A deposit not or just partly reimbursed, trespassing, inexplicably high costs for repairs, and a hard-to-reach landlord. These are just a few complaints from residents of Luna, one of the residential towers on the TU/e campus. On floors two to until thirteen, mainly students live in the building. Over the last few months, Cursor has interviewed several (former) tenants and visited Camelot's Eindhoven headquarters.

“Camelot entered my room several times without my permission. For example, to replace my cooker hood," says PhD student Plasma Physics Yaoge Liu. “They did not contact me about this beforehand and I only noticed that they had been in my room when I got home. Then I decided to put a note on my door: "don't go in without permission." Camelot’s Real Estate Manager Joost van Kasteren responds: “We would never just enter a house without permission. We contact the tenant first and arrange a suitable moment to come."

Quite complex

The way Luna is supervised and managed is quite complex. TU/e owns the land where Luna is built on, Camelot owns the building, and TU/e rents the lower floors and uses them partly, and also subleases them to Spar, Hubble, Korein et cetera. As a result, there is no standard definition of rights and obligations. For example, this results in the fact that the TU/e is not the point of contact for the residents of the studios. 

TU/e and Camelot have agreed that a maximum of 25 percent of the gross floor area of the residential tower (floors two to thirteen) may be used to accommodate persons other than TU/e students or staff. This is a legacy from when TU/e was looking for a market party for the management of Luna and there was no party that agreed to operate a building with only student residences.

Residents causing problems for other residents

Some problems in Luna go beyond ‘just’ complaints from residents aimed at Camelot. Other parties in Luna can cause problems for other residents. For example, a last year published article about cigarette butts and other junk thrown out of windows of the Luna building ending up on the playground of Korein Kinderplein. PhD student Liu: “I heard about this and I know that people smoke illegally in their room. Some even turned off the smoke detectors manually, because that was not too difficult."

Camelot stresses that smoking is prohibited in Luna. “If we see this, the offender will be fined. There are enough signs that it is not allowed. We also communicate about this with the tenants. This is not acceptable," Van Kasteren says, on behalf of Camelot.

Head of Real Estate Management Dorine Peters also called it "unacceptable", and said that Camelot approached its residents in various ways to ensure that the children of Korein Kinderplein also have a safe outdoor play area. "They are sending out emails, putting up posters in communal spaces and individual rooms, speaking to passersby in the lobby, and increasing their supervision of the area," Peters said. 

Recently a permanent canopy has been created over the Korein playground.

Access

“You could only enter De Bunker with an entry pass. You’re supposed to use a same system here, but you can also enter the spaces of the cultural associations without a pass through a back door of Hubble,” Zhu says. We did the tour together and indeed, as an editor without a pass or authorization, I was able to enter all the training rooms and general areas through the doors of Hubble. “There has been nuisance and damage in the general areas several times,” Zhu says. "”nd we have found cigarette butts and beer bottles in Corona, the conference/showroom in Luna,” Beckers adds.

Back to the residents of Luna. Hugo Chaves, who works at ASML, lived in Luna for two years and had quite a few problems. “When I got a job here in the area, I was looking for a place to live. I wanted to live in a large building with a lot of young people because I thought it would be easier to make new friends that way. I found Luna online: videos from the studios are on YouTube. I contacted Camelot for a viewing. They told me that they didn't do viewings and that I could either sign the contract or that they would have other people interested. That was strange; if I am interested in your property, why don't you show it to me?” Chaves wonders. Van Kasteren denies this and says that "interested people can get a viewing."

My Castle

Chaves needed a place and decided to sign the contract. “The contract mentions quite a few strange costs. Such as for ‘MyCastle’; a website for which you have to pay 202.50 euros. The only thing you can do there is add new laundry credit. The website looks like it came straight from the nineties,” he says. And then there are other contract costs and costs for gardening. For which garden? Normally you just pay a deposit of one or two months and that's it." Van Kasteren responds: “We have now correctly communicated this to all tenants. There is no garden, but there is a roof terrace."

