The Enclave - then and now

 Today is the 6th day of the 7th week, the 16th day of the 2nd month, the 47th day of 2024 [with only 312 shopping days until Christmas], and:

• Do a Grouch a Favor Day
• Elizabeth Peratrovich Day - member of the Tlingit nation and civil rights activist 
• Friday Fish Fry Day
• Independence Day - Lithuania from Russia in 1918
• International Syrah Day
• Kyoto Protocol Day - adopted in 1997 and became effective on this day in 2005, ratified by 191 countries and the EU [but not the US or China]
• National Almond Day
• National Buna Day
• National Caregivers Day
• National Innovation Day
• National Tartar Sauce Day
• National Woman's Heart Day
• No One Eats Alone Day 
• Tim Tam Day 
• the first quarter of the moon at 10:02 AM EST

Quote of the day:
" The home should be the treasure chest of living "

~  Le Corbusier - AKA Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture

Back in 2007, I had reached a point where I had to change my living arrangements.  

The three bedroom apartment in Woodridge Apartments, Randallstown where I had lived since  the fall of 1985 [first with Frank and Tommy, then with Frank until 2004, then alone], was deteriorating.  We had moved in there because it kept my son in the same school he was already attending, was in Baltimore County [Frank was a cop for the county], and was fairly convenient to my work.  When we moved in, it was a family-owned business and very nice - the only two drawbacks was that there was a communal [on each floor serving four apartments], quarter-gobbling laundry room and a very long walk from the parking lot and then a three story climb up the stairs.  Our large balcony looked out upon the woods, and the laundry room also had a fairly large storage locker.  I liked my home, altho after 22 years, the furniture was showing a lot of wear and tear, and the storage was very limited.

The move was precipitated by two events:  First, when my daughter was leaving one evening after visiting, she ran straight into a drug deal being done right on the steps of my building.  She no longer felt safe, and neither did I.  Second [and this is what actually galvanized me as it provided an actual deadline], the complex where my mother had lived for 35 years declined to renew her lease.  Both of us needed to relocate.  My mother agreed we should move in together, and agreed that we should move closer to where I was working.  This was a major dislocation for her as she had always lived in Rosedale/Middle River area, but she saw the justice of not asking me to commute from there to the Bethesda/DC area where my last two jobs had been.  So we went apartment shopping, looking for a three bedroom place that had three things:  in unit washer/dryer, covered parking, and a robust internet.  We settled on The Enclave.

I won't go into the ups and downs of the move - it was hands down, one of the worst days of my and my daughter's life, and that is saying a lot.  We moved into the apartment in Building B on the 19th floor in July 2007, and it was quickly apparent why she had lost her lease [she was calling the police and haranguing the management office, as I later learned, accusing her neighbors of various things].  By Thanksgiving, she was in assisted living for dementia and I was handling the rent by myself.  In 2009, the same year I started with my current employer, I downsized to my current apartment, just upstairs in the same building.  It is 1,150 sq ft with a small balcony.  

Let me go into the type of apartment my mother and I moved into.  The Berkshire Group was the owner of the complex.   The rent was $1,750 a month - and that included all utilities with two garage parking spaces.  They were in the process of renovating units, the building having been built in 1965.   There was a 24 hour concierge in the lobby of each building who not only monitored the doors, but the security cameras around the building.  There were gates on each access road to the property that were closed and locked from 10 PM - the only way to get in was past the security post and they always asked for ID before raising the barrier.  Every garage door and back door was only opened by fob.  Every quarter, the entire building was treated by pest control - and they sprayed faithfully.  Maintenance and housekeeping were knowledgeable, friendly, and very efficient.  Of course there were problems, but if you complained, you got results

The recession of 2008-2009 hit and The Enclave was driven into bankruptcy when the bank called the construction loan.  This happened to a lot of CRE [commercial real estate] owners then, as banks shrank their portfolios and got out of lines of credit.  From 2009 - 2016, the bankruptcy court managed the property.  Rents did go up, but never more than the market price.  One big change is that we were charged for utilities and garage parking separately - that added almost $200 in and of themselves.  

Then, effective 04.01.2016, The Enclave LLC purchased the property.    The first thing they did was negate all contracts.

• the contract with the DOD to house military was discontinued and Section 8 contracts signed
• replaced all the maintenance staff [the amount of turnover of this staff is staggering - the competent ones quickly get tired of resident complaints and go elsewhere] 
• replaced all the housekeeping, reducing it to a skeleton staff.  
• put out security, pest control, landscaping/snow removal, and all maintenance [elevator, plumbing, electricity, gas] to the lowest bidder 

The impact of this was not felt immediately as the buildings, although older, were in very good shape at the time this NY company took over.  Then they fired all the concierges, removed the gates, removed all the security cameras, and stopped doing maintenance on the garage doors.  In fact?  The new owners stopped doing ANY routine maintenance and concentrated on collecting rents.  Within two years, there were problems.  The reputable management company, recognizing that the owner wasn't going to make the necessary funds available for repairs, terminated their association with the property and the owners had to put in a self-owned management company to field the swelling volume of complaints.   

You can't just stop doing maintenance on any building, but it is especially problematic with older buildings!  Montgomery County had to get involved to force the new owners to do something, which they did in 2019   Today?  One entire building [not mine] is totally without gas for their stoves.  First and second floor apartments in all buildings are experiencing floods from broken pipes and sewers.   Some residents are having electrical issues in some rooms.  Some are having heat or A/C issues - my bedroom HVAC hasn't heated or cooled effectively in 3 1/2 years.  [The problem seems to be in the risers for my tier, which means all floors are equally affected, but fixing risers is an expensive proposition].   Elevators need a major overhaul - only two out of four are working in my building.  And all this as my rent has increased by 28.57% from 2007 [bearing in mind I started with a larger apartment and downsized, which makes the amount of the increase more startling].  However, I can't really complain about the amount of the rent, it is market value in the area for the size of the units.  But for the price being paid, fewer infrastructure problems should be encountered!

But our NY slum landlord owner does have a plan - they have extracted the maximum amount of profit from the complex while running it into the ground, so now they want to sell the property to a real estate investment group out of Florida.  The lawyers for that group have announced to the county their plan for the property is to tear down the existing buildings and build a new, denser apartment project.

They have forgotten that tenants are not just entries in a ledger.  They have forgotten that this is our home.

Realizing that neither our current owner nor the new owner has any motivation to fix the problems on the property, and every profit incentive not to do a thing, tenants have formed an association to lobby both the county and the state to step in.  We will be holding a rally on Saturday March 9th and hope to have a good showing.  Last year's event got both political and media attention but we need action not headlines!  

And so I have joined them - and even got invited to speak.

Meanwhile?  I need to work on downsizing and continue to look about for housing alternatives.  Lordy but I hate the idea of moving!  I like my home and love the view from the balcony.