I spent a year at Gables Rothbury, and while the apartments are nice, there are so many negatives...

1) Management: Losing the original property manager, Cameron, was the worst thing that could have happened to this place. They promoted the Assistant Manager - can't remember her name - who is a snotty little thing. Everytime I've dealt with her, she puts on this obviously fake, syrupy sweet tone of voice, but one day when I left, I went into the clubhouse instead of out the door and heard her and the leasing consultant, Alason, speaking about my complaint as if it was below them to even think about addressing the fact that one of their maintenance workers HAD LEFT MY DOOR UNLOCKED ALL DAY after coming in for maintenance work. An exact quote: "What does she expect us to do about it' Go back and check every single door after maintenance leaves'" The only one in the office that I've gotten along with was Kim. She comes off as a little snotty at first, but as I found out, she's naturally soft-spoken, but genuinely seems to care - however her coworkers seem to be thwarting her efforts to keep the place running smoothly. Note to Gables, if you read this - give that girl a promotion!

2) Parking: Garages cost $150 per month. Are you kidding me' My husband drives a Mustang (i.e., NOT a huge car), and the garage was so narrow that he nearly scraped his mirrors off several times, and you can only open the car doors halfway to squeeze out. We gave up the garage and went back to the normal parking. If you come in after 8pm, forget it, you're parking on the other side of the community. Whoever made the lot so narrow that cars can't get past each other easily wasn't so bright either.

3) Neighbors: We had trailer-trash with a pitbull in one apartment, and potheads in three other apartments - and this was just in ONE building! Many of the folks I met in other buildings had similar issues with their neighbors. You want to know how many low-income residents are living here' Go here: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/DHCA/pdm_online/pdmf ; Type 'Rothbury' in the top field. Yes, it says the property name is 'Gables at Rothbury Square' but the addresses all match up! You can quite easily see which buildings and units are designated for low-income - _42_ of them! AND, these people are paying less than $1000 per month for units the rest of us are paying $1300 and up for. This is in addition to constant foot traffic through the property from the townhouses that surround the community on three sides because they're too lazy to walk around.

4) Controlled Access: Again, you've got to be kidding. For at least three out of the twelve months I was at Rothbury, the door to our building wouldn't close properly, so it was always cracked open for people to walk in. The potheads downstairs always had 'friends' over, who would follow you in late at night and become abusive/violent if you tried to keep them from doing so. Many nights if I saw them out there, I would automatically go out of my way and walk to the OTHER side of the building and use that entrance.

5) Rodents/Roaches/Pests: Never had roaches or mice in my apartment, but did see a few roaches in my friend's apartment in building 6. Management claimed the previous resident had a pet and was not clean, and that's why they couldn't get rid of them. (Right. Good looking out, folks!) The problem in my apartment was ladybugs. Okay, not creepy bugs, but when you have 30 of them in your apartment at a time, that's a problem. The only reason I didn't raise holy h*ll with the maintenance staff was that I spoke with the exterminator personally and he said that for about two weeks a year, they'll be a problem because they're trying to get inside before winter kills them. Sure enough, two weeks later, they were gone. BUT, I never did figure out how they got inside in the first place!

6) Noise: Being on the 3rd floor, it wasn't too bad. The buses going by at all hours was annoying at first, but became background noise after about a week. When the heathen kids moved in downstairs and were allowed to hang out on their porch until 11pm or later, that annoyed me. I moved out soon after that though.

7) Amenities: The fitness center is nice and has 24 hour access. I took advantage of that fairly often. The pool is ridiculously small and only goes to 4 feet. If you have kids, DO NOT count on the lifeguards! They are all exchange students and don't speak more than a few words of english, and pay little to no attention to whoever is in the pool. One of the kids almost drowned last summer and the kid's parent jumped in fully clothed to rescue her child - the lifeguard was like 'oh, the kid's okay' and didn't even get up from her chair! (Oh, by the way, turns out the kid was the Maintenance Supervisor's son - so you can imagine how kids who _don't_ belong to a member of the staff would be treated!)

7) Moving Out: Dropped my keys off in the drop box after hours, called to confirm the next morning and was told they didn't receive the keys and I'd be charged additional rent until they got them, at something like $40 per day. Took them four days to figure out the leasing consultant had had them all along and never told anyone. Was charged $200 for 'cleaning' although no one could ever tell me what had to be cleaned. There shouldn't have been anything since I spent an entire day after I moved my things bleaching the bathroom and kitchen and steam cleaning the carpet. I even touched up the paint myself, only to lose my deposit anyway.

8) The Apartment: The only GOOD thing this place has going for them. The one bedroom apartments are nice-sized, my bathroom and kitchen were huge, and well-equipped. All new appliances, including a microwave, an oval soaking tub in the bathroom, full size washer and dryer, well insulated windows, nice lighting.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/10/2007
Fully agree with everything written here and the Assistant Managers name is Kimberly. She is useless and needs to be fired!
From: badgables	Date: 05/27/2008
Tenants are now doing something about it. Please email me with your name, phone number and building/apt # so that we may notify you of our town hall meeting. badgables@yahoo.com
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/25/2008
yeah I have to agree that Kimberly is completely snotty and bitchy, really needs to be fired, I am moving out of here as soon as my lease is up because she pissed me off really bad. I have already emailed all the people on the corporate email list off of their website, but have yet to receive a response. I guess this is how Gables run things, get your money, forget about you. I am looking to move into a Bozzuto managed neighborhood, I have only heard good things about Bozzuto.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates