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CB Landlords Review of Xchange, Karin Comer
Xchange, Karin Comer

Xchange, Karin Comer review: Karin Comer 2

N
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2:35 pm EST
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Review Karin

About two weeks ago I returned from South Africa, Cape Town. I was there for five months. Unlike my tan, my memories don't fade away. Unfortunately not all of these memories are positive and by this review I want to keep you from most of these bad experiences.

It all started in the Netherlands, at my university. There is an office at my university that helps students to go abroad for studies or internships. I told them that I was interested in Cape Town and they brought me in contact with Karin Comer, the lady that helps students with internships, housing and the day to day things in Cape Town. This is where the trouble started.
The first emails where fine. A bit of chit chatting and what my interests where. For my studies I had to do an specific assignment during my internship. I mentioned that in my second email. She didn't really answered on my question if it was possible.
We kept on emailing and after a few weeks we had a company where I could do my internship. After this it took about 6 emails and a few weeks to answer my question about my specific assignment. It felt like she thought it was rubbish and that I shouldn't make such a problem out of it. She kept on mentioning that it was a company where you will learn a lot. Well, that was good to hear but not what I wanted to know. During these weeks she was pushing me to pay the amount for the mediation but at the same time she didn't want to answer my question.

Well, off to Cape Town in the beginning of September 2014. I arrived at the airport and Karin picked me up. It was fine, she was on time and we chit chatted a bit. She dropped me off at the house where she placed me. She also takes care of that house, we pay rent to her.

The house was at first sight fine. Some furniture, 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. But when you take a closer look, there was quite a lot wrong. About 50% of all the lights weren't working. Only the ones that had to work because otherwise you couldn't see at all. There are holes in the floors (I think that's also a reason that there are rats in the house), the coaches are broken and very old. There is mold on the wall of a bedroom. You can't close some of the windows and doors. The sink is plugged and the stove doesn't work. The tap is leaking and one shower doesn't have hot water.
I probably missed some but this is about it.

The first weeks where very nice. My housemates where more than awesome, there was a very kind cleaning lady and the handy man was funny.

After a week or three I found out all these broken parts at the house so I emailed Karin about some of them and if she could fix them. She never fixed the light, the doors, the windows and according to her the stove was working properly (it sure was not, there came smoke out of the back when you turned on the oven). I didn't emailed her about the rest of the broken parts. The only thing she fixed was the warm water at the shower.

I won't lie, Karin did also some things very good. My roommate was very sick one day. In the evening she wanted to go to a doctor or a hospital. She called Karin and it was all fixed within an hour. Compliments about that. I wish that could make up for the rest.

Around Christmas I did a three week road trip with some housemates. After about a week, while we where somewhere in Namibia, a housemate called that Karin insisted that I moved to another room because there was a guy coming in the next days that had to sleep in my room. If I didn't do it, a team would come to move my stuff. Luckily my friend was so kind to do it for me but it was ridiculous of Karin to tell me that because I had no idea I was staying in wrong room. Nobody in house knows what Karins plans are for the rooms but she expects from us to know.

As the cherry on the pie she paid me ZAR 300 too less (298 to be exact, about 23 euros) on my deposit. I tried to contact her many times but she never reacted till this very moment.

I tried to contact Karin about all of the issues above but this lady is very unreasonable. I will admit that I also wasn't the person who behaved perfectly in the house. There was no proper conversation possible unfortunately. Along with me, about 75-80% of all the housemates or people I met thought the same way about Karin.

Please try to look for an other person to help you with housing and the internship because it will probably be a lot better that Karin.

2 comments
X
X
XCHANGE SA
, US
May 02, 2015 3:06 pm EDT

In response to the published lies...

X
X
XCHANGE SA
, US
Apr 22, 2015 7:21 am EDT

The university of this young lady will be dealing with her false report at the highest level as they are familiar with her actions and behaviour in south africa and have visited the house after her departure and communicated with the tenants who were familiar with her ! I will demand a letter of apology and retraction of this rubbish from her. The damage this young lady and her housemates caused to the property throwning patatoes at lamps, having tomato throwing against walls etc. and this is now the final straw.