My girlfriend and I just moved out of Blair East after living there for a year.

Some of the staff were just awesome at their jobs and incredibly friendly, but they were in the minority as most were, at best, sullen.

Parking was a pain in the butt. There is a small free parking lot that is constantly full. You can park in the Giant parking lot from 7pm to 9am but outside of those hours the management says they will tow your car. Unfortunately the free lot is taken up by folks that metro to work every day and only have cars for the weekends, etc. So most of the same cars are in the same spots day after day. There is a free garage on the opposite side of the lot, but it's pretty inconvenient to park there every day.

The apartment itself was decent enough. You can't hear your neighbors except in the hallway, quite clearly too. Underneath the drywall is solid cement or something, trying to drill holes for pictures proved unsuccessful (and I drilled in a lot of different places). The appliances were new, with the exception of the dishwasher however it still worked well.

The laundry facilities are average, there are two washers and two dryers per floor with 30ish apartments on each floor. Most people were good about not letting their laundry just sit there, but there were still a few that weren't.

A big pet peeve of mine about this place was the shopping carts. There is a Giant next door and people would bring the carts in to their apartment to unload their groceries. Not a big deal, I did it a few times myself. However they will then just leave the carts in the hallway when they are done, I assume thinking maintenance will take care of them. Lazy beyond belief.

Maintenance was generally ok, but they hired contractors for some jobs that were completely incompetent. The Blairs had all the door handles replaced on a few floors and when the contract was installing the new handle they split the door down the middle and jammed the bolt on the door handle. I had to put in a work order for this which I am blown away by, how can someone think that isn't a problem' After putting in the work order the bolt was unstuck within a day or two, but it took a month to get a new door. In the meantime anyone with a little motivation could have forced the door open rather easily.

Location wise Blair East is in a prime spot if you use the metro everyday. The Silver Spring stop is just across the street. If you have to drive however, be damned careful in downtown as I've seen some of the stupidest drivers I've ever witnessed on the stretch of 29 between East West and Spring Street.

When turning our keys into the front desk the concierge told us were were getting out just in time as they had the beginnings of a mouse problem. Two weeks before leaving we did see a mouse in our kitchen but being a bit more careful with cleaning we never saw it again. So take this paragraph with a grain of salt.

Overall Blair East isn't really worth the money. I'd recommend looking at other complexes or renting a condo.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/20/2008
Yep. I've lived in Blairs for over 3 years now, and a mouse problem has definitely begun! We've caught 3 in our apt in the last 4 months....and just this past weekend, a brown fat one ran across MY FEET in the bathroom!!!!! I'M A FEMALE AND I WAS BARE FOOT! I about died! All maintenance can do is bring in mouse traps, VERY INHUMANE traps might I add (the sticky kind which doesn't kill just catches them and then they squeal until they eventually die, somehow...) I've called maintenance each time to take them away, which they do in a plastic bag... So, yes, a mouse problem has started and I'm glad to say I'll be moving very soon myself! When contractors come in, all they do is put the traps with poison bait in them...so far they've proven ineffective.

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