City - iQ Student Accommodation London — Local services in London

Don't recommend it:

1. STEAL DEPOSITS - Since IQ bought it from Pure, they are trying to sit on everyone's deposits to redecorate the building as they wish using YOUR money.
2. SMOKING IN ROOMS - People smoke cigarettes and weed all day every day and they spent a whole year "trying" to find the people.
3. POOR SERVICE - You can only get your post at night for which you have to stand in line for half an hour, find your room number from hundreds of pages and wait for them to locate it in their messy "pile it all" system.
4. NO VACUUM CLEANER -They have 5 vacuum cleaners to share among thousands of students and they're often broken so that's nice.
5. INVASION OF PRIVACY - They go into your room and leave a note saying "maintenance fixed x" without ever giving you a heads up or asking for your permission. Also, a couple of times a random person walked in to my bedroom as I was sleeping and said she has to measure the windows for safety etc. Thanks for that! So, if you like strangers rumaging around your bedroom every now and then, this is your spot!
6. POOR COOMUNICATION - Rarely answer calls, get back to emails after you've resent it a few times and security always lets the phone go to voicemail - so if you want to not be able to reach security during an emergency, you'll love IQ!
7. MAINTENANCE FAILURE - Their maintenance system is so dysfunctional. The staff refuse to talk to you about any issues and say you have to put it on the online system. Once you do and even specify WHEN you're available to welcome them (so, that they don't come in when you're sleeping or naked you know...) they still do it whenever they feel like it. Oh, and they refuse to put new batteries in your door until you are literally locked out. I begged them for days on end, they only helped me when I was locked out of my room for hours. THEY JUST HAD TO PUT 2 NEW BATTERIES IN.
8. LAUNDRY SCAM - Their laundry machines SUCK. All my clothes have stains on them because they never maintain the machines. Plus, it costs so much just to have your clothes damaged by their laundry machines.
9. CONSTANT FIRE ALARMS - I cannot explain how horrible this is. Every single day, at absurd hours, the alarm will go off. I have woken up scared out of my mind at 2 am, 4 am so many times. Oh, and once I know that one of my neighbours literally had food which caught on legit fire, and the alarm never went off. So, if you want to die in a fire or listen to piercing alarms 10 times a day, IQ City is what you want!
10. RUBBISH EVERYWHERE - People like to leave bags and bags of litter at the Fire Emergency staircase. Management, likes to clean these out once a week if they are feeling generous. It smells horrendous and it's also reassuring that if the building caught on fire everyone would be tripping over smelly, mouldy bin bags.
11. DIRTY NASTY WINDOWS & MORE PRIVACY INVASION - They only clean the wnidows right before new people are moving in and you're a week or so away from moving out. My windows were basically covered in a yummy sheath of mud the whole time I was there. Then, they emailed me the day before saying the next day my windows would be cleaned and if I'm worried about privacy I should keep my blinds down all day. Thanks for the heads up!
12. Honestly, there's no reason why they deserve to be paid that much money. Just find a nice flat for so much cheaper or a nicer student accomodation with bigger rooms and better service!

Pros: Good location

To all the lovely people I've saved with this review, you're welcome! I hope I saved you some...

WORST PLACE EVER!!! think twice before moving in there as

Lived there for 2018/2019 academic year. Since the moment i moved in, my life turned into a nightmare.

When the exams were done, I was trying to find a replacement for my room for summer period in order to get a refund for the rest of my tenancy contract.

Everything was going fine, the guy i found on SpareRoom came for a viewing of my room and then for some stupid reason the staff said that my room wasn’t ready and it would take another few days to prepare it. After that my replacement guy just booked another room. They just dumped my whole refund. Even though, i did everything that was in their policy. I even f*cking paid £60 for a check out cleaning and yet for some reason my room WASN’T READY.

In order to secure my room for my replacement, I even offered him £500 to take over my room, so that i could secure my refund. I hate the fact that this accommodation put me in such position where i had to beg for taking over my room. But again, the dumb staff just dumped everything and all of my efforts are gone for nothing. TOTAL CARELESSNESS.

