In February 2022, after spending their afternoon touring several towering apartment buildings with no luck at finding an apartment, then first-year student Olivia Orlic and her three roommates were on their way to get dinner. Months into their housing search, they were beginning to feel defeated when they drove past 100 University Avenue and saw a sign reading “rooms available for rent”. They were coming from a tour at an ACCOMMOD8U property which they promptly crossed off their list after being warned by current tenants that the building was infested with cockroaches. Filled with renewed hope, they  immediately called the phone number listed and booked a tour for the next day. Within the same week, the documents were signed and they had officially found their home for the next few years. 

The building had only nine units in it, and it was built by the landlord and his father decades before the surrounding larger developments. Her unit had four bedrooms and two full bathrooms. In regards to her experience living there, Orlic says, “I have nothing but good things to say, I would recommend living there to anybody.” They moved in May 2022 and paid about $725 a month, including utilities and wifi, which they classified as a fair price for the quality of the apartment.

In regards to maintenance, “If something broke, I’d send them an email and get a response, probably within the same day, if not the same hour, and it would be quickly fixed,” Orlic said. She felt that they “got lucky with that apartment.” Unfortunately, for the vast majority of the Waterloo student population, this is far from the norm. 

Before Orlic and her roommates’ fluke drive-by, the only apartments they came across were those managed by large corporations like ACCOMMOD8U and Centurion Property Associates Limited which were often poorly maintained yet came with a higher price tag. “We looked at so many different places, mainly the bigger buildings because that was what came up when we looked online. That’s probably because they have more money to pay for those ads, but there was always a problem with the buildings.” 

For those not fortunate enough to happen across better accommodations during their search, most students’ only options are the larger apartment buildings, which often come with their own unique challenges. 

Fourth-year arts and business student Bahar Amouie has lived in four different apartment buildings marketed to students; Icon, Society, Rez-One and MyRez. Both Icon and Society are managed by Craft Property Group, a major player in Waterloo’s student housing market. For all apartments, she says that she does not feel the rent she has paid reflects the quality of the housing received. “They charge so much for the units here, and they aren’t even worth it. I know it’s inflation and they’re trying to gain a competitive advantage or whatever, but it’s not worth it considering the past [prices]. I know MyRez used to be like $500 like six years ago. So it’s ridiculous now that it’s, like, $1,100 to $1,200 for a lease,” she says. “I think they take advantage of both international students and people coming from other cities.” 

In regards to Icon, a popular UW student housing option due to its proximity to campus, she says, “I would not recommend Icon, the sliding doors are awful because there’s no privacy and they sometimes fall off the railing, and things break a lot so you constantly have to submit maintenance requests. You’re paying for the aesthetic and the proximity to campus.”

As a co-op student, like many at UW, Amouie has had the additional challenge of finding housing options that suit four-month terms. She says she took a lease at Icon because she could not find a sublet due to the amount of competition: “It’s really hard to find sublets in the fall, this one I did sign out of fear of not finding one.” When asked if she feels students have real options for decent housing at fair prices she says, “I think in terms of [average student] budgets, no. If you’re looking for under $1,000, you’re not going to get that unless you’re living in a crappy house.”

Despite the fact that she has lived in several properties considered to be around the average price of options available in Waterloo, that has not often translated into high-quality living conditions. She says she had learned to simply adjust and accept poor conditions due to lack of options or power. “It’s like little things. Like, sometimes the walls are, like, dirty [from] previous tenants, or the paint’s peeled, the floorboards are peeled, or the mattresses are kind of gross. But you just learn to live with it. Like, you put a mattress protector on. You put layers on those. You learn to live with the floor peels. Also, all the buildings have a silverfish problem.”

“I think some places are too focused on, like, making it aesthetic, whereas I just want something that’s liveable.”

The majority of her experience with staff at each of the properties has also been generally poor. “The younger staff that work at the front desks at Society145 when I lived there, some of them are rude and they don’t help with anything.”

