The Artesian — Local services in Liverpool

Avoid The Artesian and other Urban Evolution properties. I lived there for 2.5 years and was regularly let down by Urban Evolution. These are some of my experiences. The building: There are no on-site staff at all. No security, or concierge. I've only seen staff at the concierge desk once and that's because they were expecting investors to visit, to maintain appearances. The nearest staff are at another UE property at Norfolk House. This means that you have to pick up your parcels over there. But more importantly, it means that there can be no immediate action if building security is threatened. As I've seen for myself when people off the street try to force entry to the building and tailgate behind tenants, security is nowhere to be seen. There are only two washers and two driers which regularly break. On one occasion these machines were vandalised for their coins and were later replaced by card-operated machines that experience regular network issues that prevent them from being used. The elevator is regularly out of service too, often to vandalism (see lack of security) or poor maintenance. The maintenance team are slow to action requests. The handle to my flat broke once and it took two weeks for them to fix it. I emailed different members of staff and put different maintenance requests in and was ignored until it someone eventually responded and it was fixed. Neighbours are loud, walls are poorly soundproofed too.

The staff: Property management staff have deliberately bottlenecked lines of communication to a single email address. Ringing their phone number leads to an automated message directing you to the email address. Staff often ignore emails and making it very hard to get in touch regardless of...

The apartment was cleaned to a very minimal standard when I first entered the apartment. And when I left I still cleaned it. And yet now at the end after I moved out they’re pathetically charging £150 from my deposit for cleaning charges. The mattress had not even been changed from the previous tenant and had substantial dents in it. I was not planning on staying past a few months so didn’t make an issue of it thinking I didn’t want to take that effort. Especially since the first few times I complained about leakage in my apartment it took them 2 months to fix it. However now that I left they’re charging £42 for a new mattress which is pathetic since they hadn’t given me a new one or without dents one to start with.

All this on top of raising my rent by £130 without any warning. And while I didn’t say anything because I knew I was leaving soon to be paying that increased rent and still be asked for so much of my deposit to for a cleaning charge and mattress chare is again INSANE. I understand cost of living but to raise by £130 within a month is...

DO NOT RENT HERE!

Upon moving in I found 10+ issues with the flat, some of which needed repair, some of which I could sort myself. Shortly after moving in I found myself with a constant toilet leak and all my lights blowing out. In the contract it states they respond to emergency issues (E.g.: leaks) within 48hrs however I have been waiting for over 9 WEEKS. Having no response or clarity over the situation. Other issues included the ONLY 2 washing machines breaking leading me to be wrongfully charged, desk chair found broken, multiple door hinges being broken, window lock not working properly.

Do not rent here the service is absolutely atrocious and they clearly have no clue how to run a block of flats. They are an...