Review for Village At Potomac Falls Apartments

The Village at Potomac Falls are so horribly managed, and there were so many problems that i had to write a letter to the Corporate Leasing Company due to the local leasing office not doing their job in basic customer service. Below is the letter i wrote to Corporate office for Lincoln Prop. and the action they took? They fired the Resident Property Manager - a WEEK after i moved. Too little action, too late. BEWARE:

To: Lincoln Property Corporate Management Office
CC: Fagelson, Schonberger, Payne & Deichmeister PC

Although I find it an unpleasant task, I feel that I must bring to your attention a problem I am having with your Resident Manager, Jennifer Leathers from Village at Potomac Falls, Sterling, VA.

I am, of course, writing after the fact and on the cusp of my move out date, however, recent events led to this letter being produced. The straw that broke the camels back occurred Feb 7, 2003 when I received a notice on my door upon coming home that I was to pay $25.00 for having left trash outside my doorstep and therefore that action violated fire codes and rendered the hallway impassible. I digress, for let me go back to the beginning in the attempt to explain my many frustrations as well as my few satisfactions in this long history of my lease period with Village at Potomac Falls. When I moved into this property, I was very excited at the opportunity to reside in such a well taken care of, well-presented property. A leasing agent by the name of Fiona assisted me thru the painless process of becoming a tenant and everything was great. In the coming months I enjoyed living there and referred my friend and co-worker by the name of Gisela Quevedo. She signed a lease soon thereafter I did. However, the dissatisfaction came after the property seemed to have gone thru a re-organization with the presentation of a new Resident Manager, who I have subjected above. The time period by now was Summer 2002. I live on the second floor of a building, which has a walking width of at least 6 feet, conservatively estimating. On each floor there are 4 units with individual indentations in front of their respective doorways so as not to obstruct hallway traffic. I received a notice in June 2002 that I was to pay $25.00 for having left a trash bag for several hours in that indentation, in front of my door due to it Blocking hallway traffic, Producing a fire hazard, and unbecoming to the Property Upkeep. I was to pay this fee (fine) in 5 days, or be faced with greater penalties. After speaking with the Resident Manager I was told that there was no way around that particular fine, I was told that it was impossible I had only left that trash bag there for hours, but rather that it had been left for days. Needless to say, I paid the fee, and moved on. The second time I left a trash bag out in that same indentation, in front of my door was to simply move it off any and all floor(s) to clean my apartment. I left this there for no more than an hour or two, yet when I opened my door on my way out, the maintenance crew had placed a letter with attached photo of this violation once again. This time the fee specified was $50.00. I immediately spoke with Jennifer Leathers to dispute this fine, furthermore, the simple fact that crew didnt even have the courtesy to check if I was there, to simply knock on the door, as I was cleaning, to give me a verbal warning of such, nothing. Jennifer told me she couldnt do anything about it, and I was to pay the fee. By now, as you can imagine my frustration grew more and more. Each time, Jennifer was cold, abrupt, stoic regarding this issue, and insisted it was in my lease documents. I checked my lease thereafter, but to no avail; it was never clearly defined in my lease of such a fine.

