Merrill House Apartments — Local services in Falls Church

This place has so much potential. Unfortunately it isn't living up to it. Since it was bought by the new company empathy has taken a complete downswing, they are extremely disorganized, and very retaliatory if you ever bring up any problems. Don't let the 'upgrades' fool you.

It's in a great location and the price seems like it's a no brainer! However...

The building is swarming with roaches (Seriously you can't hardly go in any hallway or stairwell without seeing a few), water issues are abundant (emergency water shut offs are constant), lots of water damage in the walls and main areas including walls covered in mold and constant drippage from a mysterious something in main entryways which is really pleasant to get dripped on by a mysterious substance while you're just trying to enter your building. There are mice in lower floors. The AC and heat go out pretty much all the time and do a half assed job. OH! And do you like hot showers??? Because rest assured you will spend the vast majority of your winters without them - I've been here for a few winters now and every single time there are weeks where it gets barely above lukewarm and they say they are 'working on it'. They keep doing 'pest control'- or at least I see the truck here but truly they aren't treating the whole building from top to bottom so there are always going to be some until they shell out the money to actually do it properly.

To top it off management will send out mass emails about things usually long after they've already happened like it's brand new. But for the most part when management 'notifies' people of problems (like hot water or things that are broken in common spaces) everyone has been aware of it for quite awhile. They are not timely in dealing with things in the slightest. It's like getting snail mail about breaking news.

Some stuff can be forgiven because it's an old building I guess. But also be careful because they will blame old building issues on you as if you are the reason the floor above you had a leak inside their bathroom walls no one could have possibly seen that then came into your bathroom. That's your fault now.

So it could be good. It's definitely livable if you can lower your standards. But if you have a sensitive respiratory system don't move in here because it's just water damage all the way down with this building it's very old and needs a lot of repairs and maintenance. Having moved out a couple months ago my cough that's been bothering me for several years since moving in finally got better which is kind of horrifying.

The only good thing about this place and I've seen it mentioned in a few reviews - the maintenance guys are really lovely. Actually pretty much the only 5 star reviews are about the maintenance guy. They are the only people on this team who seem to actually care about residents and do a great job with what they have to work with. You will have a new property manager all the time and they are all as unhelpful and unkind as the last. They barely answer emails, never answer the phone, and good luck finding them in the office because they aren't there and if they are they are certain to make sure you know how annoying they find you for asking them to do their job. And don't ask too many or they'll just randomly inspect your apartment for 0 reason and they won't give you a reason when you ask. They are also extremely disorganized and lose things a lot which is not great because then it's your fault as well even if it's very clearly theirs because you never received the item they are saying you should have. So yeah. Take it with a grain of salt and also a lawyer - you'll need it.

Edited to add: they will also just close maintenance requests without even addressing them. So that's also cute. And make sure you have a security camera because they will say they are doing a home inspection and just not show up but...

