Westmar Student Lofts, atlanta-ga

I am preparing to move out after living at Westmar for a year. In my experience the staff and security are kind, patient and mostly helpful. The rent is affordable and I feel safe sleeping and living here. That being said, there are many issues I have experienced. Many have been fixed and some have not. Roach infestation, exposed wiring, barely functioning appliances, dirty furniture and difficult parking rules were my main issues. For the roaches, I was told to apply caulk to the seems of every wall in my apt and use my own bug traps. This combined with the apartments own pest services did indeed reduce the amount of roaches over about 6 months but it was very inconvenient. I specifically filled a form stating that I was allergic to cats and they still allowed me to move in with dirty couches that had roaches and cat hair in them. Maintenance kindly replaced the dirty couches. Appliances like fire alarms, the sinks and leaking water heater/air conditioning were all repaired by maintenance soon after. Guest parking rules are very limited. With all of that being said, if you are willing to work with maintenance and treat your own roach issues, the apartment was very serviceable for my needs.

(Pictures included) Since August, when I moved in, I’ve seen roaches - big and small. I have seen them crawling out of the sink, onto my stove, into my fridge, within my clothes, on the countertops, on the walls, and atop my food on the kitchen counters. I have requested over ten pest control treatments, where they’ve came and sprayed for 2-3 minutes. Additionally, I’ve had three German Pest Control Treatments, and during these I had to pack up my kitchen and bathroom areas. It almost felt like packing to move, but packing helped them facilitate the spraying on a wider scale. It was getting worse so I requested a sealing treatment to cover entry points and I requested a new fridge (since they kept crawling in it). Within the span of three days, I found them in my old fridge twice causing me to replace groceries twice (about $300). As a college student, I wouldn’t recommend this place for students or for those who can’t endure pests. It’s hard to focus on schoolwork, inviting friends over for dinner, or simply sleeping, when all you’re thinking about is “will a roach crawl on me?” The area where the building is located is nice, some staff and security guards are too. But beware - this is not student lofts. There are people across the age spectrum living here who are non-students. I’m heartbroken because habitability has been breached, and I’ve repeatedly asked to terminate the lease due to uninhabitable conditions. Despite evidence, they deem my apartment habitable despite the prevalence of pests. To break a lease, despite them not maintaining a habitable apartment, I’d have to either pay the lease, send it to collections, or relet. As a social worker, I wouldn’t let anyone move in here knowing there’s a pest control issue. Do research on anywhere you stay in Atlanta. But especially here. I’m posting this not out of spite but out of care for anyone considering to live here like I once did and to educate future residents who deserve to make an informed decision.

Westmar Student Lofts is easily one of the worst places I’ve ever lived. Calling this “student housing” is a joke — it feels more like living in the trap/ghetto than an actual apartment community for students. This place is honestly a scam. The rooms look NOTHING like what they show you on the tour. It’s like living in a jail cell. They constantly add random unexplained fees to your account right before rent is due, hoping you won’t question it. The building is roach infested, the heating barely works, and the hallways constantly smell like trash. Only dirty people can make a home out of this mess… The parking situation is ridiculous too — they charge you for parking just to boot your car at the slightest inconvenience. The parking garage gate is broken all the time, which just adds to the mess. There’s honestly no point in having a leasing office, maintenance team, or security if they’re not going to do their jobs. The leasing office has no real control over anything in the building and seems to only exist for “comfort.” Maintenance fails to fixes anything, so everything stays constantly broken, and security clearly does not care about their position or the residents. Security is also extremely rude and unprofessional. They’ll stalk you if you stay in the parking garage too long, take pictures of you without permission, and talk to residents however they want with zero accountability. Police are constantly being called here for disputes, fights, thefts, and other issues. This is not a safe or comfortable environment for students trying to focus on school. Save yourself the stress and look somewhere else.

I had a terrible experience at Westmar Student Lofts that honestly showed me how little they care about residents. I had just gotten off work and couldn’t even get into my room because my key fob was dead. After a long day, I couldn’t shower, couldn’t rest, and literally had nowhere to go. When I reached out for help, staff told me “if they come they come, if not you’ll have to figure it out,” which is completely unacceptable. What’s even worse is that they claim to have 24 hour maintenance, yet I couldn’t get any assistance when I actually needed it. On top of that, they attempted to charge me a lockout fee for something that wasn’t even my fault. Why am I paying rent just to be locked out of my own room? Especially being college students, it feels like Westmar preys on students. To avoid further issues, security should have more information on what to do in these situations or be able to easily replace the battery since they have access to our rooms. After speaking with security, I also learned that I am not the only person this has happened to, and others have been locked out until the next day as well. I have a lot of complaints about these apartments, but this was the last straw. Situations like this make it clear that Westmar only cares about money, not the people living there.

I’ve lived in this complex for a couple of months now and every maintenance request that I submitted was handled in a timely fashion. I think there was one time where I sent a request and was told that it was handled but it wasn’t. I haven’t sent another request regarding that yet but other than that I’ve had a good experience so far. I saw one big roach a couple of weeks ago but I haven’t seen it since I scheduled pest control service. All of the staff is nice and they answered all the questions that I had and addressed all of my concerns before I officially signed my lease and moved into my unit.