Sansom Place East — Local services in Philadelphia

If you're an incoming grad student at Penn, don't make the mistake of taking the university up on it graduate housing offerings. Live off campus instead. Problems I have encountered at Sansom Place include, but are not limited to: filthy, dirt glob filled air ducts; a stove with loose, unbalanced burners; broken and/or unclean laundry machines; broken curtains; leaky windows; a refrigerator door that doesn't close well; and misaligned doorstoppers.

Facilities management rates somewhere between ambivalent and unresponsive. When not ignored, my complaints have been met with a "deal with it" attitude. For example, after over a month of phone calls and e-mails about my askew stovetop burner, someone finally came by to replace it, didn't improve the situation, and told me that my stove was in better shape than most in the the building and I should be happy with it. Dirty washing machines were dismissed as "unavoidable." I ended up cleaning out my air ducts myself.

Even for things that aren't broken, conditions are rather dingy. Furnishings resemble those of your freshman dorm, complete with an uncomfortable extra long twin-size mattress. The linoleum floor includes countless old hairs and dust ball that have long since been waxed permanently onto the floor. The shower is loud to the point where you'll consider investing in earplugs. Oddly, a lot of the doors in the building make loud clacking noises when opened, such that you can hear them from inside your apartment. And, this place is expensive!

On the other hand, Sansom Place is really close to campus. So, you know, trade offs.

It's a shame, and frankly quite weird, that an institution like Penn is unwilling or unable to provide better housing accommodations to its students. A little bit of effort looking for housing in the summer will save you a lot of hassle and frustration from living in...

If you enjoy cleanliness and convenience, I highly suggest you find another place to live. I lived in on-campus dorms all four years of my undergrad education at Penn. I decided to live in Sansom Place East while I completed my postbacc, and it was one of the worst decisions I've ever made. I have never experienced such horrible service and living conditions under any other Penn dormitory. If you live near the ground level, accept the fact that no matter how much you clean, you will be tormented by roaches crawling on your dishes, on your shower curtain, and God knows where else. When I first came to Sansom, they gave me the wrong room type (a double apartment with no living room) and lied that there were no other rooms available. On further insistence, they gave me the actual room type I asked for (a single apartment with living room and kitchen). During my first move-in, the apartment door was UNLOCKED. The place was a disgusting mess, and you could tell housekeeping had not touched the place at all over the summer. The closet door was broken, there was exploded shaving cream and a razor on the kitchen sink, the bathroom curtain was ripped up, and the kitchen unit wreaked of rust. You can't even use the cabinets because they are rusted and unless you enjoy ingesting rust, you should bring your own storage for dishes. I have had to call maintenance several times for roaches, a fruit fly infestation, and clogged sinks. There are better dorms at Penn (W.E.B. DuBois is my favorite); living off campus would be cheaper and at least you could find a place without roaches. The management is horrible, please don't give them any of your coin. Find...

One star for location, one for free laundry. Other than that, this place is way too expensive for the quality of living.

While it's extremely secure, the guest policy is exhausting having to sign in each and every guest and then show the same pass over and over again to security each time you go back into the building. The kitchen appliances are old and gross with hard water stains and the smallest oven I've ever seen. There's permanent dust on the corners of the floors that no cleaning material could ever get rid of. The hallways smell like the trash room constantly. Do not keep giving this place money until Penn renovates it. You can find apartments for way cheaper throughout West Philly. The only reason I stayed here was because my program was 10 months and I didn't want to go through the apartment hunting process in the city, but I would absolutely have gone through it if I knew that the apartments would be this quality. Do your research and save your money. Demand better from this institution too, because I'm sure that the undergraduate facilities are way nicer and even the Graduate Assistants have beautifully renovated rooms in other...