Camelot lost the case

In 2019, !WOON, together with a few tenants of an Amsterdam student and youth complex from Camelot, went to court about the costs for MyCastle - also mentioned by Chaves - and excessive cleaning costs. Camelot lost that lawsuit and the company had to pay back the costs to the tenants. That money was not automatically reimbursed to all tenants. If you are a Luna tenant and have also paid these costs, then you can try to get your money back with a sample letter quoting this precedent. The letter and explanation are, unfortunately, only available in Dutch.

Noise nuisance: from sex to skype

“With regard to meeting new people and making friends, living in Luna was a huge disappointment. Although there are opportunities to meet other people, like at the communal soccer table, I have never really seen my neighbors there. There were some neighbors with whom I sometimes chatted, but in general there was a very cold atmosphere in Luna," says former resident Chaves.

Master's student Chemical Engineering Honglei Li came to live in Luna in September 2017. She soon experienced a lot of noise, which kept her awake. A few days later, Li found the source of the nuisance: the neighbor two doors away. "Can you imagine how bad the soundproofing is?"

Chaves recognizes her problems: “The soundproofing of the rooms was pretty bad. I heard my neighbor have sex, play her kizomba music and I could literally follow her skype conversations. And she also had issues with me, when I played my music. That is quite strange for a completely renovated building. After complaints, some studios got treated for better soundproofing." Li is not particularly pleased with the treatment her studio got: "I complained to Camelot and the only thing they did was put some sealant between the openings in the wall and ceiling in my room, which didn't help."

PhD student Yaoge Liu also had a bad experience with damage. “I came home and noticed that the glass of my shower door was broken. I know I didn’t do that, so I immediately thought that someone had been in my room. How else could this have happened? I asked Camelot for the footage of the security cameras. They told me that they were not allowed to give it to me unless I reported it to the police. I had no burglary damage on my lock or door to proof that. I started googling for the chance that such glass might break on its own. It turned out to be very unlikely, but not impossible. I had no evidence that Camelot came in, nor could I prove that someone else had broken into my place, so I decided ‘bad luck, it broke by itself.’ Let's just pay for it and forget it quickly."

To provide a broader assessment of residents' complaints, Cursor conducted a survey. 58 (former) residents of Luna completed the suvey. Some conclusions are illustrated in the pictures below.

Garbage is piling up

Oliver van den Berg, Fontys student Orthopedic Technology, also lives in Luna. "The rooms are really very small," Van den Berg says. “Five Polish people in one room is what you hear sometimes. There is no control by Camelot, not even with regard to cleaning. All kinds of cultures live together here, with different customs. For example 'throwing away trash': in a student house you will talk to each other if something is not done as it is supposed to be. But here everyone has an individual room which changes how things work. Many people pile up their trash in the hall next to their room. It was mentioned this was not how it should go and then it was placed next to the container instead of in it. If you are registered with the municipality, you can simply use the containers with your city pass. But many internationals are not registered, while this is mandatory," Van den Berg stresses. That many students do not register in the city where they study, is a known problem. Though no figures can be found specifically about internationals.

Peters from Real Estate Management indicates that “in the past the garbage containers were not always used properly by the residents of Luna. Waste didn’t go in the containers but was placed next to them." Van den Berg: "There are things that go wrong in Luna, but that is because they (Camelot, ed.) have no experience with this type of rental," Van den Berg analyzes. “They do learn from it. The communication can be a bit curt, but I do see improvement.”

A kitchen without extraction

“We rent the spaces through TU/e’s Real Estate Management, in a loan agreement for Scala as a whole. The line here is therefore Camelot, Real Estate Management, Scala, individual cultural associations. We are not allowed to view the contracts between the Real Estate Management and Camelot. We have once received one paragraph, but we cannot see our rights and obligations,” Zhu says.

