REVIEW: UNITE STUDENTS ACCOMMODATION LONDON

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Hi guys! 

Happy Tuesday! As a response to a few of you guys that read my med school story post here is my London UNITE STUDENTS ACCOMMODATION review. I know some of you will be starting university in September so if any of you are anything like me, you'd appreciate any information about student accommodation. If you'd like a more general "how to survive student living" post, let me know!


So, I lived in Unite Students accommodation for a year while doing my Masters so I'll let you know about my experience. 
I was pretty late with sorting myself out accommodation wise - I left it to about a month before to start looking for somewhere to live...Anyway, Unite Students came to the rescue! They had rooms available in their North Lodge accommodation in Tottenham Hale so I was on that sharpish. 


I only had to pay a £250 deposit to secure my room so I was pretty happy. I signed up for a 50 week tenancy because my Masters was literally ONE YEAR LONG. There was an option to sign up for a 40 week tenancy but I needed a longer one. At the time of application (August 2014) it was cheaper (when worked out per month) to get the 50 week tenancy than the 40 week tenancy. 
How the rooms are set up: Flats are made up of 7 - 10 rooms (this was in North lodge and Emily Bowes Court which are near to each other. I'm not sure about the other buildings in and out of London). Each room is ensuite meaning you have your own bathroom. The only thing you have to share with others is the kitchen which is pretty well equipped and in general has two of everything (fridge, freezer, sinks, cookers, ovens) and lots of cupboard space so there is enough space for everyone. 

My bed was nearly a double (say 3/4 size). It could fit two people very comfortably. I also had a reading light and a mood light!

Noticeboard galore! As you can see, my noticeboard was pimpin! Complete with a picture I got in South Africa on my elective. 

The pros and cons about living with Unite Students (in particular North Lodge)
DISCLAIMER: This is MY HONEST OPINION about MY EXPERIENCE. It may or may not be generalisable to other students. Also bear in mind that I lived in this accommodation while I was effectively a post graduate so my perspective (and standards!) may be different to a first year. I was not PAID to write this review. 

PROS:


  • GOOD TRANSPORT LINKS: As I said, I lived in North Lodge which was a 5 minute walk to Tottenham Hale tube and overground station (Zone 3). The tube station is served by the Victoria Line, which, (when there were no tube strikes (!), took me 35 minutes from door to door to my uni in central London. The overground, served by Abellio Greater Anglia, takes 10-15 minutes to Liverpool Street, 50 -75 minutes to Cambridge and also goes to Stanstead airport.

  • GREAT LOCATION: North Lodge is a five minute walk away from Tottenham Hale Retail Park which has a lot of take away shops (Pizza Hut, Burger King, Greggs, KFC), and normal shops (Boots, Wilkinsons, ASDA, Staples, B and Q...). There is an ASDA superstore in Bruce Grove which was a 15 minute walk. You could also get the tube or bus to Walthamstow Central which had a mall with more shops. The transport links also allowed me to go to all the other shopping places in London (Westfield in Stratford, Oxford Street, etc) 
This was my attempt at trying to show you outside my window! As you can see, the station is really close. If you look in the distance, you can vaguely make out a Currys? That's how close Tottenham Hale Retail park was. 
  • ALL BILLS INCLUDED: Wifi, heating, water, council tax (as long as you're student), etc were all included in the rent. This is definitely handy especially when living in London because it is EXPENSIVE!

  • RENT PAYMENT OPTIONS: The total rent could be paid in one go or in up to 8 instalments so there was some flexibility.

  • SOUND PROOF WALLS: Trust me, this is such a good thing in student accommodation...

  • ENSUITE BATHROOM: Nothing like your own bathroom! If you've experienced living with other students before, having your own bathroom honestly is probably the best thing about UNITE STUDENTS accommodation (for me anyway!)
The best picture I could get of my bathroom! In general the bathroom is pretty small but you have all the essentials (shower, mirror, sink, toilet...). The shower was pretty good - good pressure, hot water 24/7, all you need basically

  • BLOCK BOOKING: If you book early enough, you and your friends could ask to be placed in the same flat which alleviates some of those lonesome feelings!

