Student Living - Vivida — Attraction in Melbourne

The worst accommodation I have encountered. Please don't apply unless you want to stay with pigeon droppings🤮🤮🤮.

I would like to share my experience with Unilodge Vivida in order to provide future students and current residents with some reference. I chose to apply to Unilodge because I had previously lived in Tasmania Students Accommodation for 4 years and had a great experience with lovely staff. Since it was my first time in Melbourne, I selected Unilodge as my first choice. However, they have disappointed me and left a very negative impression since the application process began.

Even though they had "Inspection Today" signs stick on the doors, when you call them, inspections are ALWAYS unavailable. They will come up with various excuses to brush you off, such as no available rooms or full booking for inspections this month. They would suggest you rely on the virtual tour on their website as a reference for your application. Because of my previous positive experience with student accommodations in Tasmania, I had high trust in student accommodations, but Unilodge proved to be a disappointment in reality.

Besides that, the staff at Vivida were very inconsiderate. I submitted my room application in November 2023 for a room starting in February 2024. According to the website, the start date for occupancy was listed as February 13, 2024. However, in reality, I was given a contract starting from January 10, and there was no prior communication or discussion about this change. When I inquired further, they told me that there were no other rooms available and that this was my only option. I was forced to either accept or give up my offer. I was afraid of coming to Melbourne without any place to stay, so I ended up paying in advance and wasting one month's rent. After I moved in, when I communicated with another resident, he mentioned that he wanted to move in around January 10 but was given a contract starting from February 14.

The room was not clean, and I was assigned to the worst location with a balcony full of pigeon droppings. What particularly dissatisfied me was that they NEVER mentioned on their website that there were two buildings, Building A and Building B. Building A is the worst location in the entire Accommodation, with balconies filled with pigeon droppings. Unfortunately, I was assigned to the worst room (you can see the video I posted). My room lacked sunlight as the building in front blocked all the sunlight. I had to keep the lights on almost every day, and the balcony was covered in pigeon droppings. They never took care of it, and even pigeons laid eggs under my air conditioning unit. Since pigeons can carry diseases, I dare not open the window. This was never mentioned on their website, and on the first day of my arrival in Melbourne, encountering such a room completely shattered my mood. I felt extremely depressed.

Additionally, their laundry facilities were extremely inconvenient. Residents in Building A had to go to the fifth floor of Building B to do their laundry. It cost $5 for one wash and $4 for one dry, but even after an hour of drying, your clothes wouldn't be completely dry. The machines only accepted coins, so you had to spend an additional $20 per week on laundry. Lastly, there were no trash bins on each floor. You had to run down to the garbage room in the parking center to dispose of your trash. It was the first time I had seen such inconvenience in daily life.

I have attached some pictures and videos for your reference. The staff is the worst, and the presence of disgusting pigeons is a...

Unilodge Vivida was a great experience and convenient location. Tram stops, Glenferrie train station, Swinburne University,  Woolies & Coles supermarkets, Restaurants( my favourite was OSHA * should try out those lovely dishes) are just right on your doorstep.

Unfortunately, the staff of Unilodge Vivida haven’t met the service standards of their business;

1. most of them are super rude may be since we are INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS- most of the CSM’s are so impolite ( even the way they respond to emails) .
2. Units aren’t as good as the pictures shown in website ( I had so many issues with my unit - the carpets were torn , there was no toilet cubical rubber on the bottom to prevent water spreading outside the cubical, kitchen sink water leak , power tripping issue).

-But a very nice girl named Eleanor really did a great job in helping with the sink leak and getting it fixed in a short period of time. -Even the first ever person Isuru, who helped me with the Unilodge Vivida enrollment was so kind and helpful. -Also Bijal Shah, helping me out with the last minute arrangements before leaving Unilodge. I’m very much thankful for the above mentioned names where it would have been a much lovelier experience being with Unilodge if there were just people like them who gives the best customer service.

-Also in saying that, when the tripping issue was occurred the CSM asked me to fix it by myself according to the given instructions saying it’s a problem with one of my appliances and to arrange an electrician I will be charged . They didn’t take much of a care at the beginning then it started to trip the whole floor power around midnight for two days, thereafter they took this into consideration since the same issue occurred for the neighboring tenant of my unit. This is very disappointing that they don't care about the tenants as I was advised to fix it by myself to avoid charges (if anybody needs reference I have all the emails).

Even when I emailed and requested the team to inform the electricity provider about my contract closure (as Unilodge offer the electricity provider OC Energy which is now Origin Energy) along with the contract, the CSM responded back saying it’s not their problem which is very rude since it is their responsibility or should have notified me in this matter. I’m wondering if this is the best way of offering customer service ? whereas I have been a tenant for 1 year (Riversdale) and 6 months (Hawthorn). Very disappointed!

p.s. I myself have worked as a community associate for a company, where customer service, keeping our clients happy as our main priority.

But I also have to mention, prior to being a tenant at Unilodge Vivida Hawthorn I was a lodger for an year at Unilodge Riversdale , was as well a great experience , superb staff - kind, nice, available and so helpful. Even the lodgers were very friendly ( indeed friends in need).

Hope this won’t happen to any of the fellow friends who’ll be joining soon and who are already tenants at unilodge. Yet it was a great location!!

PLEASE DON’T TREAT...

I lived at Unilodge for 2 and a half years, and to sum it up it was one of the most difficult experiences I've had. I won't complain about the small room and sky-high rent, because I went in expecting it knowing I had no other options.

What I did not expect the many undeclared fees and constantly increasing prices.

Despite having so many residents many basic mistakes occur - one time my rent was split along two months, and they forced me to pay the remaining half of the current months rent because they "can't change it now". I was forced to pay 1.5 times my rent because of an accounting error.

Worse yet were consistent building evacuations at 3am in the morning because of negligent residences smoking in their rooms.

The office is very regularly unattended too, they post a sign saying "be back in 30" but may not return for hours upon hours. So don't rely on the office being staffed to pay your rent or get a problem fixed.

Despite everything upon trying to leave Unilodge tenancy transfer was a disaster. They failed to give me a something as basic as a checklist and everything that could've gone wrong went wrong. They failed to make it clear what was required of me and the new tenant was nearly not even aloud to move in because they didn't schedule the cleaners that I paid for well in advance.

Most reviews of Unilodge vidia are from people who aren't residents, and those reviews who are from Unilodge residents make it very clear they're...