Concerns were raised over the conditions of Celeron Square apartments after residents posted evidence of dirty water, mold and fungus growing out of their walls.
Celeron Square is an apartment complex located in the Storrs Mansfield area where many University of Connecticut students live for off-campus housing. The complex offers double and triple rooms in multiple housing units and is a little less than a mile from campus.
Lately, complaints arose regarding the cleanliness of the apartments. Specifically on Reddit, a video was posted about two weeks ago showing fungus growing through the walls in an apartment, with a caption that read “Word of Advice: Do Not Rent a unit at Celeron Square.” The same day, the user also posted a photo of cloudy, brown and green water filling up the bottom of their bathtub.
The Daily Campus reached out to the owner of Celeron and they declined to comment.
The two Reddit posts have comments from other users both agreeing and disagreeing; some have said their experience with Celeron has been similar, while others say they have never had an issue.
Alisa Feygis, a sixth semester psychology major on a pre-med track, moved into Celeron at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester.
“There’s definitely a few things about Celeron that weren’t my favorite. We would have problems with the draining system for our sink. It would always get clogged and have a really bad smell, so that was one of the problems that we had with Celeron,” Feygis said via in person interview.
Feygis also noted that the closet doors broke often, and her and her roommates have had to submit many maintenance requests since moving in last semester.
“If you request anything they mostly get it done within a reasonable amount of time. The only issue with that, for some reason I wasn’t able to actually submit the request through my portal. When I logged in there was no maintenance request option for me, only for one of my roommates,” Feygis said. “The fact that there were a good amount of problems may be a little bit of a red flag. We’ve had maybe a total of five up until now.”
Gayatri Vishwanath, an eighth semester marketing major with a minor in psychology also had moved into Celeron last August but had few complaints about it.
“They’re really fast with really serious problems. We had a little bit of a mold problem in our bathroom in the beginning of the year — they came and took care of it the next day,” Vishwanath said via in person interview.
Other than mold and a few leaky pipes at the beginning of the semester, Vishwanath said that she has been satisfied with the conditions at Celeron.
“Honestly, it’s a solid enough first apartment for a college student … overall it’s been a pretty decent experience living here,” Vishwanath said.
There are also UConn students that love living in Celeron. Angela Recine, a sixth semester psychology major with a double minor in crime and justice and sociology, has lived in Celeron for the past two years.
“I moved in before my sophomore year started because with covid and everything happening I wanted to know I had my own space. I’ve been living here all last year, all this year. If you couldn’t tell, I like it here,” Recine said via in person interview.
Recine said any issue she has had Celeron workers have been great at fixing.
“My favorite part of it has to be how easy it is to communicate with the owners of Celeron and maintenance as well. I’ve never had an issue communicating with any higher-up in Celeron, they’re always super easy to reach. I know for maintenance, we’ll call for something and they’ll be there in an hour,” Recine said.
Recine plans to continue living in Celeron for a third year, leasing for the fall 2022 semester.
“There’s a reason why I’m staying three years, not gonna lie,” Recine said.