Block 36 - Lease by Bed Available, east-lansing-mi

Since block 36 likes to hide negative reviews that criticize there establishment. Here is a repost of a previous review that was deleted: “I was a resident of block 36 for 2 years, and for students looking for their new apartment for the school year, I couldn’t recommend this place less. If you’re looking for hundreds of dollars in fees not explicitly stated in the lease, getting locked out your apartment while you’re at work, and a lease violation that when you ask for clarification or proof on then you get ghosted… then Block 36 is the place for you! The walk-in closet and cheap rent will make this place enticing for you, but the terrible ac, out-dated appliances, random fees, and crazy utilities will have you start thinking living in a box outside the msu union wouldn’t be so bad. They advertise they have a pool/hot tub, but don’t worry it it will be closed for 10 months out of the year because the 2 months it’s open it’s riddled with old leaves, bird and geese feces, and an ever-growing ecosystem of new bacteria. The “roommate matching based on preferences” will be obvious it’s more like “roommate matching based on what’s convenient for management” when you get there. Long story short, Block 36 tanked my mental health and was a miserable place to have to go home too. The first year was ok but I guess that’s why they call it a honeymoon stage because year 2 highlighted their true colors, and I would be doing my peers a disservice if I didn’t warn you about them. Spend the extra $50-100 elsewhere and save more money, stress, and dignity in the end to not have to deal with this kind of management.” Hiding poor reviews doesn’t build a stronger, safer, or happier community to live in nor does it build trust between current or future tenants. Do the due diligence and adequately address tenant concerns, treat people with respect and you wouldn’t have to worry about a negative review in the first place.

MSU STUDENTS DO NOT LIVE HERE!!!!!! Overcharged $20 each for utilities. Rent app doesn’t work and they will charge you $75 late fees knowing this. After SCRUBBING my apartment top to bottom during move out, I was still fined $150 for a “deep clean”. They never replaced the carpet in my roommate’s room that was 2+ years old and charged her $311 after moving out for the replacement. If they can’t figure out who’s smoking in your building, they charge every resident in that building the fee. My building was infested with ants. The ceiling above my tub fell in. When maintenance came to fix it, they knocked the tub drain in the apartment above loose. I came home to my floor flooded in someone’s dirty bath water and had to throw all items in there away. There was no compensation offered and when I asked, I was told indefinitely there would be none and that it wasn’t maintenance’s fault. My bathroom and the bathroom above had no prior history of water leakage. Every time I had a meeting with the assistant manager Rene Rohdea, she would falsify information and try to pin miscommunication on my roommates instead of the office workers who repeatedly failed to pass information along. We were without wifi for almost a week and told we had to fix it with Xfinity ourselves. We were without hot water for several days and couldn’t shower or do laundry. Maintenance didn’t properly repair it the first time we called. The second time around they fixed the hot water heater, but neglected to turn all the switches in the breaker back on (they claimed they had to turn all the switches off so they wouldn’t get electrocuted during repairs. So I came home from work this time to the stove being completely devoid of power me, leaving I and my roommates unable to cook that night and the following morning. After they came to fix their mistake, the office sends us an email fully accusing us of tampering with the breaker???? They threatened to put a lockbox on the breaker, which would be extremely hazardous to residents. Nevertheless, we told them to put it on there so it’s no further confusion about who was VERY CLEARLY in the breaker. They never put the box on. Moral of the story the office is run by fraudulent liars, avoid at all costs!

The moral of my long winded review - do not live here. Do not let the cheap rent and semi-close distance to campus fool you. Block 36 is an absolute scam that preys on first-time renting college students. I lived at Block 36 for 2 years with three of my friends while I was completing my degree at MSU, and we honestly should not have stayed after seeing the condition our unit was in on move-in day. There was roach feces in kitchen cabinets, mold on walls, doorways, and windowsills, piles of dirt behind furniture, cigarette smoke residue on our ceiling fans, cigarette burn marks in the carpeting throughout the unit, and the kitchen floor vinyl was peeling up. We noted these damages and the cleaning negligence on the provided move-in paper that we turned in to the leasing office less than a week after we moved in. Keep that part in mind as I continue on. The actual living at Block 36 was not terrible - they provided us with a bus pass for the buses that ran to and from campus and the maintenance man, Kevin, was helpful and kind whenever we had minor issues. The star on this review is for Kevin, I would give Block 36 itself zero if I could. They also grossly over-charge for utilities, and though I don’t know the specifics in terms of utilities around East Lansing, $200 for ONE unit (divided amongst four roommates) is absurd considering it’s supposedly only electric and natural gas that we are billed monthly for. My roommates and I did have a very negative experience over the course of our leases with both the AGM, Rene Rodea, and another employee who no longer works with Block 36. This came about when we were accused of “excessive noise” during hours that we were all on campus (or otherwise not in the apartment), and we were threatened with “further action” with the evidence being an employee’s lived experience. They dropped the issue when we mentioned that we would consider legal action if they proceeded with the threats. When we finally got to our move-out this past July/August, my roommates and I were all hit with insane fees. Not only were they trying to charge us for the damages to the unit that were there when we moved in, but they claimed that the move-in paper in which we documented these damages did not prove that the damages were pre-existing. They were attempting to charge over $600 per roommate for these damages that were in the unit to begin with due to management’s own negligence. We threatened legal action once again and had 2 of the charges dropped, though my roommates were still hit with another nearly $600 each in charges for their individual bedrooms. In addition to these charges, management was extremely rude in their responses during our attempted dispute process. We were told that we were not allowed to communicate about our issues with each other (meaning my roommates and I could not discuss the charges) and that our messaging to dispute the charges was “condescending”. This “condescending” comment came after they refused to respond to emails regarding the charges despite the legal timeline that we had for the final billing statement, therefore prompting us to send more than one email. Personally I see nothing wrong with sending multiple emails when I do not get a response on a time-sensitive issue. This is all an insane abuse toward first-time renting college students which, in reading other reviews from this last move-out period, is a common theme for Block 36. If you read all of that I certainly hope you’re convinced not to live here, but if it didn’t change your mind, just remember to take pictures of EVERYTHING when you move in and memorize the free MSU Legal Housing help phone number - you’re going to need it.

I lived at block 36 for two years and I want to preface that I loved living there. But I moved out in late July and I want to warn everyone that they will charge you for as much as they possibly can when you move out. I did everything I could to try to dispute it and they didn’t care at all. I had to pay over 900 dollars for them to completely replace all the carpet in the apartment and my bathroom tile along with a few other charges. Even though I did not do any damages. My advice if you want to live here is to take pictures of every crevice of the apartment when you move in and when you move out. Because I made the mistake of not taking thorough pictures and now I’m being punished. They’re scamming college students because they know they can get away with it.

We came into your apartment community to get information about the property. We were informed that the model unit was not available for viewing and likely would not be open until next week, which was completely understandable. My concern was with the level of customer service we received. Since we were already there in person, I attempted to get more information about the community. Even if the model apartment was unavailable, I would have appreciated someone taking the time to tell us about the property, amenities, floor plans, or even offering to show us around the grounds. Instead, we were simply told that the information could be found online. While I understand that information is available on the website, there were three staff members in the office and no other customers present at the time. It would have been nice for someone to come from behind the desk and provide a more welcoming and informative experience. Unfortunately, the interaction left a bad taste in my mouth. The staff came across as dismissive, and as a result, we have decided not to return to view the apartments. First impressions matter, and this experience did not make us feel valued as potential residents.