River Apartments?

brian93

Hi, planning to go to Maynooth in Sept. and have applied for the River Apartments. Can anyone tell me anything about them? Or everything? haha thanks

Duddy

Hey! Stayed in them for three years - the rooms are grand, everything you'll need really, toptip: bring an extra long ethernet cable so you can go online from bed!:D

kitchen/dining room/living room isn't great tbh, very hard uncomfortable sofas. Apart from this they're grand! Plus, no bills to worry about, the Residence Office take care of it all! Best of luck with next year!:)

psycjay

This is my fourth year in the river apartments, same room. Let me break it down:

You have a large kitchen, dinning, sitting area. The kitchen is kitted out with all the basics but you may want to bring your own pan/pots cas the ones in the apartment are a bit manky.

You get chorus TV which has about 13 channels plus sky sports 1 & 2 strangely. As far as the TV goes it's usually a 15" or 21" crt.

Your room has a single bed, nice mattress and en-suit bathroom with shower. There is a fairly large open wardrobe and some handy bookshelves. You get a large desk and wired (not wireless) internet. Internet speed varies from amazing 90mbit in the morning and night to 2-3 during the day. This does seem to vary year to year though. There is also a notice board over the desk and a lamp.

The bad side is it can get pretty noisy, as I speak there is a house party going on over my head! Also if something breaks the res office are notoriously slow at dealing with things, At the beginning of this year we didn't have a fridge for 4 weeks!

Oh if you didn't know already the apartments are only a few mins walk to the main lecture halls. I can make it from bed to most my lectures in 5 mins, 4 at a push!

Also despite what they say, the residence office are flexible when it comes to payment, if you have a grant for example talk to them and they will allow you to pay your rent in line with the cheques. You pay a €500 deposit at the beginning of the year, that covers bills and utilities, whats left is given back at the end of the year (usually about €120). They you have two payments of €2090, lovely..

People are generally really friendly, i made some great friends just from living near them.

Hope you get campus, as this is my last year you may even get my old room!

Good Luck!

Alt_Grrr

psycjay wrote: »

Also if something breaks the res office are notoriously slow at dealing with things, At the beginning of this year we didn't have a fridge for 4 weeks!

No, the res office aren't slow when it comes to dealing with these things, its campus maintenance, who know things are broken as soon as the res office do, just there particular about most things.

For example I've had my heating fixed once on the day it broke, but had them take 4 weeks to replace a light bulb or fix the oven.

If its a case that you were without a fridge, sometimes more important things come up and need more urgent attention.

squishykins

I don't wanna turn you off, but just thought I should just say, make a real attempt to get to know your roommates as soon as you get there, I stayed there for semester 1, 2 international students, a third year lad and a recluse 1st year girl were my roommates. We didn't really click, and I spent 95% of my time in the apartment in my room feeling quite lonely =/

Also I don't deal well with noise when I'm trying to work, I don't think I'll live on-campus again :P

psycjay

Alt_Grrr wrote: »

No, the res office aren't slow when it comes to dealing with these things, its campus maintenance, who know things are broken as soon as the res office do, just there particular about most things.

For example I've had my heating fixed once on the day it broke, but had them take 4 weeks to replace a light bulb or fix the oven.

If its a case that you were without a fridge, sometimes more important things come up and need more urgent attention.

The res office could do a much better job at organising maintence. I've worked in electrical retail for years, when an applicance is faulty the service enginner is called and most of the time is fixed in 4-5 days, why does it take 4 weeks on campus? Also a broken fridge is considered pretty urgent.

JellyBeans92

Duddy wrote: »

Hey! Stayed in them for three years - the rooms are grand, everything you'll need really, toptip: bring an extra long ethernet cable so you can go online from bed!:D

.. or get a cheap wireless router, so much handier!

squishykins

psycjay wrote: »

The res office could do a much better job at organising maintence. I've worked in electrical retail for years, when an applicance is faulty the service enginner is called and most of the time is fixed in 4-5 days, why does it take 4 weeks on campus? Also a broken fridge is considered pretty urgent.

I meant to say aswell, the residence office are very slow. If you don't complain to Niamh you might as well not complain at all.

A friend of mine has had a leak in her room from the start of the year, complained umpteen times, they've only started getting it fixed now, she has no carpet, a hole in her wall to the outside and has a load of towels down and the room smells so bad now with the damp. They knew about the problem before she even moved in, and it's still not fixed. She wasn't even offered another room when the builders started their work, she only got moved last week.

manna

I lived in River for 3 years and didn't find it that bad. Our heating broke a couple of times, but that's about it.

The walls are pretty thin though- you can hear a lot from the rooms beside/ above/below you, and they can hear you.

Alt_Grrr

psycjay wrote: »

The res office could do a much better job at organising maintence.

They could do a better job... if they organized the themselves, rather then have to use the universities own maintenance department. The same small number of people who are expected to fix just about everything else on the campus. Other universities have outside contractors or even just dedicated handyman to look after the apartments.

psycjay wrote: »

Also a broken fridge is considered pretty urgent.

Yes I would say so, but less urgent then say the pipes bursting in JH or another apartment without heat.

squishykins wrote: »

I meant to say aswell, the residence office are very slow.

To this I can only say you have to play the hand your dealt sometimes, in this case its having to play the game with university maintenance(Ask Banquo, he still hasn't gotten his notice board nailed to the wall after he logged that months ago), you can blame them all you want if it makes you feel any better.

banquo

Alt_Grrr wrote: »

(Ask Banquo, he still hasn't gotten his notice board nailed to the wall after he logged that months ago)

My plan is to offer one of the team a lift home after work and just drive them to my office. "You can leave when I've a noticeboard."