Lindsey Donado, a fourth-year arts student, has a similar, less than good experience with student housing options in Waterloo. “I think that a lot of management companies and landlords understand that students are in a position in their lives that they can’t ask for more and they take advantage of that.” Donado previously lived in an apartment managed by K-W Property Management Corp. which has a huge property portfolio in Waterloo. 

“Usually the issues start with the website to submit a maintenance ticket. You would have to email out of the formal ticket system which made it hard to contact people for maintenance. Sometimes we would not get a reply and we would have to send multiple requests.” Whether or not they would get a response, she says, was very unpredictable. “Sometimes they would respond, sometimes they would ignore our email.”

At one point during their lease, their toilet broke and they had to manually fill it with water every time it needed to be flushed. “It just kind of became normal at some point. We had a water bottle next to the toilet and we had to tell people every time to use that to flush the toilet.” They continuously submitted maintenance requests and only after six months did it get addressed. “They sent someone after six months. They came and fixed it in 15 minutes.”

However, even when they got a response for maintenance requests, many times they were “bandaid solutions.” “We had an issue with mold in the bathroom and under the kitchen sink and they had someone spray a mold remover.”

They also experienced a leak in the kitchen that they kept putting in maintenance requests for to no avail. They resorted to putting a mop bucket on the floor under the leak, and had to ensure someone would be home often enough to prevent it from overflowing. “We would wake up and overnight the bucket would [have] overflowed so we would have to mop in the morning. We submitted a request with photos and got no reply. The leak stopped eventually and soon after we moved out.”

Miraculously, despite all this, when recalling her time living in that apartment, Donado is still inclined to say that she and her roommates lucked out. “For us a lot of the issues we had felt inconvenient but not detrimental to how we felt. The biggest one was the leak, and the mold was super stressful because it was a health issue.” However, she says that they “ learned to live in that apartment; it could have been much worse. Students are lucky if they don’t have rodents or pests.” She also acknowledges that her and her roommates were all co-op students, and that played a role in putting up with lesser quality housing conditions. The lease was short-term, making it ideal for students who move every four months for co-op placements as most leases are a year minimum. “With co-op, this apartment became convenient, since we didn’t have to break our lease and risk not being able to find another one. We also found it harder to find another apartment around the same price,” she said.

Rare strokes of luck like Orlic’s aside, experiences like Amouie’s and Donado’s reflect a housing market where students often feel like they have little leverage. Finding decent housing in Waterloo typically requires more than stumbling across the right listing at the right time, and  requires as much research and self-advocacy as possible. 

“A lot of people looking for student housing after the first year can be a little naive, like I was,” Amouie says. “For my first place, I just signed the lease and didn’t really look anything through because I was like whatever, I need a place to live. I think looking over it and like, jotting down the questions that you have and going over it with someone that you trust [is important]. Also asking questions to the leasing agent, and sticking up for yourself.”

In terms of advice for students looking for housing options, Donado shared that “reading reviews can be super helpful” and to “read the lease through and through”. She further emphasized,  “Make sure you’re asking as many questions as possible, the contract that you’re signing matters. If you don’t understand what it means, ask before you sign. I’ve seen a lot of students get in bad situations and not be able to leave because of their contract.” 

In regards to the student accounts of the conditions of their Waterloo properties, we reached out to ACCOMMOD8U, Icon and Centurion Asset Management Inc. 

Centurion Asset Management Inc provided the following comment:

“At The MARQ Student Living, our priority is to provide a safe, clean, and comfortable environment where students can focus on their academics and enjoy their university experience. We take all feedback seriously and are committed to continuously improving our communities. 

With respect to maintenance, our standard practice is to respond to service requests within 24 hours. We also offer 24/7 emergency maintenance support to ensure urgent issues are addressed promptly. Our on-site teams conduct regular property inspections and work closely with residents to resolve concerns as efficiently as possible.  

We recognize that living in a high-density student community can present unique challenges; however, we strive to uphold high standards across all our properties. We actively encourage residents to share feedback directly with our management teams so that we can address concerns quickly and effectively. 

We appreciate the opportunity to provide context and remain committed to delivering a positive resident experience across all of our communities.” 

We did not hear back from ACCOMMOD8U or Icon in time for publication.