Wellesley Student Apartments, Auckland: A review

(Disclaimer: This post is a review of Wellesley Student Apartments managed by AUT (Auckland University of Technology) on 8-10 Mount Street, Auckland, New Zealand. Contents of this post is based totally on my stay here from July to October 2010 and any criticism should be directed to me. Although my accommodation was arranged by my study abroad program IFSA-Butler, the views expressed here reflect my personal experiences and should not be taken as a general experience of all study abroad/exchange students.)

Wellesley Student Apartments lies on Mount Street

I will try to keep this post short and sweet, possibly numbered style to make it more readable. 

First of all, the benefits of staying in Wellesley Student Apartments:

1. Close proximity to AUT and University of Auckland. It's only 5 minutes walk at most to UoA and is probably one of the closest university apartments you can find.
2. Five people share an apartment but each get their own bedroom. Nice kitchen, two bathrooms and pretty good living room with a TV with 5-6 channels.
3. Utility costs like water and electricity is included in costs so that you don't have to worry about it.
4. Has its own laundry facilities. I will discuss this more later since laundry facilities are often disappointing
5. Conducts events occassionally to encourage mixing up of residents.

Wellesley Student Apartments, inhabited by almost 650 people.

It looks pretty appealing right. Basically, it offers all you want in a decent apartment. But there are several issues with their management. 

My Living Room in Wellesley Student Apartment.

Problems you may face while staying in Wellesley Student Apartments:

1. WSA Management will treat you as if they have absolute control over you. If your flat gets a violation for being noisy, even if you appeal that you were not there, you would still get a fine. I will elaborate on this later.
2. Internet service provided by Orcon is extremely slow even though when they sell you, they'll tell you that it is broadband. It is the only broadband service you can purchase and use in WSA dorms. You could buy other wireless providers. Internet is so slow that I can never even access my online banking. WSA buys a limited amount of bandwidth and when that is used up, everyone's internet becomes slow. So, if you use 5 GB per month out of your allocated 10 GB and another resident uses 20GB, then everyone's internet gets slow irrespective of how much you used individually. Sucks.
3. Laundry facilities suck. Read my other entry on Laundry Nightmare at Wellesley Student Apartments. More than half of the washers they have are dysfunctional and they have not been repaired since I started living here. As for dryers, they will never dry up your clothes. Many residents walk across the street to Forte Laundromat, a commercial facility to do their laundry. It took me more than two months to find out three secret dyers that dry your clothes, others don't. They're located just as you walk in to the laundry room.
4. There are four elevators/lifts for almost 650 residents of which only a few are operating at any given time. You will waste so much time just waiting for elevators. You cannot use stairs to enter the building even though you could use it to exit. Since it has 14 floors, using stairs is very tiring for residents living higher up. On one weekend, starting from Friday night to Monday morning, only one elevator was functioning for D-H section, for 325 residents and the floor was all filled in puke. Some asshole must have thrown up at night after getting drunk. Residents were forced to use the only elevator. Imagine being in that elevator. The management made no effort to get it cleaned up. It was disgusting.
5. Bedrooms have inadequate lighting for studying. Bedroom has one light bulb while living room has three and even restroom has two. The book-shelf which is immovable lies between the only light-bulb on the wall and my study table. Not everyone wants to buy a table lamp especially if you are staying here for a short time.
6. Apartments do not have balconies. For the amount one pays, one would expect a balcony. WSA's next door neighbour O'Rorke Hall which is residential dorm managed by University of Auckland has really nice balconies and roof-tops.
7. There are lots of exchange students from America living here. I was placed in an apartment with all Americans. Many Americans were also placed in all-American flats which they absolutely hated because they studied abroad to meet other people, not live with all Americans. Where and whom you stay with will have a big role in your living experience. I didn't mind living with all Americans but would have loved to live with people of other nationalities. When I filled my residence preference form, I chose to live with internationals and Kiwis but somehow was placed in all American flat. It's much easier for WSA this way but it misses the whole point of study abroad/exchange.
8. There is no sense of privacy in your flats. Security will bust your apartment after midnight if you have people who do not live there even if you are quiet and no one has complained about it. They will hand you violation ticket and you have to pay fines if you receive three of them. If you want friends come over and just have a casual gathering, you have to register it as a party and has to be over before midnight on weekends and 10:30 on weekdays. If your friend is intoxicated and unable to walk back home, he cannot crash on your couch. Any overnight guest has to be registered beforehand with signatures from all five residents and only one guest can stay for a maximum of one night. After that, you have to pay 20 bucks per night. No extra bedding or anything is provided. Basically, even after paying for your flats, WSA management will keep an eye on what you do inside it, you're never without watchful eyes of Big Brother WSA. It really sucks to be living under so much rules and regulations even though you are now in college.
9. Room inspections before end of semester is really harsh and unreasonable. WSA will expect you to clean everything including toilets, showers, kitchen, windows even if they were dirty when you started living. My bedroom failed because my mattress did not have a protective cover, which they were supposed to give me at the beginning of my residence. I didn't even know I was supposed to have one. The lady conducting inspection is the most rude person and a cruel soul you will ever come across. On more than four occasions, she stopped me from entering the building asking me if I live in WSA. Although it may be justified on grounds of being extra-careful, I genuinely think she has a problem with my face. If your room inspection fails second time, everyone living in the flat gets a fine meaning everyone suffers if there is one messy person living in the apartment who fails to clean/vaccum his bedroom. You think that is fair? Tragedy of the Commons, bro.
10. On one occasion, the inspection lady knocked on a bedroom door and entered without even waiting for a response. I will not quote the name of the resident to protect his identity. That is how WSA management treats your privacy.

