University Oaks — Local services in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

If I could give this place zero stars, I would!

Now, the office staff are nice. Jamey and Kelsey are sweethearts and try to solve issues any way they can. But that's the ONLY good thing I can say about this place.

Let's start with the DAY we move in. My boyfriend and I came from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is about 4 and a half, to 5 hours away. We left at around 9 or 10 in the morning, central time. It took SEVEN hours because of continuous wrecks and awful traffic. We kept calling, but when we became stuck in Atlanta, I was informed that if we didn't get there by EXACTLY 5, they would lock the doors and not allow us to come sign our lease, or get our keys, even though we told them countless times that we were running extremely late because of traffic. the office manager downright refused to let us come inside the office if we weren't there by 5.

We finally get the keys, and come to discover literally everything wrong with the apartment. The inspection sheet had something all over it, in every room. It took maintenance almost 3 weeks to fix everything.

This place has gone through 3 different companies in the 12 months we stayed here, which is outrageous. They try to make it look like they're improving, but they're not. They spent all the money to make the office appear nice, but the apartments are "renovated" by a team of Hispanic men who look like they have no idea what they're doing.

There is mold on our bathroom ceiling, caused by a leak from the upstairs bathroom. All they did was paint over it!! The mold was never removed.

Half of the electrical outlets don't work, snd there's maybe one outlet in each room of the house.

The ONLY place you can watch cable, is in the living room. Because it's the only room in the house with a cable outlet.

The Kitchen is so small, it's pathetic. You can't even fit a small table in there. There's only two outlets, one on the counter, next to the sink of all things, and one by the back door. And the sink is huge, but the faucet is tiny. It hits the back wall of the sink, and there's no sprayer at all. They had to cut one of the drawers so you could open it. The dishwasher blocked the drawer from being opened. The cabinets are all placed very, very high up, and none of them have shelves. My boyfriend and I are both only about 5'2, so we have to keep a chair in there so we can reach everything on the shelves.

The bathtub is extremely cheap, cus the paint is coming off. And it didn't have a stopper, there is just a hole at the bottom of the tub where a stopper should be. And now, it leaks. Maintenance has been in here THREE TIMES to fix it, and it still leaks.

Our smoke detector keeps chirping, and chirping...and chirping. We went to the office to tell them, and they told us that we had to take care of replacing the battery. We did, its still chirping. Told the office, and they sent someone here. They stayed for all of a minute, and did literally nothing to it. It still chirps!!

The ceiling is thin, you can hear everything from the upstairs neighbors. I can hear them having sex in their bed! It's so awkward. And small pieces of wood from their patio are falling down onto ours.

The laundry room is disgusting. I went to put my clothes in the wash, and a freaking ROACH crawled out of it. The laundry room is completely filled with roaches. I only use it because I have to.

There is a group of 6-8 year old kids who run around outside, completely unsupervised at midnight, screaming at the top of their lungs. The office still hasn't done anything about it

My last day at this hell whole is Saturday...I'm so excited. DO NOT LIVE HERE!!

UPDATE* you will also NOT receive your deposit back. We left that place in better shape than when we moved in and I've yet to see our...

