Canvas Walthamstow — Hotel in London

Abysmal building. Looks like a building site currently.

The room was DIRTY upon arrival. There was yellow mold on the ceiling and in all the nooks and crannies in the bathroom (which is something you'll have to fight with throughout the year as the extractor fan is useless and was covered in dust). The shower was dirty and had limescale. The shower hole was broken. The fridge hadn't been defrosted or cleaned and stunk of the last persons food. The kitchen sink was so dirty it was BROWN and had to be bleached to get back to its original colour.

The mattress was disgusting. Students had to complain in order for them to be changed, meaning they would have left us with those nasty mattresses! When getting the new mattresses I saw staff pulling off the plastic before dragging the clean, new mattresses on the dirty floors, so mine ended up having black stains on it. They also ordered the wrong size mattress!

Every time the toilet is flushed black flakes come out of it. Despite cleaning it constantly the toilet STILL produces black flakes. It stinks despite buying rim blocks.

People come into the room EVERY MONTH for room inspections or "maintenance". It's a cheek given the state they give you your room in and the fact that the building is a dump. Even if your door is locked staff can burst in any time (yet if you have a visitor they'll be refused entry and interrogated as if they committed a crime, with staff acting as if your "permission" and "privacy" is important when they don't care about it themselves!)

Maintenance do not do their checks properly and touch your belongings. They lie and say they checked something when they didn't and management do nothing when you tell them.

The washing machines are filthy. I've seen scum, plasters, bank cards, bits of food, hair and more in a machine that's supposed to CLEAN. When flagging up this issue I was told they can't get any more machines. Who said anything about that? They just need to be cleaned on a regular basis, even just once a week. But no the machines are NEVER cleaned. And they cost a fortune—£3.40 to wash your clothes for 39 minutes!

The building STINKS. Even if your room smells nice, the smell from the corridor seeps in (because the "fire doors" aren't flush to the floor like they're supposed to be), especially when it's windy!

Rubbish gets left for ages. The cleaners don't clean the individual floors, only the main floor downstairs. Those nasty q tips have been on the floor for 2 months now. "A Block" is the worst to live in because the refuse area is attached to the block. There are flies everywhere because of it. The corridor it's in stinks. There's rats/mice in the refuse area.

The doors in here were broken for 2 months and you had to fight to get them to open. Management said nothing and offered no solutions. The doors in general are a mess. You're forced to use an app on your phone to open the doors that takes 5 minutes to actually work. Good luck if it's raining or you're being followed. Get a key card when you can, it opens doors in seconds

Staff are awful at their jobs. Any issue you have in this building you have to speak to them about EVERY DAY and not just by email otherwise it will NEVER get sorted. I have no idea what they're getting paid to manage when they can't do basic admin like record a complaint. It's not my responsibility as a resident to have to flag up the same issue every day. I should only have to tell you once and it be dealt with.

They also lie. Never delete anything and keep a record, especially when it comes to payments because they WILL try to scam you out of your money. Pay them through bank transfer where possible.

Also my rent went up from £13,770 to £14,994 which is an 8% increase, for a shoddy 17 sqm room! The rent will increase by a similar amount each year. It's a criminal amount of money to pay for a dump

Rent private instead. You will not know peace in...

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! I never leave bad reviews but this has been an unbearable experience.

Canvas Walthamstow are incompetent at dealing with refunds, it’s borderline scamming behaviour.

I correctly cancelled my booking within the 3 day decision period back in June still have not received my refund (I’ve never been to the accommodation or used any of their facilities, I simply cancelled because I received a better offer elsewhere). I have gone back and forth with them over email over 15 times now and have received a different excuse every time as to why I haven’t received my refund. Every time I have been the one who has contacted and chased them up despite them telling me they would contact me with updates. I have been told something different every time by a different responder. They do not provide any proof of processing refunds so we are just meant to take their word for it but their word constantly changes. Clearly there is no cohesive understanding in their team as to how or when refunds are processed. I am provided generic responses and empty promises every single time, it’s disgusting and unprofessional. I was initially very understanding and patient but now I just feel like they’ve taken advantage of that. The deposit is not a small amount either, it is a substantial amount, especially for students and it’s gross how they are so quick to take your deposit (only allowing a short 3 day decision making period) but can take over months to process a refund. I genuinely believe they have not processed my refund at all and don’t plan to either.

[edit 23/09/23] Following their reply to this review, I have contacted them by email twice and have not received a response. I contacted their live chat and although the representative was understanding, I was told I would be contacted ASAP and am still waiting 2 days later.

[edit 03/10/23] I have finally received my refund. However, my initial review still stands. The whole process has been frustrating and exhausting and I genuinely believe I wouldn't have received a refund at all if i didn't continue...

Do not choose this place. I wonder whether genius designers and managers of this hall ever had any idea of what it’s like to live in one of the rooms. Rooms and kitchens surrounded by all kinds of insects, can’t leave the window open for a bit otherwise mosquitoes and flies will swarm into the room. Corridors smells like trash. Rooms, kitchens and common areas looks clean at the first sight and not that clean if you have a second look. No physical key because the hall does not have enough physical keys for everyone, ie reluctant to spend on residents’ basic, widely requested need. Only a malfunctioning key app and you’ll probably spend 10 minutes trying to make through a series of doors before you finally arrive at your room.

The design of rooms is absolute genius. Very limited storage space in the wardrobe and the shelf. The most, most brilliant thing is the motion sensor light in the bathroom. The light goes off every few minutes, and you need to rock the shower door to reactive the light, or you can shower in darkness. No switch for the bathroom exhaust fan either. It runs day and night non-stop, which produces an eternal noise like someone’s using a vacuum to clean the corridor (which I hope they’d do).

Also if your room’s window faces south, trains will pass by regularly with a great noise all day and even after midnight. It is beside a school and every morning the children play and scream in the playground just next to the building. If noise bothers you, then there’s a whole lot of different noises you can enjoy.

In all, no point for choosing this place. There are far more alternatives with better price, better location and/or...