In 2013 I took a 12 month lease with UniLodge, at the building on Raleigh Street. I will start with the positives of my time here, for one thing the social atmosphere was fun and friendly, and sometimes quite rowdy and loud, which may be a deal breaker or a deal maker depending on who you are. One thing that was quite strange was that many of the residents were a lot older and were not students, despite Unilodge being 'exclusive' to university students. This was no bother to anyone, I would say it was more their loss, having to put up with all the young 18- 20 somethings running around.
Back to the positives, its a lovely building, it has a lovely view of chapel street and it is cleaned regularly. However, that being said be prepared to be woken up at 8 or 9 in the morning once a week by the cleaning lady banging her vacuum against your door as she cleans the halls.
My room was a 'large' studio with balcony, and as I will admit it was a little bigger than the smaller ones, it was still very, very small. For the price of $1,063 dollars a month, they are really taking advantage of people who need to live there but can hardly afford it. However, all student accommodation is a rip off, so I wont hold that against them. I do not recommend getting a balcony, for the added price it was relatively useless, too small to even sit outside. I only ever used it for temporarily storing full rubbish bags until I went downstairs to the bins.
Another thing that is a complete rip off is the lock out fee, I believe it was around $40 during the day time to get back in the room and $80 at night. And by night I mean later than 5PM. Over the corse of the year I ended up paying around $200 in lockout fees, when only getting locked out three times. Its not like its a terrible burden on any of the staff to unlock our door, literally all they would do is come out of their room, a floor down go up the elevator and unlock my door with their master key. AFTER of course, I signed a contract saying I will pay them $80. If the RA happens to be out at work or Uni when you are locked out your only option is to go to the Carlton office and pick up a spare key, which is around 30 minuets each way on a tram.
From the very beginning, I had problems with the staff at Unilodge. They did not bother to make sure all my furniture was their when I moved in, I was missing a desk chair and a lounge chair. So essentially, I had no chairs in my 'fully furnished apartment'. I didn't mind at the time, I put it in a report and called them about it too. They promised to send it in the next week, they did not. I called them 2 more times after, and never did I get the furniture I was meant to get.
Another thing all students got was a swipe key to get in the building and into the bin area, they didn't give me one with my other keys, saying they had to order more and I would get mine shortly. I didn't. Not that it was an issue getting in, I could use my master key, but when going to the bins I couldn't get back into the building. Each and every time, I would have to go back out onto the street and back in through the front door again, and it got very infuriating. I asked countless times for a swipe key, they said they would send me one, they are ordering more in etc ect. In fact when I resigned my lease, the office lady told me "We should have some in soon, at the moment the new residents are getting them". Basically saying, the new residences were priority over someone who had been already without one for 6 months. Of course, I never got it anyway.
The problems with the staff never stopped, when I had one week left on my lease I contacted the office asking them what I have to do when I leave she told me "Come in on the 18th and drop off your keys and bond claim". So I did, I got out of my apartment by 11am, moved everything to the new place, collected my keys and form and drove to the Carlton office around 1. I found a park, paid for the park, went in and... the office was dead, completely closed. I was furious, especially since I was leaving Melbourne monday and wouldn't be back to drop them off another time.
In essence, I would say unilodge is a big organisation who are only concerned with the numbers, how many students they have and how much money they are making. They are not the least bit concerned about anyones individual needs. Had they bothered to give me the things that I was meant to receive, like everyone else. I would have been much happier with my stay.
1 and 1/2 stars out of 5. And thats only because its a nice new building. read more