. "1"^^ . "2"^^ . . . "7"^^ . "2"^^ . "2015-06-16T00:00:00"^^ . "Most recent update: I got charged $100 for cleaning (not including carpet cleaning). One of the most obvious cases of abuse is the fact that I was charged for the cleaning of 2 desks. Dear JSM, there is only 1 desk that came with my apartment. I was also charged for several items within the apartment that were permanently stained at move-in. I was also charged for furniture that I personally laundered and vacuumed with my own time and money. I was also charged for floor cleaning. I cleaned the floor around the roach traps as best as I could, but I am not touching 1-year old roach traps courtesy of their negligence. There were roach feces in just about every corner of every cabinet and I got rid of them, but I was still charged for dirty cabinets! After I touched roach shit! Just don't rent from JSM. I hope more students see this review and inform their little sophomore friends.\n\nIf this rating were solely for their manners, JSM would receive 6/5 stars. They are really nice and individually wonderful. But, their buildings have issues and they were not successful in taking care of those issues.\n\nTLDR (please read if there's one thing you take away from my reviews): I lived at 510 E Clark, Champaign in 2014-2015. The building is absolutely riddled with roaches.\n\nEspecially in the bathrooms and kitchens but I've had roaches in my bed as well. They've made homes in my small appliances and pooped all over the cabinets. There were even roaches in my stove. When I turned one on to cook, a roach scurried out from under the stove plate. I almost drank a roach that had crawled into my water boiler. Don't even think about leaving a glass of water out overnight. You forget once and you're asking for trouble. This has been the most disgusting experience of my life. Avoid living here. Combating a roach infestation involves caulking up every crack and injecting gels in crevices and dusting boric acid everywhere-- JSM's pest control involves a cursory spray here and there, sticky traps (which these demon insects deftly sidestep), and roach paste (of which they won't take a single nibble). It has been ineffective. \n\nI was reading a guide on Reddit for getting rid of roaches. The author was living in an ancient NYC apartment and was killing \"2-5 roaches a day\". Two to five? Kid, you have it good. Live at 510 and you can count yourself lucky if you kill two to five roaches a day. I couldn't believe this guy thought he had it bad. That ain't nothing. \n\nIf you live here, you will have to spend huge amounts of your waking hours combating roaches, and in the weeks leading up to your move out, you will have to fight roaches (juveniles, adults, egg sacs) aggressively so that you don't bring them back to your nice house in the suburbs or your new, better, roach-free apartment. It's a huge waste of time. Don't live here.\n\nI just unpacked after I heat- and freeze-treated my belongings (with my own time and money since JSM is impotent). Yes, I have dead roaches falling out of my stuff. Again, don't live here. You'll probably bring egg sacs back, stuck in the seams of your suitcase. \n\nThe positives: JSM keeps their buildings super clean (I keep my unit sparkling; the roach problem is not from uncleanliness on my or JSM's part). I've seen apartments from a huge variety of landlords and none of them, not even the \"better\" landlords, keep their common areas so pristine. JSM came to my building WEEKLY to clean the laundry area and hallways. I've never seen any trash or lint lying around. The machines are always super clean. Every common space just looks PRISTINE. I really appreciate that.\n\nAnother positive that I noted from my experience with other apartments: JSM's landscaping can't be beat. One of the things I watch out for is whether a landlord maintains their grounds. The quality of the lawn says A LOT about the kind of attention you can expect from your landlord and how much they care about their building and image. If your landlord is trimming rose bush thorns-- if your landlord even HAS rose bushes-- every other week, you can expect that they are responsive, detail-focused people. \n\nFinally, when I contact JSM through Student Legal Services, they were quick to respond and compensated 37% percent of my monthly rent. JSM was under no legal obligation to do anything, so while I was unable to live in my apartment for a month, this gesture was better than nothing.\n\nWhile I really appreciated these parts of my experience with JSM, unfortunately, pretty peonies and well-kept washers just can't make up for a roach-free, construction-free building. I'd rather live somewhere with a dirty laundry room if it means I won't be booted out of my actual unit nor have to go through the grueling process of destroying egg sacs and cold-treating and spraying and plastic bagging appliances and squishing and sweeping roaches and plucking them out of my bed."^^ .