Hey,
I just came to confirm the original post, I lived at eldon court last year from 2007-2008. Here was my experience:
Firstly upon arrival they hadn't cleaned the appartment, the kitchen was found in a dire state. Initially I had moved my stuff in and stayed there for a week, I went home for a week and then returned with more stuff. When I came back there was a sign on my bathroom door saying the shower had been resealed, there was a huge mess both on the bathroom floor and on the bedroom of what seemed to be chalk. What I had noticed is that my camera was missing. I knew I didn't take it home and it did look like they had rumaged through my stuff. I called the guy who is in charge of maintenance and he said he was sure that I had just misplaced it, he then kept calling me throughout the night tell me not to tell anyone. However I told the people at the reception desk the next day, it took them no less than 2 hours to find my camera. They claim that they had searched one of their employees and found it on him. They returned it to me, but all my pictures had been erased and the camera was scratched. The man was immediately fired and I called the police. The police told me it seemed like an internal job.
Other than that, when i first moved in I had noticed many things wrong. For instance there was a huge gap between the window and the wall. You could see outside through it. I informed them that I needed it plastered immediately, it seemed as if it would fall out. They informed me they would plaster it the next day. They didn't come the next day, so I went to see them, they said they would do it soon. After pestering them no less than 20 times in the space of 3 months, I finally had it plastered. This type of service carried on throughout the entire year. The building constantly did seem as if it would fall to pieces and often things needed to be done, but you needed to hastle them for about 20 times for them to do it, with the guy at the front desk assuring it would be done the next day.
Most of the people who live there are students who need a place to study. However eldon court is on a main road and the windows literally block out no sound, the constant sound of traffic will drive you mad and you definately cannot do any work in your room if you can't work with noise like that.
After arriving back from home after christmas me and my flat mates heard some loud hammering and chainsaw type noises very loudly. We lived on the ground floor and they were building a gym below us, these noises went on for the rest of the year and it was difficult to stay in the flat without being driven insane, again with the man at the front desk assuring me it would be over in less than a week. In april I decided to try to write them about it. I gave the letter to the man at the front desk, he then said he needed to type up the letter the people who owned the place responded with. It seemed highly suspicious, as you would think they would type the letter up themselves. The letter had denied making any noise, it was unbelievable. Since it was the last year of my degree though I needed to work constantly and just decided not to get involved in legal action.
So I left he place, I hated the people who worked there and I lived in dire conditions, you would think it was over. Well not quite, now they are trying to take £40 off my deposit and off the people I lived with. We had not damaged anything and we left the appartments in a clean state, the reason they did this they claim is because the shower heads and toilet basins needed a clean. I'm not kidding, their reason for taking £160 off us total is just that. I can assure you we left everything in a clean state, much cleaner than what we arrived to the place at.
So I'm trying to fight them to get the rest of my deposit back, but yet again that liar at the front desk is prooving extremely difficult to work with and I have to wait a week for someone else to call me back apparantly. I know they won't call though, so in a week I'll call them and see what I can do.
As a track record I'm not that fussy about places I live in, the accomodation in my first 2 years of uni was fine, I had no problems. But this company lies, steals (literally) and provides the most poor service of anyone I have ever dealt with. In conclusion, as the thread title says, DO NOT LIVE AT ELDON COURT, PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS WARNING.