I've been living at the Marylander for almost a year and will not be renewing my lease.
Pros
1. The building is close to the JHU campus, so as a student it's really easy for me to walk to class.
2. The windows are new and nice, and air conditioning units are provided.
3. Apartment itself is pretty good, but nothing to write home about. I like the wall-to-wall carpeting, but since it's white it gets dirty easily.
4. None of our appliances (oven or fridge) have broken, which is good.
Cons
1. NOISY. I have never lived in somewhere so noisy and I've lived in student dormitories for two years before this. You can hear EVERYTHING your neighbors above, below and on both sides of you are doing. Not just thuds, but full conversations with an awkward amount of detail. The person above me has parties every single night, and the bass never stops pounding until about 4am, despite our repeated pleas to get him to quiet down. Our neighbors next door are very noisy as well - to one side there are a bunch or girls who have lots of parties, and to the other is a guy who yells constantly and keeps his TV volume on high all the time, even when he's not home. Unfortunately he's an employee of the building, so management won't say anything. In addition there are sirens from the hospital next door and car alarms from the hospital garage directly across from our window going off all the time - approximately every 30-45 minutes, day and night.
2. Smelly and roach-infested. The hallways always stink because all the smells from the apartments do not vent to the outside - they go straight into the hallways. We've also seen lots of roaches.
3. Maintenance is practically non-existent. When you have a problem, expect to fix it yourself or wait about a week before they get to it. Earlier in the year my shower was clogged for about a week before anyone did anything about it, despite my calling every day and being promised every day that they were coming that day. I couldn't shower because my tub was filled with water - I had to go to a friend's place. One of my friends also had her toilet break and couldn't get anyone to fix it for over a week - she literally had no place to go to the bathroom, so she had to go on-campus.
4. The leasing office is completely disorganized. At one point they lost our rent check, then served us court papers several weeks later for not paying our rent. When we went to straighten it out, the check magically reappeared, and we didn't get so much as an apology.
5. Don't expect to receive any packages. The girl who runs the package room/front desk is extremely rude and is never there - she goes over to the leasing office to hang out and chat and acts like you're a criminal if you ask her to walk over to the front desk and do her job (which is to give you your packages). She never puts package slips on doors like she's supposed to, and sometimes will refuse to check if you have a package unless you provide one despite the fact that I've probably only received slips for about 15% of the packages I've had shipped to me. I've also had packages lost and given to me over 5 weeks after they were received - and I know they were signed for because they write the date of receipt in sharpie on the box along with your apartment number. One such package included a bunch of expensive textbooks which I had since bought again since they were "lost in the mail". When they turned up 5 weeks later in the bowels of the package room, I was out several hundred dollars and had an unnecessary second set of books. I also had refrigerated medication shipped to me, and despite the fact it said PERISHABLE MEDICATION and OPEN IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT all over the package, I was not contacted by phone or slip when it arrived, was in fact told it had not arrived when I asked. I received it several days after it arrived and sat in the package room. I was told explicitly by the leasing office that the package room girl wasn't doing her job because she was training for another job in the building, and that I should just "keep asking" if I think I might have a package. Which is difficult to do if the girl isn't at her desk and won't help you when she is there.
6. The building is not safe. The basement door is left unlocked all day, and the front door is usually unlocked because the lock is always broken. Even if it is locked, people freely tailgate in and out of the building. No one ever signs in because there's usually no one at the front desk, and if there is, they would rather not bother with guests.
7. Things break very soon after you move in. The doorknobs barely work in my apartment, and one simply broke off in my hands after a few weeks of use. The closet doors stick and come off their tracks no matter how many times they're repaired. Most doors don't shut because they've been painted so many times that the door doesn't fit in the doorframe.
8. Hot water is iffy at best, especially in the winter. You're also expected to heat your unit with the "heat" function on the AC units, so in the winter your electric bill is ridiculous (often over $300).
Overall, I have been very unhappy with my experience. They're very nice to you when they try to get you to sign the lease, but as soon as you sign prepare to be ignored, condescended to and threatened. For the price, you can do a lot better.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/09/2009
I completly agree. I moved out after 6 years and I am so much happy now (they even retained my entire security deposit because I left one month before I was supposed to after having been told it was ok if I left the keys and explain everything in a note). They are lyers and they cheat you as much as they can. About the "heat unit" they should be ashamed to call it so. Not only you have to pay hundreds for it during winter time but it is not even efficient as it is so small ! And you have nothing for the bathroom. The result is a very dangerous situation as most part of the tenants I knew where using their gaz oven to heat their apartment !!!!
From: dindygirl	Date: 03/10/2009
They used to have really nice steam heat in the mid 90s - included in rent. Funky old radiators. Also, there was always someone at that front desk he always had our packages. That place has really gone down hill fast!
From: thesuperintendant	Date: 04/11/2009
I worked there for 13 years and it was a grand old building. What has happened?

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