Where to begin. We signed for a year and if we could have left after 6 months we would have. The ONLY two saving graces of this place were 1) Meeting some nice people whom you will stay in contact with and 2) The front desk staff are lovely and helpful. Especially the ones who joined in the last few months. The design of the apartments are also quite nice.
Now for the actual review.
We chose MODA because of the pitch. The pitch was effortless living built for professionals with extra amenities. I’m going to list out things we were told when viewing and then the reality once we were in the door. For context we were some of the first to move into MODA.
Co-working space + meeting room
Pitch: It’s open 24/7 and there’s a meeting room at the back if you need some privacy. There’s 2 kitchens both stocked up with some basics like coffee pods etc.
Reality: It’s open 24/7 and there’s a meeting room at the back that costs £20 per hour. The kitchen had coffee for about the first 2-3 months and then never again.
Professionals + young workers
Pitch: We aren’t marketed towards students, we will monitor the numbers however as some students will apply.
Reality: After 5 months the place was 80% students, 95% of which were international students. Therefore you couldn’t really interact with them as they were younger and understandably wanted to stick to getting to know students from their home countries.
This meant that suddenly your silent living would be met with constant noise issues along with the coworking space turning into a glorified student meet up. Some of which would bring their entire setups (monitor, pc, etc) and just leave them there but mostly just sit, faff around on their laptop and chat for hours on end.
As a whole it’s fair to say the massive influx of students completely changed the dynamics of MODA. Every area became messy. Simple things like people would leave the co-working space and just leave all of their mess, bottles, wrappers etc and other areas like the upstairs lounge would be ruined long after the cleaners had gone. Meaning it would be messy till they got there to clean it in the morning.
Private Dining Area
Pitch: You can book this out and invite people over and just really have access to a bigger space if you don’t want loads of people in your apartment. It was implied and even told to some people this didn’t come with a charge.
Reality: It costs £40 per hour. THEN they changed this to £20 per hour THEN they changed it again so that it was free for residents of MODA but if someone wasn’t a resident it would cost. I’m pretty sure it’s changed again.
Cinema:
Pitch: You can come here whenever. If you want to book it out you can do and that costs but otherwise its here for all to use.
Reality: Brilliant for the first few months, especially for sporting events or the F1 or if you’re a bit nocturnal like me and a friend you can nip down there to meet up and watch some tv shows. But then someone stole a controller for the Xbox and suddenly you couldn’t use it past midnight and you had to sign your name for the controller like some sort of primary school setup. I understand why if people steal stuff but this felt very juvenile.
Utilities + Eco design
Before I write anything. Just Google Community Utilities (CU) and look at the reviews. If that isn’t reason enough to not move here I don’t know what is.
Pitch: You make 1 payment and all of your utilities are covered. The apartments are designed to be eco-friendly and we use a heating network to cut down on costs even more.
Reality: This was LITERALLY one of the reasons we moved here. Knowing that utility prices were going to skyrocket it was a no brainer. However, you are charged CONSIDERABLY higher than literally anything else on the market. The heating network that apparently saves you money does quite the opposite. For every 650kwh you use in heating they charge you for 1000kwh. They literally state on their bill this is because the system is inefficient so YOU pick up the cost for them.
Countless residents had problems with them to the point CU sent in a team of 10+ employees to speak to people one by one. To my knowledge nothing was resolved. Plenty of people protested (myself included) how much they were being charged. My final bill for the year was around £2850. Calculated for inflation and price increases my bill is still about £750-1000 off. I’m fortunate enough to avoid this being a problem and more of a mild headache and annoyance. If you’re a student or single person or not a high earner please do NOT put yourself in the position to be dealing with these sorts of costs.
Personal issues:
Now this isn’t something I never thought I’d have to write and it sucks that I have to but I think it’s probably the biggest issue MODA faces.
There is essentially NOTHING you can do that will get you kicked out of MODA. Nothing. I’ll run through 3 examples that prove this.
1) Police raid:
One evening at around 11pm all the elevators were shut off and naturally in the pre-student days there were very few people about other than a few staff members. I was leaving the co-working space and very casually the manager apologised about the lifts so I took the stairs thinking nothing of it.
Within the next hour heavily armed police entered the building and proceeded to arrest a resident. The following hour the mans car was removed from the site and in the morning everyone received a message saying the person will not be returning.
Nope. The man proceeded to live there for a few more months before (I think) moving on his own accord.
2) Resident violently threatening another and forces MODA to save him thousands:
A friend of mine had another resident threaten him and this resident had numerous run ins with staff and was generally quite a contentious person. Alas he said he wanted to move because he hated it there. After a while he was actually allowed to leave. Imagine that, a violent resident WANTS to leave and the only thing stopping him was MODA wanting to force this person to honour their contract, regardless of them making other residents anxious or unhappy?
You don’t want someone like that on your premises making life difficult for others and its not like he was refusing to leave yet it still took them months to let him go.
3) Assaulted + harassment
Myself and my partner were assaulted by a resident at MODA, not the same as 2). I was physically attacked and my partner verbally attacked and made to feel intimidated.
Now that scenario isn’t MODAs fault. No part of me, my partner or other residents would hold that against them. However what they did next is their fault. I emailed the site manager explaining everything in detail, far more detail than I gave here and said I will not live somewhere with someone like that so either they go asap or we will leave asap as my partner literally felt unsafe. She proceeded to tell me she would talk with him but before that she felt the need to remind me that I signed a contract for 12 months and couldn’t leave. Go look at 2) and recognise how odd that is. An attacker can WANT to leave and MODA will make them stay but a victim wants to distance themself from an attacker and they will make them stay. Money > everything.
She emailed me back saying she spoke with him and that it seemed like it was a ‘mix of personalities’ and the was a bit drunk. Oh…my mistake. That makes it all good then.
How was this resolved may you ask? The resident left on their own accord for a family reason a few weeks later. If not for that we would have had to endure another 6 months of that.
I really could go on about a handful of other issues but in summary. Glad to be gone.
Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:
The good aspects of the area are clear. You’re in a very central location with a 15 minute walk to the train station. There’s a whole host of bars and restaurants to pick from if you’re into that.
The bad is only clear once you move in. The area is a mess with litter, graffiti and your doorstep is a local gathering point for local chavs to sit, smoke weed, drink and be a general nuisance to tenants and workers around the building.
Parking availability isn’t an issue I ran into because I was lucky enough to not have a car at MODA but every other day there was people complaining about others taking their spot (which was assigned to them). Bin collections was quite nice and efficient. You walk out of your apartment and throw the bins down the chute and for recycling there’s a separate area. That is to say if you’re a functional adult. Most of the time people will take their rubbish to the bin chute and instead of completing the arduous task of pulling a handle they will simply leave it there in a room, stinking up the place OR some residents would simply throw the black bin bags in front of their door and leave them there for 1 or 2 weeks at a time. Gives a nice smell to the place.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
That I was going to get shafted by utilities so hard.
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
Dreadfully in general. Overcharged for things. Slow responses and even slower actions.
