JSM Living

This unit is by far the WORSE unit you can possibly get yourself into. When I first moved in, there were some SERIOUS mold on walls and carpet was disgusting. The apartment itself was disgusting’!! I fell sick the first week. Not to mention the place is infested with spiders! They do renovations in the apt in the middle of the semester which is UNACCEPTABLE they call themselves a «convenience» for students because they are near the university but they are not convenient AT ALL especially to move a student during mid semester while exams are going on! Not to mention, the place is disgustingly dirty and they have the nerve to charge you for cleaning. When I first came in the filters were dirty and disgusting! They aren’t even actually replaced, they run it under water and use the same filter each time. DO NOT LIVE HERE PLEASE they shut off my water probably 20x since I moved in as well the electricity going off. Got woken up cuz of construction every single damn day esp on nights when I needed sleep the most from being up studying. Please please please I beg you, you’re better off in a freaking box or tent than to live or contract with jsm!

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.
If 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.
TLDR (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.
Especially 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.
I 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.
If 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.
I 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.
The 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.
Another 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.
Finally, 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.
While 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.

jsm owns and poorly runs uptown crossing in normal, illinois. if you are thinking of renting here… don’t do it! the repairs to building problems are shoddy, the office staff on site and at jsm corporate hq in champaign/​urbana are rude and unprofessional. they must sweet talk the adults or cities they do business in but they are the worst i have seen yet. i am concerned about the other reviews that are saying that they will take advantage of not refunding security deposits and/​or minimal amounts are refunded and they take the lion’s share. the apartments are not in good shape considering that they are fairly new. small and very pricey. the arrogance of the owners and staff which some are owners’ children is amazing and not in a good way.
stay away from jsm properties… they should be sanctioned for their misrepresentations. it is sad how continually they are allowed to take advantage of their tenants.

Parents, be aware of JSM. After my daughter spent a difficult year of slow repairs, a cracked window in the dead of winter, dirt and noise, your security deposit will come back with a lot of over-​stated charges. Even though the apartment was dirty at move-​in (broken glass in the kitchen, desk drawers still filled with items, etc.) the move-​out charges included $ 275.00 for general cleaning, $ 145.00 for alleged carpet cleaning (again, we found dirty carpet at move in) and a $ 60.00 maintenance charge to change the lock on the front door. I’m sure they paid someone way less than $ 275.00 to clean an empty apartment! Contrast with Tower at 3^rd for a $ 40.00 move-​out carpet cleaning.

Lived in 405 E White St, champaign for half a year. It was totally a nightmare, I am soo glad I will move out tmr. When we moved here in August, JSM forgot to remold hot water tunnels in our bathroom, we had to take showers in ARC for three days. There was no window screen for a month, we pushed the office several times and they came up with several excuses. There was even a crack in the wall, they fixed it in Dec, however, maintainence left their knife in my bed… The WORST is, they have bedbugs. Although they did pest control once, but we found a bed bug in bed recently. Anyway, never resident in 405 E white!

Lived in a JSM managed apartment for the 2009 – 2010 school year at the recommendation of the Tennant Union.
I didn’t have any major problems. They had a quick and friendly maintenance staff. One time I came home at 3am and there was a maintenance guy fixing a leak that the tenants in the lower floors had complained about, so I know emergency maintenance gets done quickly as well.
On move-​out I was charged a lot for cleaning, despite having cleaned some myself. I showed the pictures I had taken when I moved out to the leasing office manager. In the end they returned a fair amount of my deposit without having to complain to the Tennant Union. Expect to be charged for carpet cleaning (I think it says it in the lease) and always take move-​in and move-​out pictures.
Overall, one of the better large management companies on campus. People might know this because their apartments fill up fast. Consequently there is usually no room for negotiation with these guys. I will consider them for future apartments.