Element Apartments at Highland — Hotel in Memphis

I was from out of state and needed a place to stay for my first year of pharmacy school. This place looks alright online, with reasonable price and driving distant, so I went a head and sign the lease. When I actually move in few months later, I regret that I did not do a thorough research or checking it out in real life before hand. The place seems very old and not well maintained. You can see dark stain spots throughout the stair ways and even your in house carpet. They had a cleaning staff come a few week AFTER my move in to clean the carpet of the whole house, but it's still stained. I filled out the move-in condition form and turned in shortly after my move in, requested for a missing cabinet drawer in the kitchen but it took more than a month for them to come fix it, and after my many times reminding them, they just put a wooden plate to cover it instead of putting in the actual drawer. There were two chair with torn leather back too but they never replace it. The only thing they did well was repainting my room and changing the toilet seat cover (it was way smaller than the toilet) few days after my move in. My most upsetting thing living here is the neighbors. They are mostly young college students so they are very loud and inconsiderate. I had an upstair person who play music all night and all day long! I got home often around 4pm and they already had the music on and they kept it up until 2-4 am every night! I would not mind so much if it was light or pop music, but they always have on some sort of rap or rock with the bass turn up max, and this is not an occasionally thing, it is like 99% of the days I was there. During my days off, I noticed that they would start the music as early as 9am and had it on all night long. Someday they would have party (sounded like with many many people) very late and it would get so horrible with the noise. Another annoying thing they did was like walking very loud, like they were stomping every second they move! And they would throw stuffs at the floor multiple times a day. My roommates and I complained many times to the office, we also called the police when it got too loud, but they turned it back right after the police gone or the best is 1 quiet day. Often, there were also college students walking right outside of your window very late at night (past 12am), talking very loud or even fighting, or just park there with their loud music from the car for like hours. Another problem with the neighbors is that they smoke (cigarette and what smell like weeds) inside their apartment, and the odor was so bad it traveled through wall and presented everywhere in the apartment, especially the elevator and hallway. Talking about elevator, it would be out of service for days, and multiple times a month. And when you take a stairs, you would have to watch out for gum or spills and vomits. The staff here was alright in term of friendliness. ( Especially Jessica who is always smiling, friendly and energetic). But beside that, they couldn't do much, and often giving you mixed information. Oh, and good-luck with your roommate matching if you don't know anyone. We got 1 freshman as a roommate in our 4 rooms apt. She was the messiest person I met and thought the whole kitchen is her own! She often made messes, used other people stuff without asking before and not washing them after, and left dirty dishes in the sink for days!!! We talked to her, then to the office, but nothing change and they finally move her to another unit after a month. I could be going on, but it getting too long. If you have no other option then go ahead and choose this. Otherwise I would not recommend this...

As a parent of a student living here the year she stayed was an absolute nightmare. The rooms we were showed before we moved in looked nothing like what we were shown in fact the term "catfished" springs to mind. Move in day was horrendous as we secured a 4 bedroom apartment which was cockroach infested. The staff were unhelpful and we had to upgrade to another room because there were no more 4 bedroom properties available shooting up the costs for monthly rent. That evening we went out to buy cleaning supplies and could not enter the property because the keys did not work. My daughter and I were forced to stay in a tiny office area in the hallway for close to 3 hours after calling and calling for assistance at the number listed for emergencies. No one came, we were fortunate to spot her room mate who was returning back to the apartment for us to gain access. We complained and nothing was done. We were promised to have the carpet replaced in the common area because it was old, that was not done. We were billed for utilities even when my daughter moved out and no matter how much we tried to reason with them they did not budge and in order to protect my credit I had to pay. The last straw was when they leased the spare room in her apartment to a young lady with pit bulldogs, not one but 2. My daughter is asthmatic and allergic to pet dander and terrified of pit bulls. When I went to see her, I moved her into a hotel until we were able to drive home the next day, taking most of her stuff with us. And to add insult to injury, we are being billed for not cleaning - I imagine they wanted a deep clean which I did not do. Parents, do not let your children live there. It is a dump and the people running it are completely unethical with no compassion. They lie and staff goes through a revolving door so it's hard to form a connection with anyone there. Horrible place and if I could give it less than one...

Do NOT SIGN a lease for this place. The company, UCOMM, is completely MONEY HUNGRY and that is their main priority: MONEY. There was an incident of sexual assault here, and the manager felt it appropriate to respond via mass email by saying "Your safety is your responsibility." instead of giving the residents a sense of reassurance that they can feel comfortable where they are spending their money. There is an annual infestation of gnats and the only response is "We're doing all that we can." They were on the news because of the gnats and garbage not being removed from the property for about a MONTH, and we received an email saying "Contrary to popular belief, we are doing everything we can." That was extremely unprofessional and shady. If you were, this wouldn't happen literally every year. The trash shoots are emptied at the most every two weeks, which gives the building a very putrid smell. It's bad enough that a lot of the residents that lived there during my lease were very dirty because they primarily lease to college freshmen. Roommate altercations are handled to a minimum. Any complaints about neighbors (smoking, loud music, etc.) go unaddressed and are pushed to the side. You're lucky if maintenance even acknowledges your requests. I have made it a point to clean every aspect of what I was responsible for while living there, and was charged ANOTHER MONTH'S RENT IN DAMAGES BECAUSE OF MY ROOMMATES' FILTH! The Stratum cannot keep a staff and it cannot keep residents. UCOMM, this has to tell you SOMETHING! Currently, I am waiting to further discuss the issues that I have with the charges on my account. I am optimistic that it could be handled in order to find a middle ground. I will...