Residences at Congressional Village — Attraction in Rockville

If you’re looking at moving here, beware. The property is fine and they do make upgrades, but the sole reason we are leaving is due to the management team. The management team at this complex is combative, unresponsive, and incredibly unhelpful. To make matters worse, they don’t train their leasing staff to answer simple questions without first consulting them.

My husband and I lived at Residences at Congressional Village for 3.5 years. In that time, we saw an unreal amount of turnover in the leasing office. I have family members in the business of apartment complex management and have always known that our complex was not managed very well, but we never had a big enough issue to go through the headache of moving- until recently. I’ve outlined below just a few examples of the many issues we encountered in our 3.5 years.

• Lease renewal paperwork has never been on time. Per our lease, we are to provide 60 days written notice if we wish to vacate our apartment at the end of our lease. Also per our lease, we are to receive our lease renewal paperwork at least 5 days in advance. We have never received this paperwork in time. Most recently, we received our paperwork on 12/27 for a lease that ends on 2/1, meaning our 60 day notice would need to be submitted by 12/3 and the paperwork should have been delivered by 11/30. How can you make a decision 60 days in advance when you have no idea what you’ll be paying and what your options are?

• We almost missed out on the apartment we wanted to move to within the complex because the leasing agent did not do their job. After living here for about 2 years we decided to move to a slightly larger apartment within the same complex. We had spoken with a leasing agent in the office and toured a few apartments until we decided which we preferred. We were never notified when the apartment that we wanted became available, despite being assured that we would be, and the apartment was leased by someone else. Luckily, another apartment became available in the timeframe that we needed, but we should not have had to micromanage the process (especially when we were willing to pay them MORE $$ every month).

• We were notified via voicemail of issues with the automatic payment system a month after that rent was due. Though the late fee for the previous month was waived, as it was not our fault the payment system was not working, we then had five days to figure out the current month’s rent. We asked for a conversation with the Assistant Community Manager and did not wish to move forward with making the payment until we fully understood the problem and were assured that we weren’t going to end up double paying. We emailed, left voicemails, and visited the office across the next few days, but the she was too busy to meet with us. We did not receive a response until after the second month’s rent was “late” and then charged a late fee anyway.

• The management team is unresponsive, unapproachable, unavailable, and largely unhelpful. To pull from a few examples above, the management team has been incredibly hard to get ahold of, that is, in person (because they’re “too busy”), over the phone (again, “too busy” and oftentimes NO ONE answers the phone anyway), and over email. We have spent over a week on more than one occasion trying to get in touch and even trying to get validation over email that they did receive our emails. As if it isn’t already evident, this is a completely unacceptable way to run a business.

This was all fine for us for the majority of the 3.5 years when we did not need assistance or have urgent questions, but rest assured that you will eventually need their help in some capacity should you choose to live here, and you will be completely unsatisfied with their lack of customer service and...

This place deserves less then 1 star.

Its sad because the building looks great and it’s in a great location- unfortunately they just have rude people with no customer service skills working there.

Here’s my expiriance: My husband and I had been apartment hunting for a while. He went to look at a few apartment complexs but we thought, that this one was pretty convenient for us. My husband spoke to Paris in the leasing Office and aperently the building had some type of promotion which she said she’d hold until I (wife) came to look at the place. Well we were wrong, when we got there the deal was off the table and she denied ever saying they will honor the deal ( which they did say that they would) the “office manager” came out with the Nastiest attitude to let us know that there’s nothing they can do. Still my husband is not a person to stand down and pushed for what was said from the begging. We provided proof of income, a hold on the apartment and the application fees. Everything they asked for. Only to receive the wonderful news that we where not approved.. (shocker I could only imagine what happen there) we both have great credit and more then enough income to live there by the way. But as they said “the system” didn’t approve us. I tried many times to call their main cooperate office to demand an explanation and speak to someone higher then the leasing Office, but mysteriously the phone number would just route me to the same apartment building. How funny... Also just to add on they said they would Not deposit our 100$ to hold the apartment since we weren’t approved, but they did and now 3 months later I still haven’t received the reimbursement back. I have been calling and seems to always fly over their heads, always in meetings- wrote many emails and nothing.... Still trying to get it back.

After all this mess we figured we saved ourself a headache, we had not seen all the bad reviews for this building but now I’m glad we found a better place with friendly staff at pike and rose(more expensive then this building but we where approved with flying colors go figure) - much better location too. The only thing they did was cause a headache.

Please save your precious hard working time in addressing this review as I would not be happy to contact your office again for further explanation; nor will you be of any help at all.

I really do hope that the real cooperate office weighs in on this and address all the temps that work there, I feel like they may be racisit. Whatever it is they should learn customer service skills...

I have lived here for over six years and am currently writing this review at 7am on a Saturday morning after being woken up by a defective fire alarm (this is the second time). This apartment complex has just gone downhill over the years. Here is my review. Pros- Location: Everything is within walking distance, the school system is great. Staff: Most of the management staff are nice and helpful. Pets are allowed although the owners don't pick up after them most of the time (just tour the back alley and it will be evident). More amenities than other apartments including a decent pool, library, remodeled courtyard, and a nice gym. Cons- Tenants: Loud and inconsiderate. For example, the first tenant that lived below us would smoke constantly so it would be impossible to open any windows or the balcony door. The second and current tenant living below us frequently listens to bass heavy music that we can feel through the ground. Other examples include people throwing glass into the pool and messing around on the roof of the building. Price: Prices are raised every year which is normal but not justified with how frequently amenities are closed (Covid-19). They are even charging for parking per car now which is just absurd. Noise: Besides the tenants and random fire alarms, you can be woken up by the nearby fire station as well as construction if you live facing the outside (goes to show how thin the walls are). Apartment itself: General issues include inconsistent water pressure, slow response times by the repair team (for both large issues such as air conditioning and heating as well as small problems such as lightbulb changes), leakage in air conditioning unit, and inconsistent internet connection (probably Verizon though but I'm not totally sure). Packages/mail: Never had a problem with mail but getting a package is a hassle. I've lost a package before because of their system and sometimes I have to go through extensive searching with the package room worker to find a simple Amazon package. Locked bike stolen straight from garage, no help from staff.

This list of cons is not limited and there are likely more but this is all I can think of after being woken up. It is disgusting that such a poor apartment complex exists is such a rich and prime area. Would not recommend these apartments even if you plan on staying for a short time and definitely not at all if you plan on raising a family in this environment. We have not gotten the chance to move out due to our lease and Covid-19 but we will as soon as we...