A few good things about UPines...
1. Living around people that are college age. It did help to know the person next to you probably wasn't a serial rapist or convict.
2. Proximity to University.
THE END

University Pines is hands down the worst place to live in Tyler. The sad part is, most people who will read this have already experienced how awful it is and have since moved out, but if just one person can read this and change their mind, then our job is complete.

Overwhelmingly bad things..this might take a while..
1. Condition of the apartment. First day of move in, it was trashed and never cleaned. Fingernails on the floor, drain completely clogged with hair, rotted vegtables in the fridge, dirty walls, dirty stove, and furniture that stinks. The carpet was and unholy god awful and stained beyond belief. Yet, when you move out, there is a list of huge fines if you don't clean - where did that money go' In the pockets of the company managing it (or who knows, maybe the office spent it on the various pizza parties throughout the year). This is our personal experience and input from others as well (initial impression).

2. Price and space. More than a dollar per square foot. How is it possible to get away with charging that' Even if all student housing is expensive, this is insane for a closet of a bedroom, tiny living room with small kitchen, and one small bathroom between two people. Doesn't work out too well. Furniture fee for one year - $425. I personally talked to the people bringing new couches. The price' FIFTY DOLLARS FOR A NEW COUCH. We rent the most awful furniture with God knows what kind of bodily fluids on it. Highway robbery. Construction of apartment is shoddy at best. Awful, unprofessional paint jobs, rotting wood, water damage, damage from searches by police previous to our moving in, and the venthilation system. No air came from the vents in our bedrooms, made the bills really high.

3. "Roommate matching service" - biggest load of crap possible. When you are in a bad situation with your roommate, help seems like the furthest thing from what you get from the office. They will tell you to work it out..I agree that this should be the first option, but when that doesn't work, they send the RAs to come and have a "talk" with you and your roommate. This "talk" is more like telling you that "that's too bad" and "to get over it". Actual quotes from RAs whom I would name but can't during a "talk". If you needed to know, contact me, I don't care. When we moved in only three questions were asked (smoking and major preferences). Under these criteria, you live with that person for a year, and you have to PAY to be relocated if you want to move to another apartment. Now I've heard there's more, and thank God for that, but people that have a problem need to be helped.

4. Office staff. Let's start from the top -the manager of the entire complex. You would think she would be the most professional and the most willing to help, your problems get swept under the carpet. For example, I had a rodent inventation problem and resorted to another office staff member to correct it. When nothing happened, I went to her. She did nothing. They are legally responsible to fix this. Nothing was done. In turn, I moved out due to the investation and was still forced to pay rent. The Resident Director was the person below the manager. Two incidents were reported to her to be corrected - she looked me in the eye and said "don't worry about it". It wasn't taken care of. I had rats living on my balcony and it took two calls to the dean of student affairs to get this taken care of. When I switched apartments (another example), I was told by her my electric company would be notified and I would no longer receive bills. Never done. I got the bill for a month after I moved out. It seemed like she completely ignored me and made no attempt to help me at all. Other residents approached her about roommates and many were never addressed - how is that directing the residents''' She chose who lives with us, but won't help us when it doesn't work out. I don't get how the RAs (including the Resident Director) are paid and have free rent but don't seem to get anything done. As far as the RAs in general, they mostly seem to be much too young and immature to handle the responsibility. They were supposed to help us, but instead they seemed to be more harassing (two male RAs asked us if we were drinking beer when we had cups of water outside''!!). Can we go outside and not be harassed by people who were supposed to help us' They are on a total power trip over people their own age in many cases. Do away with the RAs. A friend at UT Arlington in the same type of student housing has no RAs and no problem. One RA literally got drunk and had insanely loud parties while telling everyone else not to do the same thing AND SHE WAS NOT FIRED while enforcing the same rule to other residents. She would investigate noise complaints and bring various people with her while it was supposed to anonymous. One example - a guy got sugar in his gas tank after someone found out he called a complaint against them. This is why the anonymous rule is in place when reporting complaints. RAs play favorites with their friends as well (again, immature and unprofessional). One female RA was great friends with someone who hated me, and in turn gave me horrible service when I went to the office. Very mature. UPines will hire anyone.

5. Maintenance and parking. During the semesters, work orders took forever to get filled even if the problem needed immediate attention and was legally required to fix. Examples -

One person's toilet overflowed with sewage and no one ever came to help after numerous calls. He had to get a wet dry vac himself and clean it up. My own toilet overflowed and some RA told us that they couldn't do anything and never followed up.

There are TWO maintenance men for 400 people. The only time for work orders is in the summer where there are only around maybe 30 people left there.

Parking is bad because it was built with too few spaces. Shoddy construction again. The gates are FALSE SECURITY!! Anyone can get in by tailgating or simply waiting for someone to come along or crawl underneath it (I saw that happen) or force it open. Numerous times, they were damaged and not fixed for long periods of time.

6. The University police. They can be summed up shortly. Unprofessional and harassing describes some of them (but not all). One officer made it his job to pry into resident's business with no probable cause. In the real world, cops can't just knock on your door because they feel like it. Some of these cops need to be introducted to reality and stop attempting to intimidate young people to feel better about themselves. There are some cops that do a great job, and I wholly appreciate that, but for the ones who don't, you need to be fired (which is what would have already happened at a regular police department I would imagine).

Investigate other places to live if you're moving to Tyler. For safer areas, contact the Tyler Police Department and they can give you tips. I hope at least someone reads this and refers it to their parents and friends. All of this is based on our actual experience. We can't speak for everyone, but this all happened in our tenure at UT Tyler. We know there is no other official housing for UT Tyler, but it would be well worth it to live off campus.

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