Sheffield's Student Accommadation: The Pinnacles

Students find it very hard to choose from a long list of accommodation choices nowadays and in Sheffield it is no different. First years in particular can fall victim to fake advertisement and not reading the small print are one of the most common mistakes committed.

The Pinnacles is a newly developed complex which supposedly 'prides itself on being the most desirable and affordable accommodation in Sheffield'. It opened for the first time in 2009 and I applied to live in the halls for the year.

When visiting the complex in 2008, the halls in development looked amazing and the show room without fault. I was handed a leaflet, detailing what the accommodation had to offer and after living at The Forge I was in need of a change in scenery. However this is where I fell victim to the dangers of 'small print' even as a second year student.

This is what the accommodation halls promised me and the main reason that I decided to live there was the fact that it was in a fantastic location. I think that's the only thing I can't take away from them as Sheffield Hallam University is only 10 minutes walking distance away from the halls.

However the rest of the promises were what I like to call 'bent versions of the truth'. The extra large bedrooms that were promised and were demonstrated in the show rooms, changed and instead I got a smaller version the room. However some other students were lucky enough to get disabled rooms which were twice as big as the standard rooms.

The en-suite bathrooms that were promised were actually delivered, however much like the extra-large bedrooms they also tended to 'shrink in size'. Also after moving in to the development, that was promised to be finished ("again with the promising") by the time we moved in. Every other day there would be a new technician walking into your room at the early hours of the day taking unnecessary measurements. I don't think the staff at Pinnacles had heard of privacy.

On top of the fact that the fact that the rooms had not be finished, when I walked into the living area section of my halls, there was dust everywhere. It had looked like the builders had come in the morning and against the clock raced to finish, completely forgetting to clear up the mess they had made. Instead it was left to me to ask the reception desk for a vacuum that I should already have in the room and clean it up myself. However... the staffs at the reception desk had run out of vacuum cleaners and were awaiting a delivery of more vacuums. This meant that I had to wait a whole two weeks for 'Henry' before I could actually clean my kitchen.

This leads to one of the biggest unfulfilled promise with The Pinnacles, the promise of the 32inch LCD TV with freeview and SKY. I was promised at the showroom that the living rooms will all have a TV that had freeview and a full Sky Subscription. Now for any student, the thought of being able to come home from a hard day of University and switching on the TV and watching some good old fashion Sky TV is way too hard to pass up.

However in good Pinnacle fashion, this was another 'bent truth', and instead of that I received a T.V that was 'possessed by Satan himself!' For the first two weeks of living in the halls, the only thing I got to watch was a small rectangular sign in the middle of the screen saying 'No Signal'.

Now you can imagine what I was feeling now at the sight of dust around me and no T.V. Along with all the dust in the room was the 'dodgy' temperature control that made the living area look and feel like the Sahara Desert.

However living in the Sahara I could put up with, but NO T.V.... I was not having it, so I marched right downstairs (I live on the 8th floor so I actually took the lift, another problem we will get on to later on) to the reception desk. Described to them the 'nightmare' I was living in and was PROMISED it would be sorted out within a few days. The problem was eventually sorted out a whole week later and that just meant that we received only freeview. A whole MONTH later we then began to receive the SKY Sports Channels... Wait a minute, I was promised the whole Sky package, where are the rest of the channels.

Another visit to the reception was on the cards, after speaking to them, they then told me that if I had read the 'small print' it stated that I would only receive the Sky Sports channels. To be honest, as a male I had no complaints, least it meant I could watch the footy'. However for my female flatmates, they were a little angrier.

Now if you count up the times I had been downstairs to the reception desk to mainly complain, you would be thinking 'phew' good job he had a lift, especially with living on the Eighth Floor. However you would be horrified at the sight of OUT OF ORDER staring at you every time you want to take the lift. That's right people! Most of the time I had to walk down EIGHT flights of stairs just to complain and then walk back up them again.

My final complaint was with the promise of an on sight shop and cash point. Now being a student, I want to save as much money as I can and therefore thought that the ability to withdraw money for free is a fair request. Not for The Pinnacles it isn't, they wanted to take us for everything we had.

A charge of £1.75 to withdraw money from the cash point meant that most of the student would just pay by card at the on site shop. But the guys at Pinnacles had thought of every possible way to take every penny they could get. A 50pence charge was placed when paying by card. This meant that if you wanted to pay for what you were buying, you would have to pay by cash.

I am going to stop there, also carrier bags cost 10pence. Seriously I will stop now; just reminiscing has bought tears to my eyes. The lesson to learn from this article is that make sure you read the small print people! And if there are going to be further developments, then make sure you ask questions and get written proof of what is said and promised. I have learnt from my mistake, I hope I can prevent you from making the same mistake.

Anil Pattni