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May 2025 by Elizabeth Charette
Any good reviews are made by students who have just toured and are asked to leave positive reviews by tour guides. I would know, because that was my experience. If I could turn back time and rent at Madcom again, I would. I would never live here again.
They are lacking in every single way possible. Where can I even think to begin? Probably with the wifi experiencing full outages during not only midterms, but finals. The Cottages uses Single Digits, the cheapest and most unreliable internet service available. We went almost a week without wifi one time.
During the winter, you will trudge through feet of snow. They do not do snow removal until sometimes almost a week after the snow has fallen. Ice doesn't get salted, be prepared to buy your own and have your own shovels.
In the house, it is disgusting. They never power washed our deck and porch prior to move in. Mold, wolf spiders, and wasp nests everywhere. Our water came through our ceiling one day. The water is so full of sulfur, it smells as though somebody defecated in the pipes. Brushing my teeth is nauseating. The HVAC system is horrendous. We keep it set to a reasonable 69 degrees, and our upstairs regularly sits at about 75 degrees. Something is wrong with the condenser, it constantly cycles up and down without rhyme or reason.
It is so far from campus. The buses are unreliable and barely run outside of class time. Utilities and expenses add up incredibly. It is not cheap. Amenities are always unworking. Living here has been draining, gross, and made my senior year difficult.
I'm sure they'll thank me for my review and honest experience. They'll never do anything to change the way of living is here. Save yourself, live anywhere else.
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April 2025 by Gabby J.
Do not rent an apartment through the cottages. There are so many better options around Durham to live. They will take any and all money from you that they can, the tru to exploit college students. awful service, awful appliances and truthfully not worth a dime. find somewhere else to live, you won’t regret it
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November 2024 by Fax
will take every cent they can from, and then some
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October 2024 by rosie bibi
Customer service is awful. You think they can be understanding but it goes nowhere. Don’t expect them to respond to you back because once they are annoyed with you, you won’t hear a single reply to reconfirm with you if you have any concerns. A freaking scam for all I care. Rent at a different place if you can get a chance.
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September 2024 by Abby Arruda
Renters beware, this is run as a business not as a proper Tennant and landlord arrangement, don’t let the lease fool you. I would highly suggest seeking out other options for renting in Durham, especially if you are paying out of your own pocket and don’t have an extra $550 to spend when they charge you for damages you didn’t cause. Trying to contact customer support - which you are guided to do in order to “dispute” any charges - will get you no firm answers and they have a response time of about 2.5 weeks.
The units are damaged from prior residents who most likely were also charged but the damages will never be fixed. This includes a $225 charge for paint chips caused by LED lights, even if you never purchased or put them up in your apartment and had to live with the damage yourself. I do have to say it seems like the cottages has really outdone themselves with making money off of college students and their families. After leaving the apartment cleaner than we found it, they still managed to charge $40 for supposed” cleaning fees”. I would say to take as many pictures and videos as you can but I don’t think that will even help you, as it didn’t for me and my roommates. Being at the cottages is a below average living experience with nothing extra to offer for the rates they charge. Snow removal is nonexistent here and does no good for anyone with a car in the parking lot (which you pay extra for).
