most instances. The majority of houses or all of them on Minnesota Ave are on the south side of Main st, between Main St and Bailey Ave. . The furthest south I would suggest for any street mentioned is Bailey Ave. We'll call the corner of Bailey ave and Minnesota Ave. you're Southwest Limit.
- Minnesota Ave, Lisbon Ave, Highgate Ave, and Winspear Ave are parallel to each other and are all on south side of Main street. I've listed these four from further from South Campus to closest to South Campus, with Winspear being the closest possible street to South (except for a run down sketchy half street that never has houses for rent). So we'll call the corner of Bailey and Winspear your Southeast Limit.
- Englewood, Heath, Merrimac, Tyler, West Winspear, and West Northrup are all south of Main st and out of the houses that I have most commonly see for rent, have been to, or have heard from direct friends, these are mostly a grab bag of themes #1to #6. I'd suggest the northern limit of these streets is Kenmore Ave, and for the ones that go diagonally westward, to stay with Custer st being your western limit for the north side of Main.
- Going east down main street here's a bunch of in between streets up until the corner of Main and Bailey. There's some really nice places east of here, but you start getting into Amherst and possibly Williamsville, which means NOT CHEAP.
These are just guidelines, there's always exceptions somewhere. Anything bad can happen anywhere, and hopefully that is not breaking news to anyone.
If you really do not plan on driving anywhere. You might be able to find a house on one of those short, connecting streets, and be very close to Kapoor Hall, the new pharm building.
If you find a house for rent that you're interested in, I can help further from there if I know anything about it, or I can say that I don't know anything about it (which could be a good thing).
Here's a link to a screenshot from my Dropbox of South Campus and the areas I'm referring to on a map:
http://db.tt/kA4IcI6E