Michigan State University requires students to live on campus for their first two academic years, excluding those with housing exceptions. When entering their third and fourth academic years, many upperclassmen choose to live in off-campus housing, like apartments and houses.

However, for some students, moving into their new home for the current school year was not what they expected.

Neuroscience senior and resident at Victory on Abbot Valentina Carrasco said that her move-in date was changed on short notice.

"We were supposed to move in on the 17th (of August)," Carrasco said. "First, there was never good communication, like whatsoever. I emailed them so many times trying to ask, I don't know, who my roommate was, (and) never got any information or details about move-in day, they just never responded to me."

Carrasco said management had emailed her two days before Aug. 17 and informed her that move-in day was changed to Aug. 24. 

Similarly, electrical engineering junior and resident at Victory on Abbot Jason Onwenu said he was planning to move in earlier than Aug. 17, since he had re-signed his lease, but found himself not able to do so because of construction in his unit. 

"It was really annoying, especially like, they didn't really, like, I didn't know what the construction was (for) either, which they told us (about it), like, early August, maybe," Onwenu said. "So I'm like, ‘Hopefully it'll be done by the time we get back to school’, especially since I re-signed my lease, and I planned on moving in earlier than the actual move-in date, which was the 17th (of August)."

Onwenu said he was told that the delay was due to construction in the entire building.

"What the leasing office had told me is that they thought they were cleared to have us all move in the 17th, which that's there was some miscommunication between the city and them saying they (management) had to kick everybody else out," Onwenu said.

Although management at Victory on Abbot offered arrangements for those affected, Carrasco said it still was an inconvenience.

"I, luckily, was in East Lansing (and) I was able to stay with someone else, so that wasn't a big problem for me," Carrasco said. "But I know a lot of people were not (and) had planned to travel here from other states or other cities. They did offer them some arrangements, like a hotel room and all that, but still, I mean, it's not the same when you have all your belongings with you. Where (are) you gonna do your laundry, you know, what are you gonna eat?"

Upon moving into her apartment, Carrasco said overall, her apartment was in good condition, but found "a lot of things that were not okay." This included no window screens in some windows, a smell coming from the dishwasher, and floors with paint on them.

However, Carrasco said that upon contacting maintenance several times, "no one has come to fix any of my stuff."

Carrasco also said even with management offering accommodations to residents, they still need to prioritize work orders.

"Even if they give us a month's rent, like free rent, we still need our stuff fixed," Carrasco said. "We still need maintenance to go whenever we need them to go, you know? So it's not only that, I mean, they need to improve a lot of things."

Executive Vice President of Champion Real Estate Company and an owner of Victory on Abbot Garrett Champion said residents weren’t able to move in on Aug. 17 due to miscommunication.

"We were ordered by the city to make certain upgrades to the 635 Abbot property, and had hired a contractor to do so," Champion said. "We (were) told that the work was done and that the inspectors were allowing occupancy, and that did not happen. As soon as we found out what had occurred, we flew out immediately, got hotel rooms for all the kids that were affected, and, you know, promptly got the work done and was able to get all the inspections signed off, and you know, were given occupancy by the city."

Champion said upon hearing the situation, he was "surprised as well with the tenants." He and two other representatives flew out to assess the situation and offered accommodations for affected residents, such as reserving hotel rooms, giving $30 a day for food, reimbursement for Ubers to and from classes, and waiving everybody’s rent.

Regarding the overlooked maintenance requests, Champion said this is due to the sheer volume of the orders.

"There are a lot of work orders, and so it may seem to someone that nothing's happening," Champion said. "It just means we haven't gotten to their unit yet. But that is, again, why we decided to hire and fly out additional maintenance support to try to get through all the work orders as quickly as possible."

Carrasco said she hopes for better communication from management to residents.

"I would tell them to, I mean, talk to their employees," Carrasco said. "I mean, I don't know if it's from the owners or if it's like the people that work there, but like, they’re just not getting anything done, and that's really upsetting because you're paying for rent. You're being responsible with paying your rent. You're treating the space how it should be treated. I mean, everyone is very careful, you know, but if they don't do their part, then it's really hard to have that relationship with them, you know, to trust them."

Champion said he, along with the management group, apologizes for what happened and recognizes that it was challenging for the residents to navigate.

