Some new residents of The Cottages of College Station arrived at their apartments in late August to learn that they were missing mattresses in what were supposed to be fully furnished spaces.
Residents have also expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of cleanliness and missing furniture in the common room spaces. Concerned students and parents have taken to social media to question the complex about the situation and say they have received little explanation from The Cottages staff.
On Aug. 19, a post on The Cottages’ Instagram account incited responses from residents moving in that day. It has garnered 100 replies at time of publication, including former residents sharing the issues they previously faced at the housing complex. The post showcased a photo of bed with the following caption: “It’s your first day waking up as a resident of @thecottagesofcollegestation! How did you make the most of it?”
One commenter on the post, Gwyneth Amaya, said she arrived at an unsanitary room with the promised furniture missing from the residence.
“[There was] no furniture at all in the common area or bedrooms, my bedroom light doesn’t turn on, there was hair in my shower and in the drawers in my restroom and looked as if no one even came in to clean my room, even though I was told they go through a ‘deep clean,’” Amaya wrote. “My only source of light in my room is a lamp. I slept two nights on the floor without a mattress even though I called, went to the office, texted and answered the questions on the email multiple times.”
A public relations representative for The Cottages said in an email that the complex understands the problems the management of the move-in has caused and plan to resolve the issues faced by the affected residents.
“The Cottages of College Station Management Team knows this past week has been a stressful time for its residents and has apologized for its lack of organization during move-in,” the statement said. “Trucks will be delivering furniture from Tuesday through Thursday. Our goal is for anyone with a furnished unit lease to receive their furniture this week. … We understand how tough starting a new college year can be. We certainly did not want to add to that stress and are doing everything we can to get this corrected.”
Educational administration and human resource development sophomores Sarah Heinze and Rachel Newton, both first-time residents of The Cottages, moved in on Aug. 18 and found that their house had broken furniture and was missing several mattresses.
“It was a disaster,” Heinze said. “There’s just been a lot of miscommunication between the people living there and management. Just from day one, [there has been] a lack of consistency with communication between emails and phone calls.”
Heinze and Newton, along with their three roommates, signed their lease early in the year to receive a special offer from The Cottages that was supposed to provide furniture for no extra cost.
“There were a lot of things promised to us that they haven’t really followed through with,” Newton said. “We had furniture guaranteed, but a lot of it came broken. There was only one roommate that got all the furniture she was promised.”
After trying to communicate with The Cottages several times, Heinze and Newton said staff told them they were underprepared for the amount of people who signed for the furniture package.
“They told us that they gave this offer to a lot of people and then they didn’t have enough furniture,” Heinze said. “They did promise us that we would get a mattress that night, but we waited for three days.”
Newton was one of the two roommates in the house that didn’t receive a mattress, forcing her to sleep on the floor for her first days at The Cottages. According to Heinze, a ceiling fan and television were also missing from the list of items promised to them. She said the furniture they have now is broken or damaged.
“There’s just stuff that needs to be repaired,” Newton said. “We knew there was too much going on, so we actually had our friend help us fix them. That’s kind of what it came down to. We knew they weren’t going to come and repair it anytime soon.”
Despite all of the problems they have faced, Newton said she and Heinze are positive about upcoming changes.
“I’m really hopeful; I think things have gotten better with each day,” Newton said. “Not as much as I wish, but things are very slowly getting resolved. I just really hope that in the future they can talk to us about some sort of compensation package because they caused a lot of stress for new students and people coming into College Station for the first time. It’s really unnecessary and not what Aggieland is about.”