Nido Student Living

A great place to live! Though the rooms are small, the building is modern, well-​furnished, and clean. The free wifi is fast, and the building’s technology is very user-​friendly. The staff is very friendly and always willing to help. Overall, I’m really enjoying my stay here!

i stayed here for 2months during the summer of 2012 when the Olympics were going on.
transportation:
i love that its a short walking distance from kings-​cross station where most of the lines cross and saves you the time of transferring. i interned in Westminster during my stay and it usually takes me about 20minutes to get there (1 transfer included). aside from the tube, the Eurostar is also right there! i took it to Paris and on my return trip after i was all partied out, i was so thankful that i only had a 5 minute walk and i was in the lobby of Nido.
there are also bus stops littered all around so you also have that option. as well as the Angel tube station.

After leaving NIDO for while I think its time for a review.
First off I was on the 11^th floor of the south tower in ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ year and my opinions of NIDO is certainly mixed.
The Good
–Location, Location, Location– very close to King’s Cross Station (with 5 tube lines its really hard to complain)
–Nido does organize events everynow and then
–Made a couple of friends here and there, its definitely nice to meet people from different universities
–Maintenance request are quickly processed
— Polish coffee lady downstairs very nice, makes good coffee as well.
The Bad
— picking up packages are limited to 7−10pm, very inconvenient.
— elevators broke down constantly, it takes almost 5 minutes to go up or down
— while rooms were new, shelves, bed space, and other amenities were not properly designed with ease of use in mind.
–view from my room partially blocked by the north tower (directly facing someone on the opposite side for a whole year is hardly fun)
The Ugly
–oh lord, the smell of 420 is everywhere, I believed it came through the plumbing in my room as well. While I don’t have anything against it, I prefer not to have the smell seep through into my room
–not enough trash bins for so many residents, the ground floor on the way to the laundry room looks like a landfill by sunday afternoon
–rooms not perfectly clean when moved in, I could still see hair from the previous tenant, I guess the next tenant could spot my hair laying around as well. NIDO needs to seriously invest in cleaning after the tenant has left.

I posted mold in the photos section above. Check before they take it down and pretend it never happened. If anything, let me know and I’ll send you the pics but warning… it’s nasty.
Basically about 20 kids at the Nidos had mold and the janitor knew about it for awhile (staff did too) and did nothing about it, nor tell any student about it. It was hidden behind the bed. A bunch of kids were coughing and sneezing, not really knowing why. I do not recommend staying here at all. Good luck to you if you are.

Where do I begin with this place? (This review is based on my experience living here Fall 2008, so maybe the place has been updated since then)
My love/​hate relationship with Nido:
LOVE!
Nido was my home for the semester. The location was perfect! Just a five minute walk to the King’s Cross Station where one could catch the Eurostar and arrive in Paris in over two hours. The building itself had a really good concept with the sleek modern design, the upgraded dorm/​apartment style of living, complete with laundry facilities, a small workout area, on-​site café and lounge area, Mac computers readily available, and flat screen tv’s all over the common areas.
My room was completely furnished with a bed, desk, chair, closet space, kitchenette, and a small bathroom with shower. Everything was new and clean! Sounds wonderful, right?
HATE!
WELL, I felt like I was part of the second round guinea pig experiment with this place. There was always something going wrong. There was at least one elevator broken at all times, occasionally they didn’t have running hot water, the kitchen counters were made out of cheap material and started to come apart, the washing machines/​dryers seemed to always be broken, our ID cards wouldn’t work sometimes. What’s wrong with this «new» place and why is everything falling apart?! Ikea-​quality perhaps? It almost took them awhile to fix these problems too. OH and this has nothing to do with the building but with the staff itself– the RA’s weren’t quite helpful, but they did organize a few events in the lobby which I thought was extremely nice of them.
However, I can’t hate on this place too much. Too many good memories here. How I miss you so… Lounging around the café (they sold alcohol here!), met a lot of cool international students and Americans. There were always people up and about, which was great and made this place lively.
All in all, Nido was a pretty good fit for my stay in London and although it wasn’t perfect, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
FYI: Nido also works on a «cashless» system, so your same ID card that gets you into the building also gives you access to your room, buys you stuff at the café, and pays for laundry. You top it up online via credit cards.