I have lived at Merrill Houses for 18 months and I have not had a pleasant experience while living there. It started when the apartment they had showed me was not the apartment that they had me move into. The management showed me a really nice apartment with carpet and a decent kitchen space and I came back a few weeks later to ask if I could see the exact apartment that I would be moving into but - the person who showed me the other apartment was not there a different person was there - and the new person told me that they haven’t cleaned it and will just see when I get the key on my move in day. So then I finally get my key and start to move my things in but the apartment I was moving into looked nothing like the one they had shown me. This apartment has wooden floors that were too old and has been polished way too many times that the polish was just peeling, the kitchen has cabinets that are painted white, metal and very sticky but the worst of all, there were cockroaches in the kitchen and a few on the ceiling. The worst thing about all this is the management keeps on telling me that they did have the apartment cleaned and if it hadn’t been why you I sign the contract. Well, of course I had to sign the contract. What was I supposed to do I had nowhere else to go. That apartment was filthy when I moved in. This apartment building and its management was really the worst I have ever seen, the management does its best to put all and any blame about the apartment on you. I have had packages lost because when I ask the office to hold it until I am able to get because if it's left in front of my door, there are no cameras someone's gonna take them and I’ve had that happen before, they refuse. The best thing this management has said to me was when I told them about the cockroach problem, I have seen them everywhere in my apartment, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, even on my bed and I have had it. I told them that they needed to deal with this cockroach problem because if I’m having this problem most everybody in this building is but they simply said that and I’m paraphrasing, “the cockroaches go up, in the building, in the winter and come back down during the summer.” It was like telling me that they don’t really care if I have cockroaches in my apartment or not. Another unexpected experience I had in this apartment was the storage units. I rented out a storage unit they had, filled out the paperwork for it and pay for it every month but one day when I went to get something from it, they had put up an additional lock on my storage unit. They explained it as people were using the storage unit without telling them but I told them, I paid for it every month with my lease and I gave them the paperwork to fill it out when I first started renting it. The management told me that they sent out a paper to fill out if you had a storage but I didn’t see the paper and when I asked for another one they didn’t give me one. Also, they said that earlier in the week, a few days before I went to get something from my storage, they were going to have a company come and take all the stuff in the storages out and throw them away. That’s outrageous!! I have been paying for that storage room every month and they were gonna throw my stuff away?! I am very glad to be moved out of Merrill House. The moving out and giving back the keys was not a agreeable exchange, when I went back to hand over the key they were nowhere to be found, the office had moved but they had called me that morning and I gave them the time I would be there to give the key but I had to go back twice to see them because they were not in their offices. I waited for them but I had other things to do. All in all, I would never go back to this apartment...

I can only speak from my own experience, but I would like to share the challenges I encountered. I applied for an apartment on December 11, 2022. From that point on, I had to continually follow up with them. Despite their promises to respond, I was met with consistent delays and a lack of communication. I was advised to send emails, but received minimal replies. I even had to call them to prompt a review of my application.

Eventually, they sent me the necessary documents to complete, which I did promptly. However, after the $200 holding fee was deducted from my account, I was ignored. Despite numerous calls, I was repeatedly told they were still reviewing my application and would provide an update the following day—an update that never materialized.

As my existing lease was expiring on December 31, I had to secure another apartment to avoid being left without housing. Fortunately, I received a swift response from a different apartment and was able to move in. During this period, Merrill House remained unresponsive and was closed for several days, preventing me from reaching them.

I finally received an email from Merrill House on January 3, 2023, indicating that they were still reviewing my application and proposing to push back the move-in date to January 7, 2023. This was unacceptable, as it left me with no place to stay or storage for my belongings. Consequently, I requested to withdraw my application, as it was too late for me to wait for their delayed response. I also asked for a refund of the $200 holding fee.

Initially, I received no response regarding the refund until I made another call. I was then informed that the refund would not be issued because I had not withdrawn my application within 48 hours of submission. This implies that their lack of timely review and communication was somehow my responsibility.

Given this experience, I am not inclined to lease from Merrill House in the future. I urge others to be cautious.

Edit: Your response is honestly unbearable. You say you kept the unit off the market for me, but you also completely cut off communication when I needed it most. You’re contradicting yourself by claiming my application was approved on December 14, yet emailing me weeks later saying you were still reviewing it and suggesting a delayed move-in date. So what exactly were you reviewing? And why did your process take so long when other apartments responded and finalized everything promptly?

Blaming “unforeseen delays” doesn’t excuse anything. Those delays were on your end. My landlord couldn’t extend my stay while I waited for you to sort things out. And how do you expect me to withdraw earlier if you didn’t even respond to my calls?

You mentioned that my review will help improve your process and communication. Does it really? Because I’m seeing the same kind of issues in recent reviews.

Don’t just type “we apologize” which means nothing if you’re not willing to take real responsibility to refund when the issue was clearly poor communication...