USC Students' Horror Stories about Conquest

Geoff Rynex, a junior majoring in political science and print journalism who lives in Providence, shows his feelings of affection for each of the 7 Conquest buildings within one block of Shrine Place. Oh the monopoly...

"I have many horror stories about Conquest so bear with me. All of my roommates and I got an ambiguous email recently giving us the feeling there was a problem. So my roommate called and Conquest said we were short on the rent and said I hadn't paid. But I knew for a fact that I had given them the check at Tuscany on the same day I was there to pick up a package. So I was pretty angry after a long history of anger. They forwarded my call to some guy in India and he said I would have to send a check and pay a late fee. I told him I had given them a check and if they lost it, I was going to be pissed. So, I contacted my bank and come to find out my check had been cashed...and by Conquest! By this point, a notice of eviction letter showed up on our door. I went to talk to Conquest about it and they said they "must have put it in a different account" and asked if I had a photocopy of my check. A couple days later I sent them a copy but they never apologized nor told me it was resolved.

Oh, and then there's the laundry room. There are four washers and four dryers that are broken half the time and even when they are functional you still have to dry your clothes like three times. So one time I washed every item of clothes I had--I was wearing boxers while I was doing my laundry. After I washed them I realized none of the dryers were working so I called Conquest and they said they had to wait for the Maytag people. It was two weeks before the dryers were fixed! Then, over winter break I got an email that we couldn't use quarters any more for laundry, there was a swipe card and we had to get it refilled at Tuscany (a good 20 minute walk from my place). And they raised the price of laundry. But...they didn't fix any of the machines! So, from now on I go to Lily's (girlfriend).

O.K. so then, my roommate left for like four days with his shit plugging the toilet. So I have to plunge his shit if I want to go to the bathroom. I spent one to two hours that weekend trying to unclog the toilet so I didn't have to walk to City Park to go to the bathroom. I called Conquest and no one came until Sunday night. The maintenance guy showed up chatting with one of his friends and plunged the shit out of the toilet quite violently. When I went in later there was 4 day old water everywhere and...he walked out with my damn plunger!

The Internet goes out for days at a time. It takes days for them to respond to our calls. The roofers are working on our building right now in the middle of finals time. The walls shake at like 8 a.m. on a Saturday.

All of their resources go to Tuscany because they kiss those people's asses because of what they (Conquest) did to them. I'm sure they own copious amounts of money to them."













Heather Bitar, a junior majoring in psychology, overlooks her palatial apartment which was taken over by Conquest and renamed, Verona.

"They (Conquest) increased our rent by 200%, forcing us to leave because who can afford that? It really sucks because this all happened in February and they didn't let us renew our leases. It was so hard because I already had to find a new roommate but then I had to find a new place too.

And the thing is, I like living here. I'm being forced to leave against my will and that sucks.

Since we're now "Conquest" tenants we've requested alot of repairs because we feel like we should use them for all their worth. The sad thing is we're against the corporation of Conquest but their maintenance guys are actually pretty nice.

The worst thing I've heard about Conquest is my friend knew two football players who moved into his building and out of Conquest because they had a rat and other animal problems. Conquest is just ridiculous."







Joanna Lin, a junior majoring in American Studies and Ethnicity lives in Conquest's property, Verona. One day she came home to a flyer posted on her door (pictured right) stating Conquest had taken over her building and they were not renewing her lease. Oh...and that they were going to charge over $3200 for her apartment instead of $1450.


"This year Conquest purchased the building I currently live in. We were given very short notice about a change in management and were told if we chose to resign our lease we would be given last priority meaning existing Conquest tenants as well as new Conquest tenants would be able to try to get spaces in my apartment before I, an existing tenant, would be able to. When I brought this up with Gina Koenig, the Conquest person we were put in touch with, she didn’t seem to think that this was a problem. Her quote was, “We didn’t think any of you would want to resign your lease.” She did say once I asked her should I wish to resign my lease, that she would make a “special” appointment in the next 48 hours. So that’s very little time when most tenants have weeks if not months of forewarning when deciding to resign our lease.

We were given two days to decide to resign our lease. Also, our rent was raised by 200% so even if we wanted to resign it would have been ridiculous. We would have had to leave our apartments for two months when they were quote “luxurizing” our apartment over the summer to something completely not worth the price.

I’ve decided not to resign my lease. Since I have become a Conquest tenant over the past few months, we do feel like we aren’t first-rate Conquest tenants. They’re slow to respond to our requests and maintenance concerns and generally don’t seem to even recognize at times what building I live in. It’s been frustrating in that sense. There hasn’t been a clear turnover.

They haven’t assumed all of the responsibilities a landlord should and that our previous landlord did yet they are still collecting all of our rent money for it. "