  • COMMUNAL AREAS: Areas like the kitchen and common room were pretty good. I never ventured into the common room so I can't give my opinion about it but the kitchen was well stocked. You just needed to bring your plates, pans and cups, etc (or you could buy a ready made kitchen package directly from UNITE - but the quality of the things in the package was poor) 

  • CLEANING: Technically, a cleaner was supposed to come and clean communal areas every two weeks...Note that I said "technically". I'll leave you imagine what I mean here!

  • MAINTENANCE: This was another good thing about UNITE. Anything that went wrong in your room (lighting, plumbing, etc) could be reported via an online form and would be sorted out within 24-72 hours. The maintenance guys were also extremely nice and courteous. 

  • SECURITY: After reception working ours (8pm - 8am) a security guard would be in reception all night (technically...). So if you needed to report something like noise or smoking, etc, you could do it even in the middle of the night.

CONS

  • EXPENSIVE: Obviously living in London is expensive anyway so a company offering ensuite student accommodation that is inclusive of all bills will be charging a lot of money. For me, the total rent for the year came out to be about £8000. North Lodge is one of the cheaper UNITE STUDENTS accommodations because its not in Central London. Some areas in Central London would probably amount to double what I paid. 

  • PASSIVE SMOKING: This was a big issue for me. The self proclaimed "zero tolerance" policy regarding smoking in rooms or communal areas was more like 50% tolerance. The way that the flats are built means that bathroom pipes in adjoining rooms are connected. This meant that if anyone smoked in their bathroom or anywhere in their room, you would be able to smell it was well. This was the same for when someone in the room below yours smoked (I lived on the 11th floor). This issue was raised COUNTLESS times by the non smoking people in my flat but there was nothing that could be done. Staff knew exactly who smoked but they didn't do anything about it. On one occasion I asked a member of staff to confront someone who was smoking in their room - the member of staff was too scared to even knock on the person's door...He said the UNITE STUDENTS policy does not allow staff to just enter students' rooms even if to enforce a rule...

  • NO RECYCLING FACILITIES: This is not a horrendous issue but for someone like me who likes people to be true to their word - this annoys me slightly. UNITE rave about having recycling facilities in their accommodation. In my year of living there, I did not see any such facility. EVERY bit of rubbish was put in the same bins and taken away by the same truck with no separation. 

  • STAFF: This will be an issue everywhere you go. The number of incompetent staff at North Lodge far outnumbered those that could actually help you. The incompetent ones tended to be the rudest ones as well which was annoying. 

  • POOR COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE: At times when I and other flat members needed to complain about noise, or smoking, etc, the procedure was poor. The option we had was to either tell the incompetent staff, who would do nothing about the complaint, or ring up the UNITE Head office, who would direct you back to the incompetent staff... 

  • SOUND PERMEABLE DOORS: I mentioned sound proof walls, but the doors where sound permeable. This meant that if anyone decided to have a phone conversation or play music in the corridor, you would hear it. Anyone coming back late in the night was audible, anyone who decided to have a rave in the corridor was audible, so if you're sensitive to noise, or you like your sleep, take note of this one!

  • EXPENSIVE LAUNDRY FACILITIES: Cost was £2.70 per wash load and £1.50 for driers..If you're a student, this adds to your meagre budget.

  • NOISE: By this I mean noise from the flat itself. Some of the flats (and I was unlucky enough to live in one of them) had really loud pipe noise. I mentioned before that the bathroom pipes where all connected...Initially I lived in a room that was on the first floor but I had to ask to be moved because the noise was ridiculous. Everytime anyone showered or flushed their toilet, I would hear it - this was at anytime (4am, 1am, 3pm, etc). Now guys, the noise was not your normal, calm, running water type noise. No. This was a building falling/ tree felling type noise that would wake me up from my sleep. Suffice to say I moved to the top floor so I haven't got this problem anymore (but I feel bad for those people living below me!). So if you can, try to book a room that is in one of higher flats.
Overall, would I stay there again? For the location and my own bathroom, yes, for everything else, not in a million years! 

Thats all folks! I hope I've been comprehensive enough. If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate, as always, let me know and I'm happy to oblige! 

Until next time! 

Sam 

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 Additional pictures (taken on the night I moved out)





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