Let me implore your patience in describing what else fed this fire of frustration with the leadership skills of Ms. Leathers. During this same time, I placed few ordinary maintenance requests such as disposal not working properly, dishwasher not cleaning properly, etc, yet every request was taken with a slight importance. Each request was taken at face value, and while the requests were not emergencies, the sense of attention or slight bit of interest to repair them was not there. So I found myself confused as to how, whenever it was convenient, it was for management to have the sense of urgency placed on their maintenance staff in order to walk-through every building seeking and capturing on film every trash violation yet have such a lack of the same urgency for resident needs. Ask yourselves if that is just? The coming months thereafter, I just ignored these disturbing facts, assuming that they were going to get better. I gave the Resident Manager too much credit. Winter was upon us by now, and needless to say it was a very bitter one. I am a reasonable person with little expectations during such a hard Winter, but when I have to take mild to cold showers repeatedly because the maintenance crew will not fix things accurately the first time, then something is wrong. I placed several requests in to the Leasing Office to fix my water heater, but every time the maintenance staff supervisor Lyndell Davis responded to these requests, the water heater still functioned incorrectly. In fact on a separate occasion I put a request in to fix my garbage disposal, in which Lyndell came out to my unit, placed an ice cube in the disposal and responded to the trouble ticket as being fixed. Yet every time after that when placing scraps, or particles of food down the disposal, it still would not function properly. When I asked Jennifer Leathers to respond to the lack of prudence in the maintenance work, the management response was that if an ice cube is being crushed properly, then I, the tenant, was sticking far bigger pieces of food than just scrap particles down the disposal. At that point in this ongoing series it seemed to be almost a he-said/she-said situation, which I felt, didnt need to occur since I am the tenant with reasonable requests, within reasonable time period turn-around expectations. Having said that let me add this situation in which I actually lost time and money (indirectly) due to the lack of diligence and urgency on the Resident Managers part. In early December 2002 my garage for which I pay an extra $100 monthly stopped working. Therefore my garage door refused to open and my car was hostage inside, of course. The problem arose when this trouble occurred on a weekday and I was still expected to report to work. Without getting into the mundane, exact details of my specific job description, I will say in relevance to this problem that I deal, at my job, with hundreds of thousands of dollars that exchange accounts across international borders. My job as an Analyst is to verify proper audits are done on my clients accounts, confirm the exchange of monies and wire these funds across international accounts from U.S. into Latin America and vice versa. Furthermore, this particular week of this garage incident I was working on a big project at work, and quite naturally had a lot of paperwork necessary to complete my job in my car in my briefcase. However, I couldnt retrieve any of that due to the aforementioned problem. I called the Leasing Office, and they responded to my request as it not warranting an emergency and therefore I had to wait until they could secure an alternate opener from the original garage door vendor, or wait until they had permission from the adjoining garage resident to punch thru the plaster wall in order to get into my garage. As you can well imagine, these choices were incomprehensible to any logic and I was beside myself. Rational thought would suggest that you simply find an alternate key for which there was a keyhole in the garage door, and open it that way, rather than waiting for the vendor to supply another opener or even destroying walls. Above all of this, the leasing office gave me my two options which left me with no other option other than to contact my boss and tell him that I was unable to complete the transactions of the day, unable to retrieve my documentation, unable to report to work, and therefore loosing a crucial day at work, and money. The garage stopped working on a Thursday, I had to wait until Tuesday morning for the Resident Manager to call me back regarding this issue, and get the garage open at by which time, she stood by the fact her maintenance staff insisted my trouble wasnt an emergency. I found this stance on residents needs to be alarming and disturbing to say the least, and therefore strongly felt it necessary to reduce my monthly garage rent by pro-rating it myself withholding days of which I was without use of the unit. Not to my surprise, the very same day of relinquishing my rent check of the garage to the leasing office, I received a call from Jennifer Leathers regarding my pro-rating my rent. She asked who authorized me to withhold that amount, whereas I replied that I myself authorized such action and I felt that it was only fair to abide by such an action in light of the entire occurrence. The amount I withheld was $17, of which would not break my bank, so to speak, yet I felt was a point that needed to be made. Again, the resident managers sense of urgency was there when I pro-rated the garage rent, but not when the garage, a service for which I pay for, neglected to work properly.

This leads us back to 2003 and the situation with the newly given trash violation on my door, once again all too familiar, yet this time without one of those nifty little Polaroid pictures to accompany such notice. Downstairs in the unit below me, there lives a lady that, if visiting yourselves, you may think youre in Shantytown. There are so many trash bags, loose articles, broken furniture, bikes, and miscellaneous stuff on her patio in open view of the parking lot; one is only to assume she is having a garage sale on her 3x5 ft patio  everyday. Am I to assume she is independently wealthy to be able to do that, for I'm sure the resident manager fines her everyday as well? Which only leads me to assume that this latest fine or fee is a deception in terms. Due to all that I have explained to you above, due to all the hassle I have had to endure with the resident manager, and for lack of any better term, I have learned as a rat learns not to get shocked by grabbing for cheese, not to leave trash outside any edifice outside my own garbage canister. Yet I still got a fine, and I am being candor with you at this moment, I do not intend to pay it. I already know that by the time you read this letter, it will have come out of my deposit of $100, for which the resident manager will more than happily have the urgency to deduct it rapidly. In preparation this week for moving out, I know I legally have to vacate the unit in conditions as such received at the beginning of my lease, however, I have taken the responsibility and liberty to go well above that standard. I have cleaned the unit from top to bottom, accurately maneuvering thru the place with a fine toothcomb to ensure only the fastest turnover for the maintenance staff, and therefore the next tenant in total and undeniable compliance to my lease terms. So I ask you, can the Resident Manager state with all confidence their responsibilities were met as well?



In conclusion, I have discussed to you in this letter my grievances, my intolerance for the lack of logic, rationality, and forethought. I have also mentioned to you the words urgency, attention, quality, & service. Those very same words I found to be described in Lincoln Property Managements mission statement. Quote, We are dedicated to delivering exemplary service in a quality home environment. Our goal is to be the apartment home provider of choice--a goal we attain through our residents and employees. We understand that our customers define the standard of quality and service, and their loyalty must be earned. None of which I believe I received from the Resident Manager, nor the Maintenance Staff in the short time I lived at your community.

In all of my explanation of this entire letter, I want to make it distinctly clear that I hesitate to generalize the leasing office. This community has on staff persons by the name of Deborah, Fiona, and Laura, all of which were the only reasons I procrastinated notifying Corporate and Regional Offices respectively. They single handedly were helpful, kind, respectful, and customer, resident oriented agents of Lincoln Property. Yet, one person, the Resident Manager, an officer in charge, an ambassador of Lincoln Property, can and did play an instrumental role on my decision to vacate this community. I believe just as my referral augmented tenant listing by one (Gisela Quevedo), it can also deter many more having the adverse effect. Ladies and Gentlemen of Corporate and Regional Office(s), I am not na?ve, I know one tenant, myself, am not going to be detrimental in the finances of Village at Potomac Falls for the fiscal year, however, just as word of mouth publicity is the best form of advertising, it is also the most destructive form as well, and free of charge I may add.

I Thank you for your time and expediency, I leave to you all that I have informed to do with what you wish.


Sincerely,

Omar M. Kuri