Thursday, February 25, 2016

Footnote


Like most footnotes this is the end of the story. Like most blogs and emails, you must start at the bottom of this blog for the beginning of the story. 

We no longer live at the Marque apartments at Heritage Hunt in Gainesville VA. We don't know if the Marque's property manager, Community Realty Company, Inc., Greenbelt MD, and the Marque's owners, Huntgain Marque, LLC, have dealt or will deal with the noise problems at the Marque. 

The on-site manager for the Marque told us that the neighbor from hell in the apartment directly above us has lived at the Marque for more than six years, which begs the following questions: 

  • How many other tenants before us were driven from the Marque because of the neighbor from hell's constant noisemaking? 
  • How long have the property manager and the owners known of the problem with the Marque's sound-transmitting floors? 
  • Why hasn't the property manager and the owners addressed these problems beforehand? 
  • Why don't they address them now? 
  • Why don't the property manager and the owners enforce the Marque's published "quiet hours"? 
  • Why don't the property manager and the owners enforce the clauses in the lease that prohibit "loud or obnoxious" behavior (paragraph 20) and declare the violators in default (paragraph 32)? 
  • Is it fraud to advertise the Marque apartments as "luxury" apartments while knowing about the Marque's noise problems?
  • How many others at the Marque are having the same problems?

CRC released us from our lease after we went around their on-site property manager, who did nothing to address the problem, to their headquarter office in Greenbelt MD. CRC's solution to our problem was to release us from our lease; however, they didn't release us from the clause in the lease that requires 60 days notification prior to leaving. 

Through God's grace we found a place to move to shortly after CRC released us from our lease in late January 2016. It was vacant. We notified the Marque: 60 days = end of March 2016.

We had every intention of moving to the new place beginning on March 15, 2016, move remaining items between then and the end of the month, do our final cleanup, and vacate the Marque finally on March 31.

That all changed on Friday February 6. After seven months of nonstop noise from the neighbor from hell, and seven months of being awakened every night by this pathetic loser's noisemaking, I reached "critical mass". I just couldn't take it any more. We changed our move date to the new place to February 15. 

Needless to say, it isn't cheap for us to pay double rent for both our empty apartment at the Marque and for the new place for an extra month. Also, needless to say, we weren't expecting the stress, work and expense of moving twice in one year.

In hindsight our move to the Marque apartments was a BIG mistake. We had high hopes; they were dashed on our very first day at the Marque by the Marque's sound transmitting floors and by the neighbor from hell's constant around-the-clock noisemaking. 

The expense, seven months of non-stop noise, seven months of interrupted sleep nightly, the frustration of the property manager and owners failing to deal with the noise problems, the stress and strain of moving twice in one year, etc.... 

The saddest part of this story to me is if somebody(ies) had warned us about these problems before we decided to move to the Marque in 2015, by writing a review or a blog like this one, then all of our discomfort, interrupted sleep, aggravation, frustration, work and expense of moving to and from the Marque twice in one year, etc. would never have happened.



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