"Obviously, it was a difficult situation, and we certainly empathize with the frustration and confusion for all the residents," Champion said. "But, you know, we can't snap our fingers and change what happened. But, as owners, I think that we flew out to make sure that we made it as tenable as possible. Because, like I said, kids did have to go to hotels, and that was very unfortunate. And our hope is that our residents knew that in a difficult situation, we did everything we could to try to make it right."

Additionally, just up Abbot Road, residents have expressed frustration regarding moving in at The Landings at Chandler Crossings. 

Arts and humanities junior and The Landings resident Mikayla Jackson said that her move-in experience was less than ideal.

Jackson said her original move-in day was Aug. 20, but didn’t end up moving in until Aug. 23. 

Upon arriving at her unit for the first time, Jackson said there were old, industrial paper towels bunched up on her counter, trash left in the sink, the kitchen range hood was sitting in front of her sink, trash in the cabinets, and mold and odor in the fridge due to it being unplugged.

Additionally, Jackson said in her bathroom and her roommates’ bathrooms, the cold water in the sink was running, but the hot water ran "just above a drip," while the shower didn’t work at all.

Jackson said when she first saw the apartment in the state it was in, she felt "disgusted."

"I genuinely, I felt disgusted, like not only for the state of the apartment being what it was, I felt disgusted (because) my dad paid for a U-Haul to take all of my stuff from home in Detroit to here," Jackson said. "Me and all my friends have been planning on moving into our apartment, and we have until this weekend to move in before syllabus week. And just, all this time, we thought everything was gonna be fine, and we come and we are told that we cannot live in this apartment, and we can't even move our stuff in because maintenance will be in and out, and I don't want to just leave my stuff there…Management is supposed to do walk-throughs on these apartments. And they're supposed to, you know, give the go-ahead of, ‘Okay, yep, this is move in ready’, and if it isn't, we were supposed to be notified, but we weren't, and so we paid the price for their negligence."

Jackson also said the main reason she wasn’t able to move in on Aug. 20 was due to what was left on her patio.

"(I) walked our patio just to, kind of get a gauge of, like, ‘Okay, like, how big is our patio? Are we gonna be able to put furniture in there?’" Jackson said. "Our radiator, water heater, and the AC unit, like, all of them were just ripped out."

Jackson and her roommates were moved to Block 36, where they stayed until the morning of Aug. 23. However, Jackson said they didn’t receive communication from The Landings that their apartment was ready to move into.

"We had to go over here almost every day," Jackson said. "We had to come over to this apartment and see how far they had actually gotten, and see what their progress was, because they never reached out to us and contacted us."

Regarding maintenance, Jackson said she had a safety concern following a maintenance request that she had submitted for her apartment.

“I submitted a maintenance request for that, and I checked the box that said, ‘If a tenant is not home or (doesn’t) answer the door (do not come in)…So I obviously checked ‘No’, because we're three girls that live by ourselves, and we're not fully moved in," Jackson said. "I asked one of my roommates, I was like, ‘Were you guys over here when maintenance came to repair that?’ And they were like, ‘No’. And one of my roommates said that…she was in the apartment taking a nap, and she went to sleep, and her door was closed. When she woke up, her door was open, and the repairs had been made."

Overall, Jackson said the move-in situation "left a really bad taste in my mouth."

"I'm just like, ‘Okay, I have to live here at least for one year, most likely two’, just because it's the cheapest housing around that (is) relatively close to campus," Jackson said. "And so I don't really have many other options. I've kind of been pigeon-holed into this as my only option."

Additionally, Jackson said the communication between management and residents needs to be improved.

"Honestly, I would just tell them that the lack of transparency and communication is so obvious, and it's just not at all what I would expect or want from people who have just have so many people that are under that are living under you," Jackson said. "There's such a disconnect, and there has to be a better way to do this. But it just seems like they want to do the bare minimum."

Jackson said the state of her apartment shouldn’t have been the way it was when she moved in.

"I shouldn't have to ask, or, like, beg for a clean apartment on move-in," Jackson said. "And I shouldn't have to ask for an apartment that's livable when I move in. Apparently, some people got emails earlier on in that week saying that, ‘Oh, your apartment wouldn't be ready until Friday.' We didn't, and so because of that, we paid the price."

Chandler Crossings’ management has not responded to multiple requests for comment before publication.