Welcome to Wandsworth Prison, prepare to suffer (Halls Of Residence At The University Of Luton)

Member Name: jaylad

Product:	Halls Of Residence At The University Of Luton
Date:	24/05/01 (307 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Noisy, Rough area, Vandalism, Murders are common

Experiencing prison must be a more pleasant experience than living in the halls of residence at the University of Luton.

I was fortunate enough to actually get placed in my first choice of halls site – Bute Street. You have four options when choosing at Luton and the Bute Street site is their flagship halls of residence. It’s aimed at being a student village, which it’s not. It’s basically about 10 huge blocks of newly built flats and at first it looks really nice. How wrong one could be.

When you come on your open day to University of Luton, you are given a guided tour of some halls. Now being very crafty they are, they infact show you around their nicest, quietest site which is only available to disabled students. When I walked in I was really impressed but it’s COMPLETELY different from the REAL halls.

I arrived at my halls site on the day I was moving in. I was really excited, this was going to be my first time living away from home!
I stayed in Johnson block, and my room that I was allocated was on the 2nd floor. I didn’t mind that.
I got to the room and it was a tiny breeze block cell without plastered walls and a window at one end and a horrible thin brown carpet. Now I know these are only student digs and aren’t meant to be flash but I really wasn’t looking forward to staying in this room. I looked at my flatmates rooms and they were all the same.

To make things worse, I tried the bed out, and it was so thin I couldn’t believe it. It also had a headboard and board by your feet, meaning a person who is 6”1 like me would have difficulty sleeping in it.
There was a fitted sink and wardrobe and a few draws and that’s all there was to my new home!
Add to this, the town of Luton (read my previous opinion) and I sat on the fitted desk and I just burst into tears. In the space of about 2 hours of unpacking with my mum and aunt I became really depr
essed.
My family said that I did not have to stay here and that I had a choice, they only wanted the best for me but I was brave and just said that I would grin and bear it.

The blocks have about 10 flats to them, with 2 on each floor containing 5 bedrooms, a corridor, 2 bathrooms (with a shower not a bath) and a large kitchen with dining table.

Our flat actually had 6 bedrooms and I was put together with 5 other people from completely different lifestyles. Sadly I didn’t get on with anyone and this never changed.

3 months down the line I was hoping things were going to improve but they didn’t.
There had been several rows between me and other flatmates as well as ongoing rifts between themselves and it was becoming unbearable.

This was a no-smoking block as I had requested. Please don’t think you will be out with others that abide by this rule. 2 people smoked in my flat even though you weren’t allowed to.
The other rule is about noise, and this is the other major concern I have about Bute Street halls. Students are asked to refrain from making a noise or any unsociable behaviour after 11pm. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN!
24 Hours, seven days a week, its noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. One person played rock music so loud every night for a week that I now know the words to every single on the album. About 20 people would always be playing their stereos at full blast with the windows open even at night. Now add that to the other 9 blocks of people who were also doing the same thing and it’s quite noisy. Now I would also like to remind everyone that Bute Street halls are directly next to the train station. Luton station is a main line route and trains travelling at 100mph through it are common. In a short space of time I had remembered the times when they went past and made sure the window was closed. But that’s nothing, within 2 months I had seen just about every EasyJet aircraft in th
eir fleet – yep your right under the flightpath of London Luton airport. You just wake up in the morning and hope they are taking off in your direction and not landing!
People would always hang about in the carpark directly outside and shout all night, especially after the pubs had closed and you would have to bear it all night. Remember this is every single night, after night after night. When the yobs aren’t drinking beer and sitting in the car-park then they are normally kicking footballs at the cars. The yobs usually aren’t students and shouldn’t even be on the grounds but the wardens office is unmanned at night and anyone can get in. Car vandalism is not uncommon. I didn’t suffer from this but getting footballs kicked against your car is something you have to bear.

The duty wardens do not enforce any rules at all and they don’t really care to be honest. They are students themselves.
Add this to the ongoing smoke alarms which are very loud and usually caused from people smoking drugs in non-smoking flats and you can imagine its hell.

After 3 months of this living nightmare I got my stuff and left. I had a contract to pay the full year but I didn’t care, this was my life I was talking about.

Luckily, within weeks another student moved into my room and took over my contract. This is lucky because we were just getting a solicitor on the case. I was to express that so few rules were enforced while I stayed there, that the University breached their part of the contract, so I might not have to pay the remaining rent. Luckily we didn’t have to do this.

So if you unfortunately have to come to the University of Luton at all, make sure you don’t stay in halls.

Some advice for other students that might be in the same situation: PLEASE GET HELP. You only go to university once, and you should not have to suffer as a result of it. Speak to someone, if where you are livin
g is hell, try speaking to the University, your family and perhaps people causing the conflict. But stick to 1 ground rule, if you don’t like it, get out like I did.

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