CoLab Apartments — Attraction in Denver

After living at Colab for about a year, I felt I should write an honest review to help others decide if they want to live here. The complex was beautiful both times I toured. Amazing amenities, including a pool, computer lab, and gym. I used the gym quite a bit, but the computer lab and pool were both closed for a majority of the time I lived there. I was promised free printing which is essential for a college student, only to have that taken away around Christmas time with no real explanation. The specific unit I toured was also immaculate. The bedrooms without windows were well lit and the unit in general was clean. This was hardly the case for the unit I moved into. I got lucky because I got a bedroom with a window, but I felt terrible for my two roommates who didn't. Their rooms were dark and hot all the time, yet we all paid the same for rent. I did not find that fair. Our unit was VERY poorly cleaned when we moved in. One of the tenants in our unit resigned so the unit was not empty, but that was not an excuse to not clean. Even after consistent cleaning for 11 months, the whole apartment remains disgusting all the time. It's dusty, the floors left the bottom of our feet black if we didn't always walk around with slippers, and the hallways are absolutely disgusting. There's trash everywhere and it causes the most disgusting smell to linger in the halls 24/7. Granted, a lot of that is because of the other people living in the building. I did not expect college students to be perfectly tidy, but the severe lack of disrespect for other tenants drives me insane. It really shouldn't be that hard to clean up one's own trash. At one point during the first half of our lease, there was even dog poop in the hallways more often than not. The cleaning lady at Colab is one of the nicest people I have ever met and I feel absolutely terrible for her. Between cleaning up pee in the elevators and spit off the walls, she deserves the world and I hardly ever see people thank her or try to make her job easier by cleaning up after themselves. Her and some members of the leasing team are this complex's only saving grace. I would like to add the maintenance team to that list, but they often caused massive headaches for myself and my roommates. First of all, our AC was broken for FIVE MONTHS, November to March. Our apartment would reach temperatures of 80+ degrees on a daily basis and we filed a work request about every three weeks only to be told it was too cold outside for anything to be done about it. If it was so cold, why was our apartment reaching such warm temperatures? When I was finally fed up enough to write the leasing office a long letter describing how frustrated I was, it took less than a day to fix and had NOTHING to do with the temperature outside. Five months of being unable to sleep because we were too warm for nothing. We also had mold in our washing machine that had been there since we first moved in. Not only were we blamed for causing it, but we received no help in getting it out. I used several different store bought washing machine cleaners to no avail. Absolutely disgusting. Finally, our ice maker/freezer broke about two months ago. The maker was not making ice and the freezer door would no longer close. After my roommate filed a work request, someone came up and "fixed it." Not even two days later it broke again. My roommate finally broke down and fixed it himself. I did appreciate the quick response to when we had bugs in the apartment however. We had ants when we first moved in and an exterminator came and took care of the issue within two days and we never had a pest problem again. Generally speaking, I found this building to be disgusting and not very well taken care of. I assume because the leasing office knows most, if not all, of their tenants are students/younger folk who are probably living on their own for the first time, they can take advantage of them. It's disappointing. The apartments are cheap IF you're willing to live with three other people and sacrifice decent...

PLEASE READ whole thing before living here: Initially this seemed like a great place to live because it is conveniently close to my college campus and downtown. The building itself is nice (though cheaply made—but what can you expect of a student apartment) But right off the bat, I have had SEVERE issues with CoLab. I was lucky to get out!

They oversold parking (by a lot) and were trying to get people (many who have driven from out of state and have nowhere else to put their car) to give up their parking. Even though I signed up very early on, and was told that I had a space, I was barely able to get one and I have to share it with another person and so we have to rearrange our cars every time we want to use them. Very inconvenient. My roommate didn't get a parking space at all and has gotten countless tickets from parking around the building. Not to mention, because of this whole parking fiasco, there is absolutely NO GUEST PARKING (outside of metered parking with 2hr limits).

I saw someone else comment this and I have had the same exact issue: "they vaguely worded how the renewal system works, so we got tricked into signing a lease for another year (that we can’t back out of even during a pandemic when I’m living elsewhere)". They made it seem that if we didn't renew in February 2020, nearly 6 months before the lease renewal date, that there would not be a spot for us and we would have to pay significantly more. THEY TOLD ME I WAS GETTING THE BEST DEAL FOR RENEWING EARLY BUT THIS WAS A LIE (I had to pay $945/mo for 4x2, now in Feb 2021 they are listing it as $745/mo).

