urbanbubble, Folk at Florence Dock

Chronic disrepair at luxury prices

Chronic disrepair. Luxury prices. No maintenance process. No audits. No routine checks. No internal quality control of any kind. The policy is to wait until something breaks, watch it get worse, then eventually spend money to repair it. Lifts, gym equipment, sewage pipes, bins, laundry machines — everything follows the same pattern. When challenged, management blame third-party contractors and say they are "waiting" for a part or a technician. It is London. If one contractor cannot do it, find another. There are thousands of engineers in this city. The fact that management hide behind third parties rather than taking ownership tells residents everything about accountability here. There is none. Zero sense of urgency. Zero agency. Zero capability to get the job done. DESIGN: The building looks good. That is the problem. Everything is designed to look impressive on a tour and on Instagram. Functionally, nothing works. The co-working monitors are propped up with library books because there are no ergonomic stands. Residents have complained about this for years. Nothing has been done. The co-working area has poor lighting. This is a professional co-living building marketed at young professionals who work from home. Books propping up monitors. It is embarrassing. The new cleaning provider supplies an expensive autonomous robotic floor cleaner. It is completely useless. But it looks good rolling around during a tour. That is the Folk essence — superficial over functional. The appearance of premium. The reality of neglect. FACILITIES: Gym equipment broken for 9 months. One machine previously took 9 months to repair. No equipment has been serviced or inspected in years. No preventative maintenance exists. Nothing is checked. Nothing is maintained. Everything is left until it breaks. Half the laundry machines were broken for 18 months. They eventually replaced them all with brand new machines. The new ones already do not work. You pay £3.80 per medium load on top of rent. £1.80 per 60-minute dry cycle. A week's washing regularly exceeds £15. Electricity and water are included in your rent but somehow laundry is not free. No discount was offered during 18 months of reduced capacity. Long-term residents say the laundry has never been fully functional. Not once since the building opened. The bar was closed for months. Staff on tours told prospective residents it had only been down a short time and would be back in weeks. That was a lie. It had already been out of service for 6 months at that point and took another 6 months to fix. It still does not fully work. They will say whatever it takes to get you to sign. Once you sign, the truth reveals itself. One of two kitchen dishwashers was broken for 9 months before finally being fixed. For 200 residents sharing limited dishwashers, losing one for that long made the mess inevitable. Dirty dishes piled across every surface because residents had nowhere to put them. That is not a resident behaviour problem. That is a management failure. The previous cleaner used to wash dishes by hand and load and unload the dishwasher twice a day. For 200 residents that made things manageable. The kitchen was clean. Then management cut corners, changed provider, and halved cleaning hours from 10 per day to 5. The cleaners have confirmed this. They removed the one thing that kept the kitchen functional and now blame residents for the result. Mould growing in fridges. A persistent putrid smell that has never been addressed. One of two sinks broken for weeks. The kitchen is disgusting. Games room. Every PlayStation controller broken or stick-drifting. Pool cue tips worn to nothing. Table tennis table broken. Bats destroyed. Balls cracked and unusable. Every single item in that room could be replaced for less than one resident's monthly rent. Nobody bothered. No routine checks on these prices of equipment, or regular replacements controllers to enhance the quality of experience. Whats the point having all these nice things but not being able to sue them due to tip-less pool cues, stick drift controllers, and cracked table tennis balls. Proactivity doesnt exist here. Both South Block lifts broken for 2 months. To get to your own flat you walk through North Block, up to Level 1, across a walkway, then take the stairs. Two months. Communal bins go weeks without being emptied. The bin lift broke and was left for over 4 weeks before being fixed. It worked for 1 week then broke again. Nobody locked the bin room either time. Nobody put up a sign. Nobody redirected residents to the outside bins. Management's response was "we sent an email." Residents who did not see the email kept using the room. Rubbish piled to the ceiling. Rotting, putrid, vile. A health hazard. This went on for 3 weeks before they finally locked the doors and put up a sign. Then came the flies. The infestation spread through the entire building — kitchens, bathrooms, sinks, everywhere. That was 2 months ago. The flies are still here. No professional pest control has been brought in. Their solution is household fly killer spray. If that worked, pest control would not be a profession. The infestation has rooted into the building and they are doing nothing about it. The entire situation was avoidable with a locked door and a poster on day one. But that would require urgency, and urgency does not exist here. It never has. Bird droppings left on the 7th floor corridor carpet for over 2 weeks. Not cleaned. Raw sewage flooded the basement. More than once. It took 6–8 weeks to resolve each time. Residents walked through contaminated water. People were ill. This is a category 1 health hazard. Belongings in storage were contaminated. Older residents say it has happened every year for three years running. Long-term residents confirm these issues have existed since the building opened. Either the infrastructure is chronic, or the mismanagement is chronic. Or both. WiFi was supposedly upgraded but speeds are worse than before. They downgrade services, present them as upgrades, and increase your rent. It is a pattern — cut costs, repackage it as an improvement, and hope nobody notices. Residents notice. SECURITY: Communal toilets are open to the public. Postal workers, delivery drivers, and strangers off the street are allowed deep inside the building every day — past the work-from-home area where residents leave laptops, phones, and personal belongings unattended. This still happens constantly. The Co-op 10 metres away is robbed on a near-weekly basis. These are the surroundings, and the front door is open to anyone. Reception is 15–20 metres from the entrance so anyone can tailgate a resident in without being seen. Security is like everything else here — superficial, not functional. There are young women living here. Intoxicated strangers from neighbouring restaurants combined with unsupervised access to a residential building at night is a safeguarding failure, and a recipe for disaster. Reception is often unstaffed or on tour. You can wait 30 minutes to report something or get a hoover. Sometimes longer — staff leave the mobile behind at the desk. You call the number and it rings right in front of you with nobody there to answer it. The toilets are left covered in urine — seats, floors, and walls. Faecal matter on the bowl and sometimes the walls. These are facilities residents pay £1,800+ a month to use. No standards. No urgency. No accountability. BUILDING MANAGEMENT: Reactive, not proactive. No preventative maintenance schedule for any equipment in the entire building. No routine servicing of gym equipment, laundry machines, dishwashers, or drainage. Everything is left until it fails then takes months to repair. Blame is constantly shifted to third-party contractors. The in-house maintenance person left and was not replaced. Maintenance is now outsourced. Repairs take weeks or months. Meanwhile, hotel guests on the short-stay floor reportedly get issues resolved within 48 hours. Long-term residents paying £2,000+ a month are told to wait. When you have signed and they have your money, the urgency vanishes. PROPERTY MANAGEMENT: Urban Bubble. No compensation has ever been offered for any issue — not the sewage, not the fly infestation, not the lifts, not the gym, not the laundry, not the cleaning degradation. Not a credit. Not a reduction. Not a goodwill gesture. Not even an acknowledgement that residents deserved one. Nothing. The rent increased £100+ during all of this. That tells you exactly what they think of you. Some positive reviews on Google are from short-term hotel guests who have a completely different experience. Some are from brand ambassadors who receive a rent discount. And some look plain fake, with generic sounding name "Stephen Smith" and a generic sounding review conveniently timed after 5 consecutive 1 star review.... Residents have also reported being offered free laundry in exchange for 5-star reviews. Context matters when reading any review of this building. £3–5 million a year in rent from 150–200 residents. They cannot fix a washing machine. They cannot provide monitor stands. They cannot maintain basic cleanliness. Cannot provide good wifi, or a standard of decent cleanliness. Piece of advice — Talk to residents without staff present. And if staff tell you something will be fixed soon, ask a resident who actually lives here how long it has really been broken. Not worth the price. Not even close. Glad to be moving out.

