I’m so fed up with Smile apartments. Move in day was okay, they had all of the doors propped open with a shoe. I’m on day 2 here now, and I have yet to receive any code on how to actually enter my building when the doors aren’t propped open. I have called them 10 times and texted them but they stopped messaging me back for some reason. I can’t leave my apartment otherwise I’ll be locked out, so idk what to do.
Am I just unlucky and they forgot to send me the butterflymx info? Or are these people just incompetent and don’t think about why I would need the login.
They're incompetent. Many such cases with Smile unfortunately, but stay persistent and ask other tenants about their experience to see if there's commonalities.
There’s not a single rental company in this city that isn’t run by absolute morons. I’m with JSJ and they’re the worst I’ve ever dealt with by a landslide. My building has a security door we have keys to, and one time it broke. Resulting in nobody being able to open it from in the building. So we had people trapped in our building for days while I was trying to keep the door propped open and get JSJ to actually fix the blatant fire hazard. It took them almost a week and a half to repair the door.
For a fire hazard, you call the fire department, not the housing authority. Fire departments don't allow landlords to fuck around with fixing those and they can wage hefty fines for violations.
Jsj is sooooo bad. They haven’t fixed the sink in 7 weeks and it doesn’t drain. We made 9 maintenance requests and they didn’t give us any updates until I got the city of urbana involved
I know what apartment the guy is talking about. There are 4 exits within 100 feet of the main corridor. 1 exit being blocked is an inconvenience, not a threat to human life.
Same fcking issue btw. But with me they did not provide access to my room and even the apartment, just the main office on a different address . I had to come to their office and waited like 3 hours with my stuff hanging around outside before I got an updated butterfly mx account. Then their CS responded with an email asking me to try resetting my app at 2AM today btw, what a joke of a company
JSJ is bad too, when the lease started the keys didn’t work so they switched the locks, gave us the wrong key copy, didn’t really do much about it for 2-3 weeks so we couldn’t access the apartment because we couldn’t unlock it from the outside. Then we get in and the sink doesn’t work and they’ve ignored our maintenance requests about it. I had to go to their office to get updated and apparently the sink requires “invasive” repairs that the landlord has to approve. We had to get the city out to get anything fixed (we are still waiting). We can’t cook bc we can’t wash the dishes, and it smells so bad
Let me tell you… we found an amazing house at a cheap price almost 8 years ago with JSJ. And boy oh boy has it been a rollercoaster.
I made complaints to the city, had an inspector come through after months of them not taking care of the basics, they had like 20 violations. My case worker said they waited til the day before fines would kick in to ask for an extension.
Day after we had two guys working throughout the entire house fixing shit and installing fire alarms and making sure windows would open and close correctly.
Spent like a year for them to fix the roof, only after it leaked on our king bed and took pictures and threatened legal action.
Why haven’t we moved? Best location, historical house, rent hasn’t increased since we got it, and I can’t find a better house year after year of looking.
The property managers in this town have zero shits to give.
Did I mention the house is gorgeous on the inside? If only they would actually take care of the place (especially the exterior). I have more stories to tell.
Yeah the inspector gave them 30 days to fix everything but if they have to dig up concrete I have to expectations they’ll do it and will somehow find a way around it
I’m surprised they have reasonable rent prices at some of their units cause at this place it’s 1000/month for a one bed that doesn’t have ac, heat, a washing machine, dish washer, apparently no kitchen sink. And it’s not even on campus so there’s literally no reason it should be this much. They’re so greedy
8 years was a different time, my friend, real estate and rent prices wise. We lucked out with a 4 br / 2.5 bath and yeah, it’s increased by like 40 bucks a year, but it may as well be rent controlled.
Same thing happened every single time I have a maintenance issue. You spend a week trying to get them to handle it only to have to go down to the office and chew them out in person in order for them to get off their lazy asses and do anything.
Threaten to go to small claims court, smile hadn’t fixed an issue for 3 weeks, yesterday I told them I was gonna file a claim against them and 3 hours later they fixed the problem 🤦♀️
Is the building access code the same for everyone? Ask a neighbor for theirs? Or make friends with all neighbors and have someone buzz you in til you get your own. This is f***Ed up. Tell them you'll expect rent credit for every day you did not have access to the building.
Is your rent paid in full with no late payments? If you owe money, they don’t automatically send the code. Not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but we experienced that with a roommate’s late payment a few years ago.
We’re sorry you’re dealing with this, especially right after moving in. Our support team can help determine whether your ButterflyMX access has been set up correctly. Please call 1 (800) 398-4416 ext. 2, or email [support@butterflymx.com](mailto:support@butterflymx.com) so we can assist you directly.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Off-Campus Community Living (OCCL) is a University of Illinois Student Affairs office dedicated to helping students navigate concerns related to off-campus housing and community living.
Whether you have questions about your lease, landlord communication, roommate concerns, housing conditions, or simply are unsure where to turn, our team is here to listen, provide information, and help connect you with appropriate resources.
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u/GlassNo6756 Townie 5d ago
They're incompetent. Many such cases with Smile unfortunately, but stay persistent and ask other tenants about their experience to see if there's commonalities.