Central Studios - London, london

So far, I am really enjoying my time at central studios- Allan is really nice, and always attends to your requests as best as he can. The common areas are always clean, and the cleaner is really friendly. Would recommend.

DO NOT LIVE HERE. I've lived at CSE for three years now, thank god I moved out a few days ago. The first year, the manager was great, he resolved issues I had with the room quickly.After the first year, the building nosedived. Below are just a few of the insanely long list of issues that I and many, if not all, residents had to deal with. SECURITY: Possibly the most important factor for students moving away from home. The keypad to the front door broke, you might have thought this would have been a priority to fix, no. It took 3-4 weeks for the door to get fixed meaning our front door had no locking mechanism allowing anyone to just walk in. After residents complained, Homes For Students decided to actually spend some money on the residents (for once) and hire a security firm overnight to make sure strangers didn't enter the building. I wasn't convinced that the person they hired would actually be able to protect the building anyway considering literally anytime I came home from work at night, she was either on her phone or had her head on the desk (having a nap?), genuinely she wouldn't even look up when I walked in the door. The SECURITY cameras that they have in all the common spaces and corridors in the building, don't work. They have two (maybe) that actually record anything, and what they do record is in the lowest quality you can imagine (lower than the youtube 2007 video quality), meaning that we cant make out the faces of the people who are STEALING our packages. I'm sure you've read about the prostitution ring from other reviews on here so I wont say too much about that, just beware when you step outside the front door that some random man may approach you and ask for 'services' or try and talk to you about sexual topics. Police are aware of this, not that it makes much of a difference, they'll take about an hour to arrive and even then they just say they'll look into it and to just keep reporting it over the phone if it happens again. HEATING AND AC: The heating will go out sporadically, there is no AC. prepare for sweltering hot rooms, windows that cant open more than two inches due to a security cable keeping it closed. The rooms are so hot, that people have passed out, its near impossible to sleep at night. At least you can have a freezing cold shower though due to the hot water that sporadically decides not to work. There is NO AC anywhere in the building, I cannot recommend enough, PLEASE BRING A FAN, although the blowing of the warmish air is still uncomfortable, it at least makes it a little bearable. MAINTENANCE: Ah yes, since the beginning of my three year stay, the top floors have been subject to LEAKS, anytime it rains (quite common in London). if you're on the top two floors, prepare to have bowls over the floor to collect the rainwater that will leak through your ceiling. Although they had builders on the roof at one point to try and fix this issue, it did not get resolved. If you're one of the really unlucky ones, the water will leak over your bed. OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: You'll get some nice roommates in the form of insects. Insect infestations, I was never unlucky enough to have one, but many people did. If you unfortunately forget your key, prepare to pay £52 for someone to come out and let you back in. Settle down on the cold stairs in the lobby and wait up to three hours to be let back in, sometimes, when they arrive THEIR key doesn't work either. Finally, the laundry situation. Two laundry machines for the entire building of 90+ tenants. When you do manage to get to the machine, you'll pay nearly £7 to wash and dry one load of laundry. Poor Wifi as well. Its okay though, Homes For Students will spend a little bit of money once a month on a residents breakfast in the common room (some granola bars and water). The best part of living here was the location. If it weren't so close to my uni, I would have moved out after year 1. Hope the new manager is better and improves these issues. Good Luck.

Allan Mc Sween at reception is always friendly, helpful, and professional. He makes the accommodation feel welcoming and solves any issues quickly. Great service and a great smile every day!

Stayed for two years, wasn’t worth the money. Safety and security issues: • Prostitution ring reported. • Very few functioning surveillance cameras. • Front door left open for weeks, allowing strangers to enter. • Stolen packages by the reception area. • Strangers frequently came inside to smoke weed or harass residents. • One incident where three hostile men refused to leave. • Another incident where a man wandered the halls at night, making residents feel unsafe. Maintenance problems: • No warm water for over a week. • Water leaks during my first year weren’t fixed for months. I even woke up with water dripping on me. • Mold in the bathroom. • Insects present. Living conditions: • Poor maintenance of rooms. My bed frame was broken, shower eventually broke as well. My walls had old coffee stains which was disgusting. My desk and bookshelf was clearly damaged. • Fire alarm system goes off far too easily, even for minor things. • Windows don’t open fully, making it impossible to ventilate properly. • During summer, rooms were unbearably hot with no air conditioning and little airflow — many couldn’t sleep or stay inside. Other downsides: • Laundry is extremely overpriced, causing unnecessary extra costs. Positives: • Convenient location (close to MetFilm and the shopping centre). • Nice community of residents. Overall: The negatives far outweigh the positives. It’s unsafe, poorly maintained, and overpriced. Do not live here.

I still live here, but my last review was 5 stars and now it turned into 2. It got the two stars as I love the place being near MetFilm and it is nice and quiet. But lemme get into the rest. Got no warm water for like 2 weeks, what did they do? Nothing as the manager wasn’t even there. Did we get comenstated, nope, still expensive. Our front door was open which gave weird people access to our building. Took them 3 weeks to fix it. They atleast had someone at the front desk who could check, but even when I walked in late they never batted an eye. Happens a lot that weird man walk in our building and terrorizing the people there. Super overpriced, but at least one person who works here is helpful to fix small things, except leaking ceilings, that is where their expertise stops. Our manager for the yeat simply stopped coming to work, which made it hard to get our package as they were locked behind doors. Don’t even get me started that we have to pay 50£ if you lock yourself in. We have wardens for that, but they send out an email that we shouldn’t do that, that paying 50£ is our first choice. Like dude, I already pay a lot of money to stay here. I would rather sleep in the common room than pay that much money. But in the end if you staying here, the people in the building are nice as we all share the same trauma. Let’s all hope that the new manager is better :)