Moreover, there is this stupid rule. They’re saying they CAN’T provide refunds no later than 15 JUNE. And this is how I LOST MY £4000. They are pure scammers. Do not trust their promises. They just fool everyone in order to secure the money.

Here are some funny facts about this accommodation:

1. 3-4 times fire alarms a week. They don’t care about when they do it, there were times it happened at midnights and 6-7am.
2. Total carelessness from staffs side. They can never help you with anything, they never do anything. They just sit on their chairs and play their phones ignoring everything and showing their bad attitude
3. It is a pure luck if you can find your parcels there or any other deliveries, there was a time when they couldn’t find my package and only after 3-4 months it was found on one of their dusty shelves.
4. During weekends, this whole place turns into one huge trash can. People bring alcohol to the lobby area. After drinking nights there’s garbage lying everywhere, and staff literally ignores all this mess instead of trying to stand up and clean it
5. Terrible mattresses. You can actually feel all those springs while you sleep. I’m currently having a chiropractic rehabafter living a year there
6. Kitchen sinks always leak, no matter how many times you called an engineer to fix it. I was advised to wipe water leaks with napkins, lol
7. Shower room made a terrible annoying sound. Perhaps, there was an issue with water pressure. I was totally ignored on this claim
8. NO AIR CONDITIONING VERY IMPORTANT You will end up being terribly cold in winter, gotten ill several times, and almost melting in summer, i could barely sleep in my room as it was always hot
9. If somehow your room is next to en-suite kitchen, it will be a nightmare. There is always a terrible smell in the corridor of buildings. As there is no air ventilation, the smell can remain for quite a time.
10. If your window has a view on the garden, you can smell people smoking during days/nights
11. Staffs attitude. No one literally cares about you or your stay at this place. You can never ask for help...

please do yourself a favour and do not stay at this accommodation. my stay here this past year has been nothing but hell and i deeply regret choosing this place to live in.

a few of the staff have been helpful and friendly especially Esther and some night staff. however, there are also some who are rude and arrogant and should not be working in a student accommodation AT ALL if you are that incompetent and impatient when dealing with students. and yes I am talking about this particular staff called Diedre. there has been the same complaints repeatedly from me and my friends, and including some in the reviews, about how we clearly feel like we are being disrespected when dealing with her or even when collecting parcels. please fix your attitude.

the fire alarms are so bad here. they have gone off an insane amount of times and have woken me up in the middle of the night. they’ll say that they’re working on it but please… it has been one year since it’s been this way. what’s even worse is for around 2-3 months they put in battery operated fire alarms in our room. we were not even given any notice of this being put into place at all. these alarms wouldn’t stop beeping even after a battery change and security would knock on our doors EVERY SINGLE DAY to check on these alarms and they’d even come in with their own key card after knocking only once when I told them to wait!!!

the construction work has been non stop ever since i’ve moved in, even during exam periods. they’ll say construction only starts at 10 but there are days where it has even started at 7am and i’m woken up by extremely loud banging, sharp screeching and drilling noises for a few hours on end. both the construction and the constant fire alarms have really affected my sleep and my mental health. please also take note that the rubbish truck will come at 5-6am consistently to collect the rubbish and it’s really loud.

there are always parcels missing here in this accommodation. i dont know whether there are staff stealing parcels or it’s just bad organisation. one of the reasons why i opted for a student ccommodation because there’s a reception available 24/7 but honestly what’s the point at all when parcels take forever to be scanned and there’s always parcels missing.

maintenance issues take a while to be fixed, most of the times you have to bring up the issue multiple times for them to only take action. the central heating in rooms also don’t work at all.

the washing machines are extremely dirty and all of them have mould in them please don’t expect your clothes to be clean. the dryers don’t work and it takes them weeks to fix it.

the students who live here are spoiled and entitled. there’s always music blasting even at 4am at night, they leave rubbish all over the place in the corridors, in the common areas and in the courtyard. they’ll be running around corridors knocking on everyone’s doors as a prank?

the five star reviews are only here because they’ve told students to rate them 5 stars in exchange for free food.

please choose somewhere else better to live in. this place is not worth risking your sleep, mental health...