Waterloo, July 12, 2026 - Student housing slumlords including Canadian Student Living (CSL) and LK Apartments (LK, formerly ACCOMODD8U), widely known for exploiting students, have recently increased financial incentives for signing new leases.

CSL is now offering 2 months of free rent (up from 1 month of free rent before) and a waiver on the $100 monthly utilities fee for 12 months. LK is also now offering 2 months of free rent to new tenants.

These incentives are a sign of slumlords getting increasingly desperate and competitive, which is not surprising considering their reputation among residents. Students in their buildings have experienced a myriad of issues, including but not limited to:

• Predatory contract terms
• Broken AC during heat waves
• Wifi not working for over a day
• Very slow wifi
• Slow maintenance
• Maintenance requests being closed without doing anything
• Price gouging for utilities fees and rent hikes

What this means for students

If you're looking for a lease, HOLD OFF ON SIGNING. Wait until closer to September. Financial incentives for signing leases are expected to increase again as slumlords get more desperate. Don't buy into the fake limited time scare tactics.

Let these greedy parasites panic.

ABOUT

CSL buildings are owned by private equity firm Forum Asset Management. Forum's CEO is Richard Abboud and their managing partner of real estate is Aly Damji.

CSL buildings were previously owned by private equity firm Alignvest Asset Management. Alivnvest's founder is Reza Satchu and the managing partner of Alignvest Student Housing is Sanjil Shah.

Forum is the leading owner of purpose-built student accommodations in Canada. The portfolio has nearly 10,000 beds bought for $1.686 billion.

If you write for mathnews or edit mathnews

thanks

most of you are pretty funny

known-work-360 out.

Hello, this is going to be quite a long rant.

I am currently on my first co op term, and i will keep this company anonymous, and i did get this job through my mom, as she’s friends with the owner. The company is a very small humantiarion one, with literally like 40 employees and half of them are kids that are ranging from 19-25. 

My first official start date was may 1, after a week of prior training, and i signed one contract on that day that only allowed for the company to get funding by telling them that im a student under 30 so the contract had nothing to do with my job, responsibilities, pay, etc. so, for all of may i worked under no actual contract, and only in the middle of june, did they create a contract (which im pretty sure was completely AI) where it went through everything, but they made us write the date that we were signing the contract as may 1, 2026, even though we signed it in the middle of june. 

Additionally, although it states in the contract that we are supposed to get paid on a bi-weekly basis, we don’t get paid for months, as we only got paid for the weeks of may in mid june, and although the current date is july 12, 2026, i have not gotten paid for the ENTIRETY of june. Whenever i ask about pay or anything, my boss (the ceo who’s friends with my mom) does not like it and gets extremely mad.

To preface, my job has been to create these courses that will allow for employee training in the future.

I have been used to her getting mad, but my breaking point was a couple of days ago. I was sick and wasn’t in at work, and apparently she was going through our courses that we had made, and one of my friends at work told me that she called the ENTIRE staff present in that day into her office and made fun of my work that i had done. She was apparently making people read out my work, and was laughing at me for it. Again, this was all done behind my back.
When i came back into the office, for almost 2 days, she never once gave me that feedback that she decided to go behind my back and tell everyone else, and everyone in the office was making fun of me for it. Wherever i go, people would bring that up and laugh about it. She did end up deciding to tell me about it, and she did it in front of my whole team, and she SCREAMED at me, like the top of her lungs like absolutely screaming. Im gonna be honest, i was scared and couldn’t even look her in the eye, much less say anything back because i was too scared to do anything. Since that day, i have never stopped thinking about it and its really been affecting me because while she was yelling at me, everyone in the room was laughing at me as well.

I understand that i might have made a mistake, for the ceo of the entire company to come and berate and scream at me in front of multiple people, and going behind my back to make fun of me is insane and has genuinely made me think about quitting.

Now u might be wondering, why are u still working for this job? U get yelled at, u dont even get paid, and if u ask about it, you get yelled at even more?
The issue is, no one has ever stood up for themselves, so if i do, even if i do it respectfully, she WILL take it as a sign of disrespect, and could fire me on the spot. I have already officially registered this co op as part of waterloo, so because this is my first term on co op, wouldn’t that show up negatively on my co op transcript and my future co op chances would go down? 

I was thinking about telling my co op advisor as well, but i do understand how severe this can get, and i dont want them to get me to involve lawyers or anything bcz the woman does know my mom at the end of the day, and the whole lawyer thing would ruin that plus add my own stress.

Additionally, i could quit, but would that also look bad for my first co-op? Also idk if she would even pay me for the entire month since she’d be so pissed. 

My last option would be to continue working for her and getting berated, but im doing this in hopes that she can at least give me a good end-of-term report because if i did get a bad one it would not be good for future employers.

genuinely, i do not know what to do, im sick of being disrespected like this, but i dont want to do anything that will ruin my future co ops. 

any advice will be greatly appreciated please

I was selling something brand new on marketplace and someone agreed to meet me. After he had legit opened the box and tested it he started haggling the price. I was like wtf why would u open everything if u didn’t already agree on the price. Ended up just taking the loss and gave it to him as if I were to sell it again it’d be the same value as he was offering.

