The Icon

"If you're looking for an apartment that cares at all about its residents and their safety I would absolutely not recommend the Icon. My roommates and I were assigned a random roommate in January. She verbally threatened me, which we have on video. I filed a police report, took it to the office, and the most they could do was put her in a temporary unit for two days, while she was still able to keep her key to our apartment without it being disabled (mind you, any type of threat against a resident or faculty member is grounds for immediate lease termination). And when she was to move all of her belongings to a unit one floor above and two units down, security was supposed to be present. But the apartment trusted the resident that threatened me and had a key to the apartment to call security on herself when she was moving her things out. How that makes any sense I could not tell you. But obviously, she never called security on herself and was able to follow through on her threat, and physically assaulted me. It then took 30 minutes after I called the apartment for security to show up, where all security did was tell her I called police and to keep quiet. We were also essentially doxxed by the assailant's friend. Russel Best, the property manager, made it more than clear to me that security is only there for show and they have absolutely zero responsibility for the safety of their residents. I was obviously let out of my lease, but my roommates were not, even when our apartment number was posted on social media. Management made them get attorneys to figure out what documents were needed to get out of their leases. If anyone cared about our safety, we would have all been let out of leases immediately or the other resident would have been evicted immediately after the threat, which is a direct lease violation. This is not even to mention the lies I was told by Yashmine Hernandez, another manager, on multiple occasions. When I tried to talk to Russel Best's manager, Josh Reniger, he also brushed me off and redirected me to Russel, the person I was wanting to raise concerns about. I would not live at the Icon or any other apartment under Asset Living. They are only worried about rent money and have no interest in the safety of their residents."

"Parents! Don’t let your kids sign a lease there. Our daughter’s stay in there was a nightmare. From Weed smelling hallways all the time to filthy trash areas and apartments, your kids college experience will be a traumatic one. If your kid is used to a residential living, trust me, this is not the place. From the beginning, the apartment looked filthy and dirty. She lived there for a full year and we were never able to clean it properly. Towing service is the only thing that deserves 5 stars. They will tow your car for any single reason. The surroundings are dangerous and the management is either other students living there or some guys that act like they own the place, they will play around to solve things, the best thing they do is chat with the office door closed, they will charge you for everything and God forbids you try to break the lease. We had to stay there for a full school year. Don’t pay attention to the general areas or common spaces. Its the rest of the building that is scary and dirty. That is not a luxury student living. Save yourself some money as you can find better places off campus but not around UH. All the UH off campus apartments are really bad."

"Been living here since August and thought I would share my experience for anyone considering signing with them for next school year The good things: -The units are nice, there’s a decent amount of space and they have good amenities -The maintenance is quick whenever something is wrong in your apartment. They typically show up the day of the request or the next day The bad things: -It’s expensive for what you get. You pay so much money in rent and the office always try to find something new for you to pay for. There was a glitch with the utilities for January and they are handling it poorly. Many residents got emails that they went over the utility credit and they lumped multiple months together without warning, causing residents to have extra $100-$300 charges on their accounts randomly. The person in charge was on leave during this, so there was nobody that could answer any questions or concerns until the day before rent was due. They offered to set up a payment plan with residents, but conveniently the office will not answer our calls to set this up. -Thin walls. You hear EVERYTHING going on around you, inside and outside of the apartment. I have the absolute joy of having a unit next to the yoga room, which means I get the pleasure of hearing others blasting music and screaming at 2am. This is not The Icon’s fault, but it is definitely annoying. Also, they are building an Insomnia cookies directly beneath my apartment, so I have the joy of experiencing insomnia myself since they love to only work on construction at 7 in the morning! -Parking. Is. Awful. The office kept giving me broken remotes to the parking garage, and I had to go down multiple times to get my garage remote replaced. Parking is expensive, and if you don’t have a reserved spot good luck trying to find a spot that isn’t on the 6th floor or higher. The garage is dangerous, I swear some of the other residents don’t even have a driver’s license for how awfully they drive in that garage. I nearly wreck my car daily due to people going 50mph in the garage, and my car was even scraped against the wall of the garage because I had to swerve to prevent me wrecking. -Animal feces and urine in the hallways. The Icon does not fine or enforce people cleaning up after their pets in the hallways. It’s frankly disgusting, and it’s a very common occurrence."

"Great place of living maintenance is very quick on repairs and attending to the issues that occur apart are clean and secure. Love the outside pool and pool area grills are available all year around office people are very friendly and helpful. If you are in need of great deals they gotcha, and when time to study they have an amazing study room with accessible power ports for laptops and in lobby computers. Only issue is parking make sure you keep those parking passes up to date or they will tow you away without hesitation even if you are in the right. But further more The Icon is a safe and party safe environment. And convenient for both UH and Texas southern students public transportation accessible which I found very helpful for traveling to and from Texas Southern University."

"Move in day was a nightmare. Someone had a bright idea to move in an entire building in one day. Which was complete chaos resulting in a car wreck in the parking garage that caused an over 6 hours power outage. On top of that once checked in, the sanitation seal was already broken on the door and the lock was dead so couldn’t get in. Maintenance had to come and replace the batteries. When the power went out only half of my apartment when out, the AC was running but not cooling. I went to the front desk to tell them the AC was not working they said someone would be stopping by before they closed at 6pm. NOPE!!! Apparently almost 80 degree apartment in the summer time isn’t a priority. The front office then said it would have to be take care of the following day. Not sure how they think someone can sleep in this heat. The management should be fired for the entire check in to the maintenance of this building. The elevator lights are dim which pose a safety risk and might I say disgustingly dirty. The 6th floor smelled like dog urine. This was a horrible first day. Update to original post: On move-in day my daughter purchased a reserve spot, later to find someone parked in that spot with last year’s sticker. When notifying the leasing office, they called the former resident in which they said they had renewed their parking pass the day prior to move in day. So essentially they sold us a spot what wasn’t even available. Not only that but the office doesn’t have a map of reserved spots for each floor nor can they tell you what is available. They want you to go back upstairs and take note of which spots you may want and then come back down, wait in line to see if it’s available. This process is highly inefficient and lacks any air of good customer service. The trash rooms where tenants are supposed to throw their trash are disgusting. All large trash is removed still leaving a ton of trash to step on just to throw things in the trash chute. (6th floor chute doesn’t even close) there is no place to put large trash items regularly as the chute is fairly small. The apartment markets that each floor has a study room….there’s a room. However, it has one chair to the four desks, one tuft, and a built-in bench seat. There is no conference table for group work. And the 6th floor AC doesn’t work. If security of items is a problem I would suggest putting a keypad or locking system much like resident doors and allowing residents to sign up to use the rooms online with time slots. The staff could do a much better job at welcoming new residents. They tend to piece meal all information. While getting the parking situation resolved we found out resident get a garage gate clicker. The new residents aren’t even given a map of the facilities to know where everything is at. The apartment itself is nice and spacious. I think management needs to be replaced, looks like all young college kids that don’t care much about quality."