The Collective Old Oak — Hotel in London

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE

Positive things I enjoyed:

1. Made so many friends and connections as it felt like a Uni accommodation, but for professionals and students too.
2. They celebrated festivals and events from a wide variety of cultures around the world.
3. Onboarding process was fast.
4. Maintenance and cleaning were super fast and efficient. Kudos to the maintenance team!
5. Facilities such as Library, Open spaces to work from home, sauna, cinema room and a terrace to chill with friends.
6. Close proximity to bus stops and all major train lines in London.
7. Good gym facilities.

Negative things that I did not like:

1. Every week there would be an issue in the building (No hot water, lifts broken, wifi issues, fire alarm going on at random times and ringing forever! And many more!)

2. Summer is an absolute nightmare as it gets really hot in the rooms and there is NO AIR-CONDITIONING + Windows don't open that much.

3. The credit control teams takes FOREVER to respond to emails. Good luck getting an urgent response from them! They took almost a month to reply to me concerning my deposit! On top of that, the credit control team is managed by one person ONLY! They also invent so many excuses such as: "Systems were down", "Credit Control Team is overloaded", etc. Yet they don't invest to get more people in that team.

4. The parties they organise feel like they are on a budget. Many people don't show up at all.

5. The laundry has some broken machines which take your money but don't wash your clothes! People have been reporting this to the building and Circuit Laundry for a year now and still nothing was done!

6. There is an abominable amount of noise throughout the day and at night from cars honking, trains passing by, construction and the nearby dump. Found it so hard to sleep at night!

7. The rooms are ridiculously small! So much so that it forces you to go outside and socialise. Same can be said for the kitchen.

8. Lack of security control where at some point, weird people started entering the building. People who did not even live in the building. At one time, the card scanner at the front door was broken too, so any one could enter and take the lifts.

9. Some receptionists can be moody when talking to you. Feels like you are annoying them.

10. There is literally nothing in the surroundings other than an overpriced convenience store and a polluted river.

11. Storage under the beds require you to do lots of efforts to open. It is not practical at all and is a huge pain to remove something from there! Could have made use of a spring to suspend the opening of the storage.

12. Rent felt extremely overpriced for such poor facilities. I did not feel that I obtained value for money.

13. When temperatures were dropping for the winter, they did not want to turn on the heaters. They wanted to wait a little more weeks to turn the heaters on.

14. No proper management of the building at all as it feels that people's feedback were not really taken onboard and they go about trying to save as much costs as possible by regulating a few stuff.

15. So many people were leaving the building and trying to find replacement tenants throughout the year because of the aforementioned issues. Heard of so many more problems with this accommodation, but cannot testify if true as I have not personally experienced them.

16. So much dust and air pollution from cars and constructions nearby. These end up in your room regardless if windows are opened or not. There is an air vent in the room which also appears to blow dust slowly in the rooms. Seems to not have been...

