The Crescent continues to receive Poor Reviews

The Crescent at Fells Point apartments continues to receive horrible reviews from it’s tenants at ApartmentRating.com. Previous reviews have said things like:

Overpriced Ripoff - The folks who manage this place you be in jail for false advertising

The latest review is even more scathing:

I would strongly caution anyone who is looking into renting here-I am actually surprised that no reviews have been left in a few months. We were happy at first-until the Leasing Office staff began to show their true colors.But first of all, this complex is grossly overpriced,they do NOT provide services mentioned on the website yet our rent never changed(no bikes,no trainer,few events and the ones they do host typically suck),the hallways are hot and stink of cigarette/cigar smoke [Ed: and dog urine],the hardwood floors are cheap,they did a shoddy job on the paint,the pool is TINY and usually taken up by one of the Leasing Staff's friends (that probably do not even live here),and there is dog poop EVERYWHERE.You are pretty much paying to be on the water-so if this is important to you I suggest checking the Eden or Harbor East.As for the staff-with the exception of Andre and the Maintence guys (Dan and Kevin),I have never met more unprofessional people-one of the leasing girls shows up drunk all over town and has no sense of customer service what-so-ever.She makes this company look so bad.At this point in the ballgame, you can probably BUY in Baltimore for about the same you will pay in rent...

Ouch! I am suspect of anonymous reviews that say things like “a little piece of Heaven!”. Were these posted by the staff?

You can read all of the reviews (good and bad) and decide for yourself on the Apartment Rating website.

A Perfect Place to Live (if you like being treated like a 5 year old)

This weekend I attended a private party in the clubhouse room in The Crescent (over where the pool tables and big screen TV is). I was slouched down in one of the over stuffed couches with my feet on the table conversing with a friend and enjoying a glass of wine.

It wasn't long before an employee of the Crescent came over and said "This isn't your home, would you please remove your feet from the table". Other party goers who witnessed this could not believe what they had just heard.

I'm sorry, but I don't care if this is my home or not. Residents of The Crescent pay WAY to much money to live here (in some cases 50% more than comparable apartment complexes in the Baltimore area) and they don't like to be treated like children. I will put my feet up on the coffee table if I want to.

Bush the great orator

For what it's worth...

This morning while at work, I was half listening to president Bush's live press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert when something caught my attention. I grabbed for the DVR remote and rewound.

He was asked a question by and Israeli reporter about the Israeli people's concern about Bush not taking action again Iran. He started to make his point with a series of bullet points. His responses (along with a timeline) goes like this:

11:50:14 Bush: "Let me remind you what the NIE actually said..."

11:50:54 Bush: "Secondly. There are 3 aspects to a weapons program..."

11:51:15 Bush: "Secondly. The knowledge of how to convert materials..."

11:51:29 Bush: "Third. They have missiles..."

11:51:42 Bush: "Secondly. I have always told the American people..."

That's right. Bush had five bullet points to make. Three of them started with "Secondly".

Got a Complaint?

I found this article on MSNBC.com titled "Got a Complaint? You can air it and get results" that talks about ways to manage complaining when you are wronged by airline flight delays, dry cleaning mishaps, etc.

Of course in our case it is The Crescent at Fells Point apartment complex sold us a bill of goods about amenities like an on-site social director, mountain bikes, etc. Not to mention that we have grossly inadequate security and we lack a full time concierge like any half respecting apartment complex has. Check out The Eden or Spinnaker Bay apartments for example. They rent for about 2/3 the cost of The Crescent, yet the concierge services make this place look like the YMCA.

Why don't we have a concierge or on-site social director? The answer is simple economics. Look at the number of open parking spaces in the garage and you can see that this place is so under leased that it isn't even funny. Management simply wont make that kind of expenditure when this place is so unoccupied.

But I digress..

Still you may be able to use the 10 tips in the MSNBC article to deal with issues that bother you. In my dealing with The Crescent, I've tried many of these, including (very recently) filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

But, if you have a specific complaint with The Crescent, you should start by writing a letter. Address your concerns to:

The Crescent at Fells Point
Rebecca Paxon, Property Manager
951 Fells St
Baltimore, MD 21231

You can also email Rebecca at her direct email address prop85304ap@earthlink.net or crescentfellspoint@metricproperties.com.

