Craig

Sep 13, 2020

Unsatisfactory management, bullying during Covid

Staying during Covid and alarm bells from the start. On check in, no look or copy of my passport. Sure I answered to my name but unsafe especially as a guarantor to my commitments any resident must have to behaviour and noise during the duration of stay. Management seemed nice enough but I soon discovered that the female management strategy was 'smile and surprise' if there was a request for assistance. My one harmless response to a maintenance email that was sent to me but didn't apply to me, with me saying I am not on that floor as I was no longer allocated that floor, led to a fork in the road of silly gas lighting. An awful destructive time consuming agenda of ill making ill will. I received an email with a deliberate wrong booking. And it continued. I then had my name and room number on the tenancy agreement requested as is normal for tenancy agreements and then on extending my summer stay one more time was told that I was 'creating work for the operations manager' who clearly thinks renewing a tenancy is too much for her and told my room number cannot be put on the tenancy. Then it was put back on after saying it was policy not to put it on. Where do people get the energy to do this. For these people read the William Blake poem: “Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.” So sung a little clod of clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet; But a pebble of the brook Warbled out these meters meet: “Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another’s loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.” The 'management' is self-managed meaning the facilities staff(cleaning and maintenance) report to themselves. Cleaners, hang around outside and do not clean the place properly and are also happy to smash around rooms at 8.30am on a Saturday morning. And management rarely check on cleanliness. Cleaning staff explained that slamming doors was because the door was too heavy. I got the picture. I was forced to leave my paid up front room that day because cleaners wrongly thought they could clean on Saturday morning and without notification. They had no fear of disrupting or harassing a resident with management too conflict avoiding. Worse if there are 'issues' the cleaners live on site? Same with maintenance. A form on the portal clearly has a check box too check or tick which allows maintenance permission to access a room in the residents absence. I did not check the box. Maintenance came in anyway. Then organised a bogus entrance by a temp later that day(after Pedro overheard me say to the regional operations manager(whose management style is smile and wait for something to happen) he breached my privacy and lied about the form. After having enough of this harassment I requested a part refund. The regional operations manager eventually agreed but became upset because I pointed out to her that she had not been thorough with my complaint, was wasting my paid up front time and worse had no idea how the maintenance portal form worked and knew I was right. Again with horrendous management naivety and she actually threatened an eviction, a refusal to renew my licence agreement firstly out of pure spite, then without legal knowledge of the then Covid government law about eviction and the rights of a tenancy agreement holder! Due to the jekyll and hyde behaviour of the female management I thought it better to leave believing I would be further harassed and could be on the receiving end of made up stories that I didn't have time for. As it is after receiving an email before I left 1 month ago that my refund was processed, I have now received the old chestnut of type in your bank details again. Oh and do it again, giggle, giggle. Still no refund. The issue and the reason why I am writing this is I was a mature resident and I have more experience about 'try ons' than a first year student, so to parents thinking about spending their hard earned cash, the safety, hygiene and peace of mind is poor. Also taking into account they contract an outside agency to rent rooms amongst students doing limited student checks and are a poor unprofessional outfit is an obvious concern. My hope is that the now lack of easy money Chinese students were bringing due to Covid will instill some sense of humility and a recruitment process that recruits staff who are genuinely interested in managing a student accommodation. The fees are substantial, the exchange no matter what money should be simple, reasonable expectation comfort(rooms are OK), good security(which was better than some for sure but passports must be photocopied as a basic security requirement) and respect to the resident and their privacy and their tenancy agreement must be observed and visa versa.