My Kitchen in Wellesley Student Apartment.

 I get nightmares about security breaking into my room while I'm sleeping or doing something else. I cannot deal with WSA management anymore. My apartment got three violations for having guests past midnight so I had to pay 50 dollars fine. I tried to talk to security who handed us violation but he said I needed to talk to management. I tried to appeal to management that I was not even present in Auckland let alone apartment during first violation and had just walked in 5 minutes before my third violation. They said I cannot talk to the manager, instead I had to write a formal letter which I did. I was expecting to talk and sort this out but five days later I received a letter from management that said that my case had been talked with security and fines cannot be removed. If I did not pay fines within next three days, more fines would accrue for not paying that fine. I was shocked by their style of unilateral decision making. Their bureaucracy in which security directs you to management and management cites security as basis of their decision shows how they deny you a voice to even appeal against any charge brought against you. Tired of this, I decided to pay fines that I did not deserve. Writing another letter would not only be a waste of my time and energy but would exert additional pressure on environment with waste of paper. I hope they recycled my letter.

My Bedroom in Wellesley Student Apartments

 Personally, I would not recommend anyone living in Wellesley Student Apartments because even though apartments are nice and it is close to the university, management will ruin the experience. Despite being merely caretakers, they will act as if they fucking own WSA. The only person who has been reasonable to me is a guy named Tom. He is really nice. If you have any problem, don't talk to receptionists, talk instead to Tom. Other people will treat you as a potential perpetrator/violator. I had been trying so hard not to write this post for so long because I dislike saying not-so-pleasant things about others, but my study abroad experience was really affected by them. I get nightmares about that evil-faced lady who keeps asking me if I live here or that my apartment is disgusting and unhygienic.

Alternatives. If you planning to study abroad in Auckland and need a place to stay for a semester, there are several alternatives that you may want to read about and do some research before arriving here.

1. International House managed by University of Auckland
2. O'Rorke Hall managed by University of Auckland, whcih is also only five minutes walk to the university
3. Parnell Student Village, which is located in a really nice neighborhood and only 15 minutes away in walking distance. I would recommend staying here because it is more international than WSA which is mostly occupied by Americans. Even Americans living in WSA think they would have loved to stay with people of other nationalities.

If anyone is hurt by any statements expressed here, I offer my apologies and even though it appears as a hate post against WSA Management, it was necessary to say these things so that other people don't have to go through same problems. Please leave your comments/feedbacks/criticisms regarding this post if you have any.

International Holiday Dinner & Gift Exchange

Again, I wrote this as part of my Official Student Blogger for Trinity University.
        
     Trinity students were treated to exotic cuisines yesterday which included authentic Nepalese style cooked momos, popularly known as dumplings. The program was organized by International Programs office in collaboration with International Club. Students at Trinity come from 57 different countries and there was a representative dish from each one.

      No, I'm kidding. But there were authentic and representative dishes from several countries. It was home-made meal cooked by students, international programs staffs assisted by dining services staffs. I was involved partly in cooking momos which ran out before everyone had a chance for first serve. I'm not kidding. I didn't get to eat a single one since I was busy cooking other dishes in the kitchen while it ran out.

This is Sawan and Paurakh cooking momos.  Photo by: Inessa.

          Also, there was a traditional Christmas style gift exchange which was a good experience for international students who were not previously aware of how Christmas is celebrated in the US. I got a "I love Texas" logo in exchange for my little "statue of liberty" replica. To make exchange more interesting and add some mystery to game, gifts were wrapped which meant one had to choose a gift based purely on instincts, but people tended to use size as their primary choice variable. So, my gift was chosen last. No one noticed, except me.

        In addition, my host family- Roy and Cammy- two great people also were invited for the dinner and we had a very nice conversation with them. It's always nice to have a family here in the US while I am away from my home in Nepal.

International Student Issues

More meetings. But I really enjoyed this meeting with international student advisors. I spoke more as an international student than an Association of Student Representatives (ASR) Senator even though that might not be the impression they got. I did voice many concerns but they weren't really intended to seek justification. Rather, they were like comments. They have been doing their best and we understand that. We, the committee were there to get their ideas across to the ASR.

I do not really know how much leverage we have over  budget issues even though they are crucial for organizing various events for international students. To me that seemed to be one of the central hurdles in extending student services to international students. The budget for conducting activities for international students has not increased in proportion to influx of a large international student body. Ironically, it has hardly increased at all.

Also, I was rather surprised to know that International Club is not recognized as a student organization and that it has been hitherto denied membership in Trinity Multicultural Network(TMN) which now has a fancier name, Trinity Diversity Committee(TDC). What this means is that, the International Club that is home to more than 200 members does not receive any funds out of student activity fee to conduct events and programs. It has to independently devise ways to raise money to organize any big events. You name it and I will bet that the International Club is the most diverse club of all existing clubs at Trinity University.

As a committee, it will be our mission to get the international club recognition it deserves.