Everyone tries to find the best deal they can when looking for apartments close to UK’s campus. There have been recent debates focusing on how many students can live in a house and whether students are disrupting local areas. But who’s out looking after whether students are living in safe conditions? The responsibility is left up to word of mouth and apartment review sites online.
Well, I’m writing to the Kernel to try and save future UK students from the hell I have been living in since October. I live off Hagerman Court in one of the houses that have been chopped up into two separate apartments. The management and maintenance companies that take care of these properties are the worst I have ever experienced since living in Lexington. I have had several water leaks, a cracked ceiling and walls, cabinets falling off the wall, the hot water barely works, and because of shady construction, there are holes large enough under the baseboard for large insects to crawl through.
I live in a one bedroom apartment, and my heating bill this winter totaled over $250 a month. The response from maintenance was a month wait for water leaks, and they told me the cracks were just how the building was made. Any complaints taken to the management company are dealt with by giving you the number for maintenance and telling you it is not their concern.
After the rain storm at the beginning of May, I had two inches of standing water in my living room, with more coming in. Maintenance was called for four hours before they came, and I found out that since my gutters had not been cleaned, water started pouring through my floors. It was the Sunday before Finals Week, and I had to spend hours trying to keep my things from being ruined.
I just want to spread the world of a management company trying to take advantage of students near campus. They provide below-optimal housing and horrible service after you have signed a lease.
Lyndsey Eldridge
political science senior
Lindsey
What part of OLD HOUSE did you not understand? In UK student housing as in life you get what you pay for. Most of the old houses near UK have no insulation in the walls or ceilings, and single pane windows. After decades of shifting on their old stone and concrete foundations these houses have cracks around the doors and windows. It should be rather obvious that these houses are energy consuming monsters.
Next time you go to rent near UK campus look at some of the newer units that were built as apartments and not converted into apartments. In the end the monthly rental cost is the same, if not cheaper, after adding in your sky high utility bills and you will have a much happier campus living experience.
UK has a great library, that’s what really sucked me in, but that’s the only thing good about the school. No one cares about learning, they only care about sports and only mens sports. Classes are empty on game nights and usually the day after, and the professors plan for this and make that class a waste of time, so even if you have the decency to show up, the professors don’t have the decency to punish the slackers.
So many people that go there are either in a sorority/ frat or are a redneck idiot (or both). Also, most of the girls are only there for their Mrs. degree and it’s obvious. Everyone belongs to their own clique, even the hippies are assholes.
The campus is alive at night, but with loud annoying parties. I was walking home from a test at night (the test was at night, but it was a morning class, why?) and I could hear every word this douchebag was saying from a frat house two blocks away, on a Tuesday night!
The dorms are tiny and if someone takes a crap you can smell it in your room, even if your room is down the hall! The washing machines were broken for two weeks and there aren’t enough to begin with. They have fire drills at 11 o’clock at night and you have to leave even if you’re in the shower. If you live in the towers, which most people do, you’ll have to walk all the way up the stairs afterward. Also, because there are so many rooms, no one knows if you actually live there and people will let anyone in. Many people I know have had things stolen from their room and one person was in his room while a thief tried to bust in the door.
If you are serious about your education at all, don’t go to this school. If you are a frat boy looking to do coke and gang rape an innocent girl, however, this might be the place for you.
Mr. Wassmer, to rent out homes as ramshackle as is described here goes beyond any reasonable excuse of “caveat emptor.” It sounds as though you’ve managed a slum, and if there are not enough housing alternatives better than yours around campus, then simply moving somewhere better will not be an option. You are contributing to the students living in squalor and ought to be ashamed of yourself.
What a shame. Here I was considering moving to one of your properties. Not any more!