Do NOT think that simply verbally mentioning the problem to the office will get it corrected. If I've learned anything about my dealings here at The Crescent, it is to document everything in writing (of course even then management here has disputed the facts).

Of course if all else fails, there is always small claims court or even a class action lawsuit. Good luck!

Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

Last night at about 4am, as my girlfriend and I were sleeping, she was awoke by a noise and then she heard our dog whimpering. She walked out the the living room to see if maybe the dog was hurt. That's when she saw a man standing in the entryway bent down petting the dog. She immediately ran back to the bedroom to get me.

I woke from a dead sleep to hear her say "there's a man in our house". I ran to the living room and cautiously peered around the corner, fists drawn. I saw a shirtless man standing there in what appeared to be boxers, babbling "is this 495". My assumption was that he was asking if this was apartment 495 (we live in 485).

I wasn't sure if he was drunk or sleepwalking or what, but at this point I didn't really care. There was an intruder in the house and I wanted him out. I pushed him towards the door with one hand as I kept my right hand fisted and cocked, ready to strike if I was given any resistance. Luckily I was able to get him to the door and open it without too much trouble. I gave him one last shove into the hallway and quickly closed and locked the door. Apparently, I had forgotten to lock the door last night before bed... never again!

My girlfriend and I returned to the bedroom, now completely awake, hearts racing and reflected on how lucky we were all to be alive and well. After about 10 minutes, we realized that we should probably contact security here in the apartment complex, so we called the apartment's main number.

A voice answered and we asked how we could contact the security guard on duty at the front desk. We were told that they we an answering service and that they could only get us in contact with 24 hour maintenance. Then she said that she could also contact Nicole (the apartment complex's assistant manager). We told the woman on the phone the whole story, gave her our contact information (i.e. name, apartment number and a telephone number) and she said that she would contact Nicole.

We both were under the assumption that Nicole would contacts us and/or the front desk security to have them patrol the 4th floor looking for this man. We didn't receive any phone calls from The Crescent.

The next day, we stopped in the office to ask WTF? The woman on duty (name withheld because she had nothing to do with the incompetence of the night before, and we like her) said something about there being a message from Nicole asking them (the people on staff today) to look into what happened the night before.

That was Nicole's response?!? A half naked man was forcibly removed from our apartment in the middle of the night and Nicole was content to let that wait until morning? Even if she didn't have all the facts, why not call to see if we were OK? And if she didn't have our phone number for some reason, why not call one of the staff that lives on-site and ask them to go to the office to get it. I'm amazed at the incompetence. Now maybe she did something "behind the scenes" that I'm unaware of. If so, Nicole, please let us know or reply to this post so that others can see that you did something useful in response to this situation.

We've written many times in the past about various security issues here at The Crescent, but this one takes the cake. If you are considering leasing an apartment here at The Crescent and are concerned about security, I suggest that you read the posts on this blog carefully before signing your lease, then draw your own conclusion.

(Notes: apartment numbers have been fictionalized and last names not used to protect the innocent and/or guilty)

Alyssa's Marathon Supporters

Crescent residents Lance, James and Bizbee came out to cheer on Alyssa Carlberg as she ran in her very first marathon. She finished the race in aprox 5 hours and 40 minutes and was one of 4000 marathoners who ran the grueling 26.2 mile race. Great job Alyssa!

The 2007 Baltimore Marathon was held on Saturday October 13 (yesterday) and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Today she dined on scrambled eggs, bacon, Dunkin Dounuts, mimosas and whatever else she pleases.

China, Myanmar (Burma) and now The Crescent

The government of Myanmar has shut down the Internet. Communist China restricts what web sites it's citizens can visit. Now the management at The Crescent is censoring what YOU can read online.

If you go to one of the computers in the Business Center to try and read this blog, you will find yourself re-routed to http://www.crescentfellspoint.com/, the company's web site.

Technically what they have done is this (skip this paragraph if you don't know or care what TCP/IP stands for). They have placed two entries on the "hosts" file that re-route the domain name lookups for www.CrescentFellsPoint.net and blog.CrescentFellsPoint.net to the IP address 208.112.58.87 (the server hosting The Crescent's web site).

When you type in the address of this blog, you are hijacked and sent to their web site instead. They aren't restricting any other web site, just the one that presses them on the things that they don't want to hear.

I'm not a lawyer, but there may be a free speech lawsuit there somewhere.