CoLife Istanbul | Horrific Experience in depth (6 month span)
Exchange in Istanbul CoLife Experience
I stayed at Colife in a total of 6 months for my Erasmus and payed 25.000TL per month (feb-july 2026) for this room area: Besiktas.
CLEANLINESS & CLEANING FEES
Cleanliness was one of the biggest problems. My bedroom was extremely dusty and mold was growing in several places. There was no vacuum cleaner in the entire house despite having carpets, and there was no proper deep cleaning during my stay. Because of my astma I had to buy myself an air purifier in order for me to breathe properly. At the end of the of the 6 month, the air filter was full of dust.
The cleaning itself was very surface-level. Kitchen and bathroom cabinets were barely cleaned, belongings from previous tenants were simply left behind, and we had to correct the cleaners multiple times.
Strangely enough, cleaners were required to take before-and-after photos every single time they came, supposedly so Colife could monitor the apartment remotely. Yet basic cleanliness and household issues remained unresolved for months. So what exactly is being monitored?
The cleaning fee makes this even more questionable. At the end of my stay, I was charged around 2,000 TL as an end-of-stay cleaning fee, while multiple different cleaners independently told me they received around 400 TL for cleaning one apartment or 600 TL for cleaning two. I obviously cannot verify Colife’s internal payroll, but hearing similar figures from multiple cleaners while seeing the actual standard of cleaning left a very bad impression.
KITCHEN, INVENTORY & EMPTY PROMISES
The kitchen wasn’t much better. Colife advertises utensils, yet missing or unusable items weren’t properly replaced and the pans were dirty and hard oily stains. We were promised a new pan set that simply never arrived.
We also reported problems with the iron for months. The iron was already burned and unusable from previous tenants when we moved in, yet it had apparently never been properly checked or replaced. Instead of simply replacing it, we were even given a supposed cleaning “hack” to try, which obviously didn’t solve the problem.
When a new tenant moved in, the whole discussion somehow started from zero again, despite us having reported the condition of the iron for months. What made it worse was that Colife then wanted us to pay for the iron, even though the damage had already been caused by previous tenants before we moved in.
One of my roommates, who is knowledgeable about Turkish law and tenants’ rights, pushed back and pointed out that we should not be charged for pre-existing damage that we did not cause. After she specifically raised our rights and the landlord’s responsibilities, Colife eventually dropped the charge.
So after months of reporting an already unusable iron, we somehow ended up having to defend ourselves against being charged for the exact same damage we had been telling them about from the beginning.
MAINTENANCE & DAMAGE
Maintenance was equally frustrating. The shower broke approximately every month. The water pressure was extremely strong and seemed to keep damaging the shower head, yet the underlying problem was never addressed.
One of the worst incidents happened because something related to the building’s heating system had to be accessed through my balcony/room. My door was forced open and was not immediately properly replaced afterwards.
They then initially tried to make me/my roommates pay in relation to the situation. Only after extensive discussions was that dropped.
What particularly bothered me was this repeated tendency to try to place costs on tenants for things we did not cause, as happened with both the already-damaged iron and the situation involving my door. In our experience, it sometimes took persistent pushback — and even explicitly raising tenants’ legal rights — before these charges were dropped.
COMMUNICATION & PROFESSIONALISM
Communication and professionalism were probably the most frustrating part overall.
Staff regularly seemed unable to make even simple decisions without consulting a manager. You could wait days for an answer just to be told they first had to “discuss it with the manager.”
Even some of the people showing rooms to potential tenants seemed to know surprisingly little about the apartment they were showing.
Their communication style also became strange considering how serious some of these conversations were. Messages were frequently filled with hearts, flowers and other overly friendly emojis, even while discussing unresolved maintenance problems, costs or complaints.
Emojis themselves obviously aren’t the issue, but the constant cheerful tone felt bizarre when the actual problem you were contacting them about had been ignored for days or weeks. The friendliness of the messages often didn’t match the quality of the service behind them.
And apparently tenants weren’t the only ones struggling to reach Colife.
At one point, the building manager approached me personally because he couldn’t get in contact with Colife himself. He asked me, a tenant, to contact them regarding their monthly building maintenance payment.
Having to act as a middleman between my rental company and the building manager was honestly ridiculous.
PRIVACY & VIEWINGS
There was also very little respect for tenants’ privacy when arranging viewings.
Sometimes we were told only around one hour beforehand that someone would be entering the apartment for a viewing.
For a company renting private rooms in shared apartments, I found this incredibly inconsiderate toward the people actually paying to live there.
THE CONDITION OF THE APARTMENT
The apartment itself had plenty of issues.
It regularly smelled of cigarettes, and the shared areas had no proper windows, only the bedrooms did. This made the apartment incredibly stuffy and hot, especially when someone cooked or during summer.
Some curtains literally dragged across the floor, many things were old or simply painted over, and belongings from previous tenants were left around instead of being properly cleared out.
Even basic things took forever: my mattress cover arrived around two months after I moved in.
ADVERTISING VS. REALITY
The rooms also don’t necessarily match the impression given by some promotional/Google Maps photos.
Decorative plants, candle holders and bedding shown in pictures were not included in my room.
If you’re considering Colife, ask exactly what is included in your specific room rather than assuming you’re getting what you see in the pictures.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
What bothered me wasn’t one broken shower or one delayed item. Things can go wrong in any rental.
It was the constant pattern: surface-level cleaning, mold, recurring maintenance problems, unusable household items, empty promises, extremely slow communication and problems only being addressed after tenants repeatedly pushed for solutions.
Colife even has cleaners photographing apartments before and after cleaning, yet somehow basic problems can remain unresolved for months. It felt like the property was being monitored on paper rather than actually managed.
For anyone considering Colife: view the exact room before signing, check for mold, check what is actually included and usable, document everything when you move in and get every promise about repairs or replacements in writing. Take photos of any existing damage immediately and keep your conversations with them. Based on my experience, I would also not automatically accept a charge simply because you’re told you have to pay it.