The lease is written to protect CoLab and not the residents. There is nothing in the lease that protects from a force majeure such as the pandemic. They take advantage of students, many of whom are signing their first lease. On top of that, the management relies on residents to replace themselves if they do wish to leave (or change rooms) and pay a $500 fee. When I did find someone to replace me, they screwed me over and put her in a different room (because of their pet rules) WITHOUT INFORMING ME AT ALL. It took calling them daily for weeks, hoping to reach a manager, in order to get it sorted out.

During the pandemic, I had to file for economic hardship. I sent the paperwork to them over 10 times and they kept calling me letting me know they never got it. They act like they're being super generous by letting us do a payment plan for our rent rather the actually beneficial alternative of rent reduction (or letting us out of the renewal if circumstances change drastically due to the pandemic as they say they will do in Fall 2021 and they should have done in Fall 2020 instead of screwing over students).

All CoLab cares about is making money and getting new residents — not about the health, safety, financial well-being, and happiness of their residents. The few things they do for the residents (like prize giveaways and free food) do not make up for them taking complete advantage of us.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND LIVING AT ANY GREYSTAR FACILITY TO MY WORST ENEMY.

Also: beware of positive reviews from a while back because for a while they were giving out free T-shirts to those who would leave a positive review.

UPDATE Feb 2021: They responded to me, but if you actually call and share the problems you are having they will do nothing to help resolve the issues. I checked their site and now they are saying they will let residents out of their lease renewals for Fall 2021 if classes are moved online, but I was never given this same grace when classes ACTUALLY were moved online in Fall 2020 and ended up paying for 4.5 months of rent when I was not living there. They have no accountability because they are not owned by the university so they will do everything they can to suck the money from broke students' wallets....

Don’t lease here. I know it’s tempting because it’s right next to Auraria campus but I promise you, it’s worth a 10 minute walk to not experience this place. Greystar is an evil corporation that will take your money without earning it. I was renting a ROOM for 1700 dollars. A ROOM. I thought it was a normal price because I had nothing to compare it to and that’s what they’re banking on. I’m now renting for less a couple blocks away for a studio. I was stuck in multiple unsafe situations because of their roommate system. The most notable of which was in a domestically violent relationship and would get into arguments and punch holes in her wall late at night to the early hours of the morning. Plus her boyfriend lived there 24/7. He was home when she wasn’t and refused to even look at me. I cleaned up all of her dishes, all of her messes, everything, and I didn’t even feel safe to leave my room. They did not evict her, in fact, they had moved her to my apartment because of previous similar issues. When I brought up issues they said she would be moved, not evicted, and not because of the issues I brought up but because she wasn’t paying rent for a 2 bedroom apartment but a 4 bedroom apartment so she was going to have to move anyways. Im pretty sure those “previous issues” involved a court case and assault as well. Colab just didn’t see any value in evicting her because she was paying rent and 200 dollars for each time she had to transfer to a different room. After she was moved from my apartment she still didn’t get evicted and I had to live at my boyfriend’s house until she was gone so that I could get through finals. The management is rude and cannot handle their tenants properly. It’s always messy, they would forget to pick up garbage for days at a time leaving the hallways smelling like rotten food. All of my packages got sent back because they failed to list my preferred name a viable recipient but I still continued to get mail from previous residents the entire time I lived there. All of the appliances and furniture were cheap and broke often. My roommate’s toilet was broken for the entire 9 months I was there as well as the for each of the 3 roommates that lived in that room. All of which complained and had people come and “fix it” and yet they still blamed my roommates for breaking it. They would let themselves into your apartment without warning because technically you aren’t even renting the common area. It was loud all the time. The walls were so thin that I heard my neighbors watching tv and my upstairs neighbors rolling around their chairs sounded like they were moving thousands of pounds worth of furniture right above my head. I could hear every time they flushed the toilet. I was on the first floor and security light shined directly into my eyes at night even with the blinds closed. Just don’t rent here. Save your peace...