My girlfriend rented at the Collective for a year and while there are some perks, generally the whole experience was horrendous. I'll start with the good points first - the location has pretty good transport links, it's a 10min walk to North Acton and there is a 24 hour bus service which runs regularly. The other is the restaurant downstairs, the food and service is great (perhaps a little overpriced) and they can also deliver directly to the rooms. It didn't really come as a surprise to me when I later found out that the restaurant was not part of Collective and run by someone completely different. I could never understand why the restaurant was run so well but the Collective seemed to be run so poorly - this explains why. Now onto the not so good. The area is an absolute dump, very unsafe with a high rate of knife crime. I wouldn't advise anyone to walk home from the station or along the canal path late at night. The security is very laid back at the entrance. Although you need a key card to get in, the people working at reception are too busy gossiping to notice anything out of the ordinary going on. That brings me onto the reception/lobby area. Overall it seems quite well presented, some thought has gone into the decor and it's a nice shared space. Unfortunately this is completely let down by the massively unprofessional reception staff. They are for the most part completely disinterested in the residents, it's very clicky so they will speak to come people and completely ignore others. I think they think they're running a 6th Form common room as opposed to rental appartments (apartment is a bit to generous if I'm honest). There are two lifts, in my experience nearly one is always out of service so you might be better off taking the stairs...hopefully you aren't on one of the top floors. Most of the rooms have a tiny shared kitchen area, it is basic at best so don't expect to be cooking anything complicated. As the kitchen is shared you better hope you are sharing with someone considerate and tidy, in my experience this isn't the case and you won't find your efforts reciprocated. The room is incredibly small, barely enough for 1 person let alone 2. The bathroom is like a portaloo, you have to keep the door open to bend down. I've seen dog kennels that are bigger. I think my biggest gripe is around the cost per month vs what you actually get in return. For 1200/month I wouldn't expect the hot water to be unavailable for 2 whole days, nor the Internet being out for 5 days. Their response to the latter being to provide username and passwords belonging to other residents... Or failing that, to contact the service provider directly, as they clearly couldn't find the time in their busy schedule... Which in my experience consists of sitting in the restaurant ordering gin and tonics. For those people that deem the Collective to be a safe and secure place, I’d just like to draw your attention to the email that was sent to residents regarding the sexual assault that took place in the ground floor toilets which just happen to be right next to the lifts and reception. Clearly the ever vigilant reception would have seen this....or not. In summary save your £1200 per month and spend it in a crack den because the service will probably be better, you’ll almost certainly get better value for money and no doubt you’ll come away satisfied with...

Resident: March 2022 - March 2023

The building was okay, but the landings need redecorating. The wallpaper is dark and dingy, light colours are enquired to make the landing more spacious, bright and welcoming. It can sometimes feel like you're walking around on a prison landing.

The building is cleaned throughout the day but can get truly filthy at night due to a few uncaring residents

The surrounding area is depressing to look at. It’s a giant building site due to HS2. If I’d known, I.e. done thorough research I wouldn't have moved here.

Although the en-suite rooms are small, there is plenty of storage space to speak of.

There are many communal things you can do should you choose to be social.

Staff: Pleasant and polite. I don't have a bad word to say about them. They do try to help you if you have concerns in their remit, they're able to deal with them at the time.

Cleaners: Do a great job, it's a hard task keeping the entire building clean.

Bills are included which is a blessing, however, the amenities are missing, often don't work and are lacklustre. There is no cutlery in the kitchenette to speak of, no kettle, no pots or pans.

Gym: A steal of £50 for the year! I often worked out, plenty of weights. At least one of the cardio machines would be out of order on occasion but it was a small price to pay.

Cafe: Made some amazing breakfasts but shut down approximately 2-months before I checked out.

Bar: was closed more often than open, it didn't seem to make a difference in the Summer months.

Wash bar: Cheap to wash and dry clothes, you can easily find available machines if you go at off-peak times. Irons and boards looked good in there although I never used them. A couple of ways to pay, if you're not into using your bank card to do it.

Wifi: often drops out, weak signal, often wires are cut by the workman. There's an outage for the entire building at least once a month. Support agents for wifi are often frustrating to communicate with.

Fire alarm: goes off often, during day and night hours, often due to residents' questionable cooking skills.

Drugs: There's an issue with a small number of residents smoking weed inside their rooms at night.

Rent: Residents are charged different rates depending on their circumstances. I was charged a lot for very little, in my opinion.

This is rated one star because credit control has so far failed to return my deposit to date.

It has been longer than 20 working days and they’ve failed to communicate with me.

I’ve sent a letter before court action to start the process of the return of my deposit.

Update: After sending several emails, one to the front desk cc credit control sending a letter before court action I received assurances via email that my deposit will be returned to me in full by Friday 13th May. If not I will proceed will court action, filing a claim at small claims court.

Due to this, their customer service gets a thumbs down from me.

Should the deposit issue be resolved to my satisfaction I will edit this review and give it an additional star.

UPDATE: Credit Control returned my deposit in full two days before I was due to file a Civil case with the small claims court. Due to the return of my deposit before having to submit a case in court, this review has jumped from a one-star to a...