University Gate — Local services in Harborcreek Township

If I could give a negative rating I would. UGates is a nothing but a nightmare. I initially thought it would be a great living situation due to its location and the environment. However this was not the case.

I first moved to UGates in June as a summer contract. This resulted in me having to move 3 times in 3 months. None of the apartments I stayed in were “professionally cleaned” as the management team stated. The furniture was broken, the carpet was torn, and the fridge looked like someone shot a bottle of BBQ sauce inside of it. There is trash all over the complex that will be there for months on end. The majority of the laundry machines do not work and will not refund your money.

The management team is a disgrace. They are hardly ever in office, they do not answer the phone or emails. If you’re lucky enough to call when the voicemail box is not full, forget leaving a message. They will not call you back. I desperately needed to contact management as I had no place to stay - it took me taping a note to the office door to get a call back.

Just recently, the management team lost 3 complete leases to resign for my apartment. They did not notify me or my Roomate that we no longer had a lease. We expected to move back in in August and we did not find out until I reached out in June. They assigned the apartment to another group of people without notification while our current lease is still active. They put us out on our asses without as little as an email. Speaking of leases, in fall 2024 the management team posted a ton of eviction notices for failure to pay rent. The majority of people had already payed their rent and had a hell of a time straightening it out.

UGates lies about their pricing. They claim 560 a month for rent, but what they fail to tell you is that they will take your shirt on electricity. My 3 bedroom apartment collectively paid over 400 dollars in electricity every month. This does not include random fees that show up out of nowhere. In addition, there is hardly ever hot water. Every faucet leaks, there is mold everywhere, and the climate control is mediocre at best. The AC unit went out a month into the lease period and it took maintenance forever to fix it.

They do not conduct their own inspections. I woke up to 3 random, sketchy looking people banging on my bedroom door. They entered the apartment without even knocking or notifying us that inspections were happening.

Ultimately do not live here. Go anywhere else. There is no upside to...

When I moved into my unit, there was a rusty fishhook embedded in the living room carpet. When I moved out of my unit, they charged me and my roommates more than $300 for cleaning, including a large fee for carpet cleaning. That should give you a clear window into my (terrible) experience.

The property came under new management in January, and that's where the problems started. From August 2021-December 2021, I loved living at UGates and would have recommended it to anyone. Under Altair (the new property managers), it turned into a nightmare. Charges to my account were added and dropped without warning or explanation; utility payments weren't collected from January 2022-May 2022, but were all charged later (and when I asked about these charges, previously conducted through a third-party system, I was ignored). I have just been charged for utilities from May 2022-July 2022 as part of September's statement. My lease ended in July.

Beyond the plethora of management issues, the entire atmosphere of UGates shifted with the management switch. Walking into the office to pick up mail or submit a payment used to be a pleasant, welcoming experience. Since Altair took over, the complex feels like a ghost town. It felt lively and bright before Altair - after Altair, I can only describe it as dreary. Not exactly the setting one wants for a college apartment.

Living at UGates was hell after Altair took over the property. I cannot express how awful everything was for the second half of the lease term and the move-out procedures. I strongly urge you to avoid living here at all costs - living on campus is more convenient and straightforward (since they typically don't resort to sneaky landlord tactics in terms of unwarrented and unexplainable charges); renting a house is likely less expensive per person (our rent, for the fishhook floors, was more than $500 a month per person and the rates are only going up). Live literally anywhere else. Just do not live at UGates.

*I would like to state for the record that the grounds and maintenance team are the only good thing about this complex. Seriously, the only good aspect of...

This place is the worst possible place to live. I would choose living in a dorm the size of a shoe box over this place. Where do I even start. Getting a hold of management is close to impossible. If you do get anyone to answer it is someone from altar and all they do is “leave a message” for ugates and you will never hear back. The laundry mat caught on fire back in may and has still yet to be fixed, so if you are from out of town you’re screwed. Throughout the winter I personally was paying more than $200 for utilities a month. Mind you each resident is getting charged that so that would be close to $800 for just one apartment. When I contacted ugates about it they said “penelec charges peek rates in the winter”??? My parents don’t even pay that much for a 2 story house with a basement and they also go through penelec. Not to mention the place is run by students in their 20s. I have yet to encounter anyone over 21 anywhere around that place. There were multiple damages when I moved in. I just recently moved out and got charged an electric bill for $377 and when asked they said they “estimate usage” since I’m moving out because the electric bills are delayed so that’s 3 months of utilities that is basically a fake number that they “estimated”. Also if you plan on putting anything up on the walls, don’t, they charged me a $80 fee to paint the walls, even though I repaired the holes myself before I moved out. They also charged everyone in my apartment $20 to fix the holes in the wall even though I was the only one moving out and there are still people living there. I also don’t have access to the photos they took of my room before I moved out even though I am entitled to see those. This place is a scam, all they do if charge you for random things and then hide behind it so you pay it no matter what because they’ll charge you a late fee enough though you try to contact them about it. Do yourself a favor and live at Hudson. It may be a bit more expensive, but at this rate I have paid more the ugates and than I will have...