Apartment Review for University Palms

University Palms Review:
The University Palms is the absolute worst place you can live in all of Hilo, possibly all of Hawai’i! I have rented in a few spots, and these are the worst managers I have ever met, if you could call it meet. Cindy Madden appears to be nice (dont let that fool you), her husband is an absolute jerk off. His way of introducing himself to people is "Hi, I dont know you, I need your money" or” Hi, you need to pay me." Since I dont know his name I will refer to him from now on as Richard. **** is the cheapest landlord I have ever had. The University Palms is so rundown, and things have not been replaced here in years. We have a refrigerator that is rusty, moldy smelling beds, carpets that are worn and brown, shower heads from the 1970's, broken coffee tables, old stoves, broken couches, broken furniture, couches with holes and tears, termite infested cabinets.... there are much more problems, but this is all I can see from where I am sitting.
That is only the start of the list of the terrible things that go on in the University Palms! The reason I cant name off more things is because the wireless internet is non existent. We are now a month into school, and the Maddens have not fixed anything. I only have internet directly inside my front door, and I am one of the lucky ones. Dont ever think you will get internet in your bedroom or at your desk. We have emailed and called numerous complaints, and have yet to receive one response in the past month. The best we've gotten is it will be fixed in two days; thirty days have passed so far without a resolution in sight. Even though internet is guaranteed in the contract, and Im sure every student needs it, this is way down of the University Palms priority list (the 1st thing on their list is stealing your money followed lying to you).
Next, every picture or floor plan you have seen on the internet is false. There are no single or double apartments. It is either four shared rooms, or eight. All the floor plans are double what you see. Each room for 2 people does have its own key, but many of these keys work in other doors, further proof of how shady this place is. When I first moved in, the resident manager brought a box of keys and just tried one after the other for 30 minutes. This should have been a sign for me to run.
Another sign for me to run should have been the state of the rooms when I first walked in. The fridge was rusty, the door locks loose, and everything was sticky. There is absolutely no chance this place was ever cleaned before I came here. The floor was a sticky mess, the kitchen had ants, and there was food on the floor. The bathroom is a whole other story; the shower was covered in black mold and dirt, the toilets had pubes in it, and there was left over soap from the previous tenant (probably because he left in such a hurry!). The shower head was so moldy water would not flow through it. Another girl has mold so bad it clogs the sink! And let me remind you, this is all before we moved in. What’s more atrocious is the rumor that they are not going to refund our security deposit so they can charge us a cleaning fee when we leave! At one point **** walked into my room uninvited to tell me to stop cleaning because “this place just gets dirty, and that I was wasting my time.” More proof **** Madden is a thief. This is the most unsanitary place I have moved into, and I plan on raising **** if they don’t refund me every penny of my security deposit.
That brings me to the kitchen. Besides the fact that there were ants and food lying everywhere, there was chewed up wood under the sink that I can only assume are some type of termite. My refrigerator has stopped working as of this morning, causing all my food to go bad, over $50 in losses. Asking around I have found out that numerous refrigerators cannot operate at the right temperature, and a few more that are completely broken like mine. The stove is a firebomb waiting to happen. One burner does not turn on at all; the other one lets out a flame three inches high, coming out five inches from the center of the stove. It’s only luck that I have not burned myself. My roommate and myself have both sent emails, along with two phone calls telling **** the dangerous situation; it has been two weeks without a reply. I really hope this place goes up in flames! (I have since noticed that there are no batteries in the fire alarms, this must be illegal and dangerous considering the students that live here.)
The bedrooms are another ridiculous situation. The carpets have never been replaced, and have the smell to prove it. The beds feel disgusting, and the walls have mold, dirt, or a mystery yellow substance on every bedroom wall I have seen here. There are cockroaches in nearly every drawer I have opened. The only one that didn’t have a cockroach had a pair of woman’s panties. I honestly cant make this ******** up, and I have the pictures to prove it. Many of the windows have handles that are broken or missing, and cannot be closed. Every other light fixture is missing a light bulb. The desks are filthy and wobbly.
This section needs a paragraph all its own, and it has to deal with the rat the girls have in their room. It has been 3 weeks since it was first spotted, and there have been no good measures to deal with it. I feel I am one of the lucky ones in that I only have rat **** on one of the beds in the apartment, not the actual rat.
The laundry room is another source of anguish. The first weeks that I was here, the washing machines were out of service. Online it states there are laundry rooms on both the first and third floors; never have I seen a laundry room on the first floor. There are three washing machines on the third floor, two of which are broken. We were told all three were fixed, only to find one break as soon as the first person put money in it, and that they lied about the second one being fixed at all. I shouldn’t need to say at this point that the room is filthy, and there are dirty puddles on the ground.
That first part of the University Palms Review has only to do with the initial conditions at move in, worse have been developing. After asking a few students, the payment plan gets more and more sketch. When you see the price online (which is way way too high for this shanty town), you would think that it is divided into equal payment each month. Half the students paid in full before move in, the other half had 3 payments due in August, Sept and October, in the amount of $781.25, and we do not pay in the months of November or December, **** of course made us write all three checks on the spot, and had them dated for the correct months. Never had I heard of such a payment plan. One girl and her parents raised enough **** that she does a month to month plan.
This place is constantly noisy. The resident managers do nothing if your music is blasting during the middle of the day. The reaction by others is to simply turn their music up louder. Others are forced to study elsewhere on campus (which makes sense since there is no internet here anyways). On a Tuesday at 10pm, I can hear the music from 3 doors away echoing in my room, on weekends the music and bass is blasting 10 times louder.
Another MAJOR problem is the owners and managers enter our rooms without advanced notice. I have also seen them enter a room numerous times without even knocking. They simply take out their keys, open the door, and walk right in. I have no idea why they entered; neither do the tenants of these rooms; it is doubtful the student actually knows of their entry. No explanation or advanced notice was ever given, and no it was not an emergency. The owner, ****, has also walked straight into my room, and started painting the walls; no notice, no knock; next thing I know I am breathing in paint fumes. This intrusion has become a major problem because there have recently been thefts of large amounts of money, behind previously locked doors.
The list goes on and on, from horrible living conditions to questionable business practices. Nowhere on their website is the address of University Palms given, nor is an address given on where to mail any deposits, payments, or complaints.