Interesting, when you consider that the large kitchen that Scala rents through Real Estate Management is managed by Camelot. And they pay a fair amount of money for that kitchen: “8,400 euros a year, of which the TU/e pays 4,400 euros and we pay the rest. That is a lot of money for the use of a kitchen. Volunteers cook there for the members who want to join for dinner," Zhu explains. “We use the kitchen 41 weeks a year, 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. For that money you would expect that everything works well, but no, that’s not the case. The amount of cookware is limited, as well as the number of burners. "

“Things got stolen from the kitchen, because one of the doors could not be locked. This has since been addressed by Camelot. We talked about this issue to the building manager of Luna, fortunately she was very helpful. The conclusion: now the kitchen and the cupboards in it are locked. The extraction, essential in such a kitchen, has not been working for two years and there have been many leaks. Instead of fixing the extraction, they have installed a heat detector in the kitchen to replace a smoke detector that went off every time (due to the lack of extraction), and the fire brigade had to come to switch it off. That is not a solution,” Zhu says.

Beckers continues: “Scala clearly indicated from the start what we would do with the rooms. All associations and Real Estate Management agreed to the design at the time, but we now notice that things are not working properly. We spoke with many people, including Studium Generale and Real Estate Management, after which a taskforce was set up. Then an investigation was started and measurements were carried out. There has been a considerable delay because no budget was available, but recently the Executive Board of the TU/e has made money available to adjust the installation. We are very grateful for this as Scala, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us.”

Ad van Rooij, contract director for Management and Maintenance at Real Estate Management, confirms that the ventilation system will be dealt with soon. He expects that the project will be finished at the beginning of the new academic year. He understands that it must have been very tiresome for the cultural associations to wait such a long time for the improvement of the ventilation system.

"That's partly caused by the fact that we had to invest quite some time to map out the problem. That we did with engineering and measuring. And it's a big project, for which we did't had the means available right away. At TU/e we just have a limited budget for maintenance, so we have to make choices every year. The quality of air and comfort are very important, but there is also legally bound maintenance work aimed at safety that has a higher priority. We are very glad that we are able to execute this improvement now, because it's absolutely necessary.”

Living above a cafe

In the spring of 2018, the Hubble Community Café opened on the ground floor of Luna. A problem for some students, like Honglei Li. "There were regular events with loud music and people who were still screaming after 1:00 AM. As a result, I contacted Camelot again and asked if I could at least move to another studio, further away from Hubble. The answer was no. In total I lived in Luna for one year. I will never forget how I struggled through my days because of the lack of sleep," Li says. “I remember how much coffee I took to stay awake in class, how hopeless it made me. It is already a challenge to be alone and far away from home, let alone if you’re given a hard time like that. Fortunately, I graduated in the meantime, but I am still mentally and physically affected by that period.”

The occasional noise nuisance is inevitable. “We want people living above to feel comfortable in their own home. Camelot itself communicates very little to their residents and together with the TU/e we try to fill this gap as much as possible. This is difficult at times because not all residents have a connection with the university. Sometimes complaints come in via Facebook Messenger, such as during the introduction week, when people stick around outside after activities and make noise, et cetera. We cannot prevent that. We want residents to feel heard, so we invite them for coffee in the bar and discuss the problem,” Vossen explains.

“We notice that residents know how to find us, also when they have problems. It has often happened that there are residents who have accidentally left their keys in their rooms during the weekend. No one from Camelot is available during the weekend. Unfortunately, outside of a hot cup of tea and a chat we can't do anything for them," Vossen says. Van Kasteren denies this and says that "residents can call customer service 24 hours a day (+31 (0) 88 226 3568, ed.) and they will also be helped outside of office hours if they have locked themselves out."

Responsibility

Nicole Ummelen, vice-president of TU/e and responsible for housing, says that she recognizes many of the statements made in the article above and that these are regularly discussed. Ummelen: “Even though we aren’t a party formally - Camelot is the owner and operator - we do feel a responsibility to provide a proper accommodation for our students on campus. That is why we send out these signals, and our concerns about them, during our regular meetings with Camelot, and why we hold regular meetings about solutions.”

Former Luna resident Chaves thinks that the university should do more: “This is a university campus where many students live. The university must protect its students and be very careful with the practices and who operates on their campus. I understand if the university says they don't want to manage housing themselves. Fine to outsource it to another party, but make the frameworks of what can and cannot be done, very clear. The doubtful practices that I experienced are in no one's favor," he concludes.