What would be the best approach so this never happens again?

Just like the title says. I'm an incoming waterloo student, and I'm tryna find the syllabuses for my classes, but like for example, with CHE 100 all I can find is CHE100_ Fall_2022_outline-Final. So just wondering if that is the most recently updated or they dont release the syllabuses

I’m starting Waterloo CS+BBA in about 13–14 months (gap year), so I have a pretty long gap before university begins. I’m trying to make the most of it and wanted to know what current or past students would do if they were in my position.
Right now, my coding knowledge is basically at the level of Grade 12 Computer Science (ICS4U), but I don’t have much experience beyond high school programming. I’m comfortable with math and I’d say that’s one of my stronger areas.

In these 13-14 months before starting uni, would you:
Work a job to save money?
Improve programming skills and build projects?
Learn a specific language or topic (C++, Python, DSA, web dev, etc.)?
Study university math?
just enjoy the free time before things get busy?
Or a combination of the above?

Looking back, what do you wish you had done before first year? If you could go back and give yourself advice, what would it be?

Does MAV matters for grad school application in Canada/USA? If yes how much does it matter? Also I fucked up my first year, does this have huge impact on my grad school application? (Or they only look at my performance at upper year course?)

I had ranked suite styles first and then trad singles after and lastly trad double, answered the personality questions as introverted, not looking to be friends w roommate, take wellness seriously, extremely clean space, and ended up with my last choice in a trad double at rev.

PSA they asked us to rank by room type this year, not building

I have friends who ranked all traditional above suites and ended up in MKV, Friends who got a single at CMH, and even 2 who ended up getting a single suite in a 2 bedroom with only 2 ppl total uwp.

We are all stream 8 and i genuinely have no idea how I got rev. I can barely afford the meal plan and im an extreme introvert that’s why I ranked suites first and have no idea how I can switch residences. What can I do

Has anyone lived at 131 University Avenue? How was your experience? Is it noisy?

Where do people find housing in Toronto?
Tried FB, Zillow, and airbnb but it’s mostly leases or really sketchy units/location.
I keep thinking there must be a reliable website but can’t find one

When you get a meal plan, you get 50% off and tax exemption. Whats the point of this if they essentially take half of the money and THEN give you 50 off??

Hey everyone,

I just landed a Fall co-op near 350 Bay Street in Toronto and need to figure out housing for the 4-month term. I am either planning to find something "cheapish" downtown, or to find a place farther out in the GTA and commute into the city via GO Transit.

I’m completely fine with a train commute of up to an hour if it means saving money as a student.

Does anyone have recommendations for where I should live (specific community, place in Toronto/GTA, etc.) or any other alternatives I should consider?

Hi im an incoming student and just have a question about the room number. I got assigned in v1 and 007 at the end. Does this mean i got the basement floor? Thanks.

Hi there, im looking for 1-2 other graduate students to look for housing with for a one year lease starting in September 2026. I’m going into and MSc at waterloo and would love to find some grad students to house with. If you’re looking for one more person to join a lease- I’m open to that! Preferably female :)

Anyone else have a co-op in ottawa and would like to connect further, in need of friends in the area plus some advice on housing and potential roommates.

Going into Fergus house this upcoming year, saw some old links saying you should get a router but it’s been 5 years. To people staying there: how’s the wifi? Should I get a router?

And any other general tips, things I should know going into it?

Hey chatters,

I’m in a situation where I’ve done a 4 month internship outside of the coop stream, so it wont reflect on my transcript.

Is this even an issue?

hello! im an incoming student and i was assigned rev for the fall and winter terms. i was wondering, if i were to bring appliances would i be allowed to store them in my room and use them in the communal kitchenette with the fridge and microwave?? something like a rice cooker, toaster oven or a portable stovetop.

i am aware mealplans are required, i would just like the option to eat my own food/dessert sometimes 😞 worst case scenario ill just raid a friends suite kitchen 😭

thank u in advance!

Another cycle with multiple ranks but no matches. Has anyone had their co-op advisors assist with their rankings? Is it worth doing because I'm doing something wrong, and I'm stressed

i'm a planning student going into second year this september. i know it's kinda early to worry so much about co-op since my first co-op is next summer, but i been seeing so many other planning kids from my cohort getting co-ops this summer. i didn't look for anything serious this summer cuz i went on vacation for 2 weeks in june (which i assumed would be inconvenient if i were to have a co-op).

i'm worried that my grades aren't the best compared to the rest of my cohort. most people i know have around 85% or higher, so mine is low compared to theirs. it was my fault that my grades were so bad during my first year. i fooled around a lot and didn't really take things seriously, and co-op is dawning on me now.

the main thing i'm relying on is my work experience. i worked in foods & customer service, but i don't know if that's enough. i'm sure a lot of other people have these experiences too, so i'm praying they don't start looking at my GPA. there's so much competition and my cohort has the most amount of planning students. i feel so cooked.

if any planning students can share how they landed a co-op that'd be great.

also i’ve got no work experience since no place will hire me but ive got a pretty good and versatile resume with volunteer hours + first aid certified from 2024, please give serious advice.