The Student Room - Leeds Metropolitan University

Quote:

Originally Posted by spider_jerusalem

I don't know where ross88 has been living, but Eldon Court has major problems. If you're reading this thread, like I was last year, and think "Well, it can't be that bad" or "Maybe it's got better" - well, let me just tell you, I thought that too, and now I wish I hadn't come here.

It's not unlivable, I guess. The rooms are okay, and the view's nice, and the gym's pretty decent. When nothing's going wrong, it's actually quite pleasant.

But things keep going wrong:

a) Bugs and rats. Luckily I haven't seen any rats, and I think they've got rid of them now, but it was a problem at the start of the year. The main problem is bugs: cockroaches in your food cupboards, silverfish in your bathroom, little pharaoh ants all over your desk. They brought in a pest controller to take a look: he decided the problem was so bad he didn't even want the job. The second guy - well, we saw him once, and he told us all the horrible diseases cockroaches can give us, and that every single flat (72 of 'em!) was infested and would have to be fumigated. We haven't seen him since early November.

b) The electricity is a con. The bills aren't all inclusive - you get £10 a month, which isn't enough in the colder months. They'll fob you off by saying that you'll save money in the summer, but you have to buy extra electricity credit in the winter and you don't get the unused credit from the summer back!

c) When we moved in, the TV and our promised new sofas weren't there. The TV arrived after a few weeks, the sofas never did. Apparently we were never actually promised new sofas. I don't know if that was a misunderstanding on our part.

d) The staff don't give a damn. There's just one guy who will be polite and actually try to help you. The others treat you like a massive inconvenience or a waste of their time. One of them will bark at you "What do you want?" or "What are you doing here!?" Good luck getting an answer out of them.

e) Bad maintenance. Walls painted different colours, broken lights, broken tiles, the previous tenants' things left lying around, nothing clean when you move in, damp on the walls (that they just paint over!!). This is a modern apartment building, a few years old, and it's already falling to pieces.

f) We have never ever been warned as to any workmen arriving. They just come straight in, and with the amount of problems at Eldon they visit quite often (they're actually nice guys, you can have a good chat with them). It's meant to be a secure building, but basically anyone can come in and leave you a million food menus or give you a sales pitch.

g) The internet is really slow - most of the time, it can't even manage very low quality Youtube videos. The TV signal ranges from okay in good weather to awful at any other time.

h) Blatant lies on their website (which is second in Google after this thread, funnily enough) - the TVs are not satellite TVs. There is no 24-hour reception. There is no cafeteria. It is not all-inclusive.

i) If one of the tenants doesn't pay rent, the electricity for the whole flat is cut off. This is illegal, and we are looking into making a complaint based on this.

You are going to be paying £85, £89 a week for this, plus electricity bills, plus laundry tokens. If you really think you can put up with the above, then it's not a terrible place to live, but I just feel completely ripped off.

We are pursuing lines of complaint, but it's frustratingly hard. Everything they do is in a grey area, so it's not technically illegal - just massively stacked in their favour. We've been talking to the Union advice centre, who say Eldon Court pull this kind of thing every single year, so there's no reason 2012/13 will be any different. Do yourself a favour and find somewhere else to live.