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September 2024 by Colby Brown
Maintenance was prompt and reactive with our concerns, outside of that I would not recommend leasing with The Cottages. Overall construction of the houses were very cheap, very thin walls, lots of wind noise, you can hear everyone's moves in the house. But that's to be expected in a larger mass produced campus neighborhood. Initial move went fine and well, around 6 months in, I began to get sick, and we found LOTS of black mold in our boiler room which had been there for at least a year. We were moved into a different unit on the spot, which we later found also had black mold in it. While moving our stuff, we overheard the maintenance guys chatting with ServePro, and joking about how they have become frequent flyers with them as so many units have had these issues (or bursting sink pipes according to our former neighbors) We had to move on the spot, and they had ServePro come in as we were moving out. While we were packing, they set up fans and started blowing them directly into my 17 year old cat's crate while I packed up her stuff for the impromptu move... A little upset about that. After 2 months, I had to move out due to relocating for work and such, and relet my unit following their process. This was settled in June for a late July move out. At the end of August, I received an invoice via mail (instead of the resident portal like they usual do) with nearly $500 in fees, $300 was the relet fee which I expected but the rest were charges I have paid along with my rent... I have reached out to the email listed on the invoice weekly, as they stated not to reach out to the leasing office, and not a single response back... I have yet to hear back from A Hughes, nor have I received my security deposit back. Coming from a college student who had paid for his rent and fees himself, I feel as though their only focus was taking our money, and shutting us out for all else. I am not recommending The Cottages to anyone for future renting needs, I had far better experiences with other on campus options for even less rent.
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August 2024 by Tiffany Lee
Maintenance team is GREAT! But aside from that, good luck. the office will send out an email informing you of maintenance coming to your apartment, but will be days in advance and will only give you the week/dates they will be arriving throughout the complex, so you truly have no idea when they will actually be coming. We have had various water leaks and a malfunctioning ac system, which we put in a request to repair, and they came and stated they fixed it, but it was still not blowing hot air. We reached out to them about it and was told it was due to the heat spikes, and that’s why the house wouldn’t cool off, and that the ac unit was fine.
About a month later, we had a major leak that was found to be caused from a faulty ac. We received our electric bill, which is over double our avg usage the last 2 years, and now that I am requesting help they are blatantly ignoring me and my requests to speak with a manager. The same issue happened last year. We put in multiple requests for our really really crappy dishwasher, and all maintenance did was “clean it” despite the soap door not working. Our washing machine wouldn’t drain, as a part broke in it, and they came and looked and left the washer, full of water and the clothes we were trying to wash, for a full week, and the smell was atrocious. when they were cleaning from a leak they took our $30 trash can and won’t replace it or send us money.
They WILL charge you if they have to even simply paint over spackled spots in the bedroom, and if you attempt to paint it yourself to save yourself money, they will charge you $300+. *edit to add, NOWHERE IN THE LEASE AGREEMENT DOES IT STATE YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR PAINT. THEY ARE VERY VAGUE SO THAT THEY CAN CHARGE YOU WHATEVER THEY WANT. IT ONLY STATES YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR, but i am getting different definitions of “normal wear and tear”. Based on the legal agreement I signed, I will be disputing ANY AND ALL charges for paint/cleaning. definitely take pics of your units upon move in and move out and keep a paper trail for everything. beautiful place to live, but beware. Rent goes up $50+ every year, even if you resign, but don’t worry, we got a $10 discount for resigning! (yes, that was sarcasm). rent for even a 5 bedroom is now just under $1000, when i originally moved in it was under $900. save your money, live elsewhere.
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July 2024 by Elizabeth Kuntz
They have the best house keeper ever Lela Strickland. She is amazing and wonderful
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July 2024 by Ginny Musick
Lela Strickland is house keeper there. She showed me a few rooms she had done and they looked great. Lela is very pleasant and very informative and easy to talk to.
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June 2024 by Alanna Eads
Nakieda gave me a tour. She was very professional and helpful in answering all of my questions. I loved all of the amenities!
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June 2024 by Makayla Wolfe
Love all the amenities here and an overall great place to live!
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May 2024 by Austin Davis
I would have given 0 stars if I could. Avoid at all costs
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April 2024 by Brendan Duffy
Super nice place to live, close enough to campus for driving and buses come around every 15 minutes. Definitely recommend if you're trying get off campus and have a more traditional house to live in.
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February 2024 by Joey Corcoran
Lela ! The best employee on the planet. Always cheerful and brings a lot of joy. Makes everyone’s day better without trying !
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February 2024 by Caleb Burke
Lela is the sweetest lady! Always willing to help out the cottages residents!
