Roland Realty has received fewest tenant complaints, CPM has received most

As winter approaches, students living in campus apartments are becoming more reliant on their housing companies to handle maintenance requests quickly and efficiently.

The Tenant Union provides a list of the number of complaints filed against each housing company in order to keep students informed about their landlords. The complaints that the Tenant Union reports all relate to the landlord’s obligations under the law or according to the terms of the lease. They do not take complaints about roommates, neighborhoods or rent increases.

Some companies have histories of responding to problems in a way that keeps tenants satisfied, while others have several complaints filed against them each year.

Roland Realty has not had a complaint filed against it during the last five years and Bankier Apartments has only had two complaints in five years.

Zach Mueller, a leasing agent at Roland Realty, said that he believes the company has an effective system for addressing tenants’ complaints. Requests are typically handled within two days, he said.

Kirstie Davis, property manager of Bankier Apartments, believes that Bankier also has an efficient system in place. Somebody from the company checks the email every day and fills out maintenance requests, she said. There is also someone on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer emergency requests, she added.

According to the Tenant Union, Campus Property Management, The University Group, Ramshaw Real Estate, C-U Living and Illinois Properties Inc. have had the most complaints filed against them.

At the top of the list is CPM with 66 complaints in the last five years.

Ezim Hamid, junior in actuarial science, said he is not happy with the speed at which CPM responds to requests made by tenants.

“Sometimes it takes them one or two weeks,” he said.

Hamid is also concerned by the fact that the furniture in his apartment is not in great condition.

“The assumption when we first signed the contract was that everything is fine,” he said.

Mohammad Aditi Mat Aris, junior in finance and resident of a CPM building, also said he is not satisfied with how CPM handles maintenance requests. The housing company has been slow to respond ever since the beginning of the semester when he moved in to an unclean apartment, he said.

“I had to call them several times to clean,” he added.

Aditi Mat Aris will be moving out of his building next semester.

Not all CPM residents have complaints, however. Myles Megyesi, junior in computer science, said that his apartment was in decent condition when he moved it, and that the only maintenance request he made all semester was addressed within a few days.

Though CPM has the highest total number of complaints, Michael Jay, director of public relations for the company, said CPM is making changes in order to address complaints more quickly.

This year, the housing company built its own warehouse, meaning that all maintenance supplies can be found in one place. CPM also instituted a hierarchy within their maintenance system in order to increase efficiency- maintenance workers now report to a “team leader” who works beneath the supervisor.

The large number of apartments owned by CPM makes it hard to address all requests immediately, but that the company is working on responding more quickly, Jay said.

“We have, over the last few years, tried to improve,” he said.