Great community, let down by building management

The community is honestly the best part of living here. The residents are lovely and the events are well run. I also want to say that the people at the front desk are really nice and always try to help. None of the issues below are their fault. On paper the facilities are great too: a gym, screening room, co-working space, rooftop terrace and communal kitchens. Unfortunately, building management hasn't kept up with the rent (around £2,000 a month for a studio). Since I moved in, the laundry machines have barely worked for weeks. The goods lift has been broken for weeks too, so the bin room was repeatedly closed. When it was open, it was overflowing and full of flies, and residents had to use bins on the street. The communal kitchens aren't cleaned often enough, and the studios get extremely hot in summer, to the point of feeling almost unliveable. Communication has been inconsistent: fixes get announced, then don't work, and we mostly find out what's going on from the residents' WhatsApp group. Co-living is only worth the premium if the building and shared facilities are looked after. I'd love to update this review if management sorts these issues out, but right now I can't recommend it at this price.

Paying a premium for community and upkeep that's no longer there

When I moved in, a big part of the appeal was the community side of the building and the well-kept shared spaces, and that's what residents pay a premium in rent for. Recently, standards have dropped noticeably. The bin rooms are often out of order, and there has been a persistent fruit fly problem. The shared kitchen isn't cleaned to the standard it used to be, and common areas generally feel poorly maintained. Since the community manager left, events have become disorganised or stopped happening altogether, and the community atmosphere that made the place special has largely gone. The building still has good potential, but right now residents aren't getting what they're paying extra for.

Great management

One of the best things about living here has been the building management, especially Kafi and Guglielmo. They are always friendly, greet you with a smile and are happy to have a quick chat. Whenever I've had an issue or needed help with something, they were always approachable and willing to help. There were a few occasional problems with the laundry machines and the bin room, but these were dealt with. In terms of cleanliness, I’d say the building is generally kept to a normal standard, although the shared kitchen can sometimes get a bit messy over the weekend.

A fantastic building with an amazing team

This is a really great building. Everything is modern, well looked after and always feels clean and welcoming. The studio apartments are especially well designed. The layouts make really good use of the space, and the amount of storage is honestly one of the best features. There are so many clever storage solutions that make the apartments feel much bigger and more practical than you'd expect.