*The property manager asked me to update my review after they made a lackluster "fix" on my apartment and now, after becoming a victim of a crime on site, caused in part by their lack of response to a security issue I alerted them to MONTHS AGO, I will. The lack of concern for resident safety is ASTOUNDING. A man broke into my apartment Sunday and was thankfully caught by police in the act. University Oaks is aware and aware of the damage caused to my windows etc by this person and hasn't even come out to fix it. So I am MORE vulnerable than before and I can't get a response. You have to BEG and throw a fit for anything to get addressed here and even then, you'll just get emails of promises. I can't emphasize enough how much I want to leave, how terribly this place is run and how much you should NOT move here. Original review below: I have lived here for a year and a half in a “renovated” unit with little to no problems. That is until recently. One leak has revealed that the renovations done here cover up mold, pest problems and a property manager, Joseph Boronat, who retaliates against renters who ask for better. After complaining about a peeping tom and his failure to rehire security, in addition to themold in my apartment and caved in cabinet, Joseph just came and yelled in my face with no face mask on in a pandemic spread by respiratory droplets. This neighborhood is becoming wildly unsafe, rapidly, and it's in large part due to management choosing not to hire a replacement security guard after the other left. Currently I and my neighbors are dealing with a peeping tom/stalker who has tried to enter 3 apartments. I asked management to close off his access to the back doors by replacing the shrubs that were lost in a storm a few months ago...and instead they WIDENED his access points by cutting all the trees. I know if Kim was still here, I would have gotten my concerns addressed properly but she isn't and Joe is unwilling to actually listen and keep us safe. He has cut down staff and now wants tenants to shoulder the burden of how overwhelmed this staff is when he could simply HIRE MORE PEOPLE. In fact, almost all the issues here are due to management choosing not to hire enough staff. There aren't enough maintenance guys for a property of this size and age, so things do not get fixed, they get patched until they break again.I'm currently dealing with fall out from a poorly done patch: my cabinet is rotting and the bottom fell in. I *may *have someone coming to fix it but even after fighting tooth and nail to get your issues addressed, they don't listen to you or do what needs to be done. They do what's cheapest. The rent and the cheap, poorly done fixes don't match. Almost every building is dealing with mold. The pictures they have up do not reflect the current state of the complex. If you walk behind building N, there is a clear water issue and the back ceiling is caving in on one of the units, several units have rotted out holes or holes in the brick that lead outside. Those buildings are struggling with roaches. Almost every A/C unit is leaking and the water and flooding can be seen from the outside. They turned off comments on their Facebook for that reason. Building F has rats. Management chooses not to act or listen and I am tired of fighting to get the most basic things done. How Joe just chose to scream at me, as though I was a child and not a paying tenant reveals exactly why there are so many issues here after he started. He simply doesn’t respect anyone that lives here..

I don’t recommend this place to anyone but especially not any single women. It is dangerous and...

DO NOT MOVE HERE

This apartment complex is a money trap. My boyfriend applied here when we first moved to Athens in August, and I have to applaud them on a job well done of making you feel like they have everything in order and under control. This is the anthesis of our experience with University Oaks.

There is ALWAYS a tenant outside of the leasing office trying to get property managers to take their complaints seriously. Not one renter we met waiting for someone to open the leasing office door has had a good thing to say about his or her living situation. One handyman we met had been waiting 2 hours for someone to answer the door so he could return a unit key.

My boyfriend provided all credentials in a timely manner, and paid the $50 application and $150 holding fee. We were told a unit would be available by the end of September, and that they would be in contact with him. Mid-September he received an email that his application was terminated because he failed to send everything they needed. Knowing he had sent everything correctly, my boyfriend went to the leasing office (they never gave us a phone number) and our property manager was initially defensive and rude upon being confronted by my boyfriend. Once he pointed to their mistake, she immediately apologized, changed her demeanor, and assured us everything was in order. There is little to no communication between property management and corporate.

Of course we don’t hear anything through September, and my boyfriend finally decided that this complex has enough problems, and decided to look elsewhere. He was not able to get back $50 for the application, but requested the $150 holding fee to be placed back into his account as we had been told it was refundable.

For the next two weeks, he heard nothing from anyone related to University Oaks until their debt collection company decided to withdraw another $150 from his account. They now have $300 that my boyfriend could put towards another apartment deposit, but neither property management, corporate, or their debt collection agency will return any calls or attempt to troubleshoot the obvious miscommunication within their company. We showed up to the leasing office again today hoping to clear up the issue, and no one was there. Another tenant was waiting outside complaining about not having hot water for over a week. When someone finally pulled up to the office, she told the tenant, “well some people don’t even have water so…” ??? Not sure how that helps her situation. She then proceeded to tell my boyfriend she didn’t know how to help us and directed us to yet another phone number.

We are bending over backwards trying to get a refund while University Oaks points blame in any direction but to themselves.

Save yourself the time, money, stress, and energy and DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER this...