Spectrum Apartments

Dispute Resolution Specialist
Revdex.com serving Metro Washington DC and Eastern Pennsylvania
1411 K Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005-3404

Re: Complaint ID; ***

Dear ***:
We very much regret that despite our best efforts we have not been able to make this resident happy.
We are a wonderful, diverse community with residents of all age groups and varying backgrounds. We have a highly-educated residential base of people who have moved to Gaithersburg from every part of the world and are doing important things with their lives. They work at *** doing medical research, at *** on cybersecurity, at *** doing research, at local schools teaching and a host of other area workplaces. We are enriched by their experiences and come together frequently as a community. Our residents typically embrace this diverse and our Happy Hours are extremely popular because residents enjoy meeting each other and learning about different work and cultures.
Regrettably, this resident complains loudly and frequently about the racial and ethnic composition of our community, our staff and our vendors.
This resident has launched a campaign against the property, involving the police and an insurance company. Third party investigations have found the resident's complaints to be baseless. Attempts on our part to resolve issues with this resident have not been productive.
As to specific complaints:
1 & 2. This resident came into the leasing office and insisted that she was living in a hotel and needed to move that night. We stayed after normal business hours and did everything in our power to make that happen. She was told that since it was after normal business hours, we could not offer the standard move-in process, which includes a reserved loading dock. Understanding that, she still opted for an evening move-in. We do not have a dedicated move-in elevator. Residents moving in use the same elevator as residents already living in the building. This is a normal condition in apartments.
3. The resident who lives above this resident has a young child who sometimes cries. No other residents living in this area have complained. They understand small children occasionally cry. We believe this resident complies with our community policies and within the limits of reasonable day-today apartment living.
4. All utilities at the property are separately metered. There is no mechanism through which the property could “steal” utilities or water from a resident. This is the first we have heard of this particular complaint.
5. We have offered to have our pest management company inspect and treat her unit. This is a service offered to all of our residents. However, she refuses to allow the pest management company access to her unit. Most recently, *** requested pest service on Thursday, October 25. On the day of the scheduled service she cancelled the service.
6. This resident moved in during spring 2018 and has not occupied the unit during winter months. We have on-site maintenance staff available to address any problems with doors. However, she refuses to allow our maintenance staff access to her apartment.
7. Again, we have offered to have our pest management company treat her apartment, but she has refused.
8. We offer Valet Trash service Sunday through Thursday and have trash shoots available during weekend hours.
9. We reserve the right to fine residents who violate our trash policy by not properly bagging trash or leaving it in hallways or other rooms on the property. We do this for the health and safety of all of our residents. The trash *** mentions in her statement was not left in a "garbage area". It was left in the parking garage of the building.
10. We do not believe this is an accurate description. The then prospect attempted to take an access FOB that would have enabled access to all on-site buildings before signing her lease. The leasing agent simply stated that only official residents can have a FOB allowing access to our secure buildings; he maintained possession of the FOB and unit keys prior to signing the lease. When the lease was signed, and all necessary move-in procedures completed, the now current resident's access FOB was provided to her. There was no assault or “almost” assault.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance to settle this matter. Thank you.
Best, Todd
Todd Z, CPM®
General Manager
Spectrum Town Center
230 Spectrum Avenue
Gaithersburg, MD 20879

Dear Revdex.com:
We are in receipt of your letter dated November 7, 2018 concerning the ongoing issue with this resident. To save time, I will not take you through the high quality of the community, in that this apparently has already been provided in prior correspondence relating to this matter.
While I do not typically become personally involved in individual resident matters, given that this resident has moved into the realm of commercial slander, I feel obliged to respond to attempt to mitigate further damages to our project’s reputation.
To date, this resident has, by her own acknowledgement, called the management office “more than 100 times” issuing a stream of continuous complaints relating to:
• Invasion of privacy by her neighbors (they asked the name of her dog),
• Too much diversity (too many black people live here),
• Thieves coming into her apartment stealing a sweater when she moved into the apartment (the project has a remotely controlled FOB system that permanently tracks every entry and exit of every apartment, and there were no outside entrants – she does not trust the system);
• That complex-wide regulations relating to trash should not apply to her (To prevent vermin, all trash is required to be placed in plastic bags and put within the Landlord provided trash containers outside the door in the air-conditioned hallway, which is then picked up 5 days a week by *** – one of the larges valet trash services in the Washington Metro area);
• That she has ‘live bugs’ coming out of her trash bags (there should be no bugs coming out of her trash bag – which is emptied 5 times a week. In addition, the Valet Trash service is required to report any vermin spotted relating to the trash – which since it is so frequently removed has not been an issues with other residents trash –apparently only this resident);
• That there is a ‘quota” that the Landlord looks for evictions (a Landlord typically loses more than $4,000 on a rental ‘turn’, and there is no quota);
• That adjoining residents are threatening and violent (when she reported this to our agents, they immediately took the complaint seriously and recommended she call the police. We understand from third party sources she did in fact call the police on multiple occasions with the Police investigating and finding no foundation for the complaint);
• There is a “demolition sound coming into her apartment” since she moved in that is not normal
(This is a completed, luxury apartment -- there is no demolition or construction in the apartment complex itself or the area within earshot);
• The “insurance company” needs to pay for vandalism to her car (the parking spaces are in an entry controlled, fully enclosed underground garage with FOB access limited to the Residents of the complex. The outside insurance company did in fact review her claim, and found a lack of evidence of vandalism having occurred when she was a resident, and denied coverage);
• That the resident in the unit above creates too much noise, even when he walks in the hallways, reportedly triggering her dog to bark and keep her awake (we have asked other residents surrounding this resident, have monitored the upper floor resident after hours, and have determined that the noise of walking across the floor and moving chairs are well within the bounds of acceptable noise within luxury apartment buildings); and
• That in using the computer in the business center two days ago, she had sent and deleted an email, yet when she came back down the following day to use the computer again, the email came back onto the screen – and yesterday accused the Landlord of having gone onto the computer, brought back her email, and left it up on the screen for others to see in breach of her privacy rights.
2
• Despite this resident’s representations that ‘her rent was always paid on time’, the resident was in fact put in the evictions process for lack of rent payment this past month, resolved only when a family member came forward and paid the past due rent and charges.
Speaking for the management of the complex, we have tried to work with this resident and her ongoing issues in the past 7 months. Since she is clearly not satisfied with the complex, we have offered on multiple occasions to let her leave the complex with no penalty – an offer she has repeatedly refused. She has instead sought to move to the top floor – an offer we would respectfully decline.
As the Revdex.com, we appreciate your offer to allow us to respond to this resident’s correspondence. Based on the course of conduct over the past 7 months, we expect this second email could likely be followed by a series of other emails. We have already spent a very great deal of time working with this resident to address her unique issues, and have now twice responded to the Revdex.com in a prompt and factual manner – specifically leaving out the resident’s name in respect to her confidentiality.
We would invite you to contact the Montgomery County Police and fact check the noise complaints, and the Montgomery County Circuit Court regarding the eviction record, and make you own independent determination as to the matters alleged, with the hope and expectation that this issue will not be brought forward yet again.
Respectfully Submitted.