First things first. The former Silver Hill Apartments is now known as the Station Square Apartments. It is important that you understand this, because while Silver Hill has quite a local reputation, "Station Square" does not.

That will change.

The Station Square Apartments complex is a large cul de sac, with one entrance by road. That entrance is patrolled regularly by the local gang of drug dealers (you can identify them by their colors- uniform plain white t-shirts, blue jeans and black baseball hats or "beanie"-style hoods, though some of them are now wearing solid black shirts), who hang out starting in the early afternoon at the conveniently-situated liquor store, right next to the 7/11. If you wish to enter and leave the complex, you CANNOT AVOID ENCOUNTERING THEM.

Security at Station Square does not exist. If you return home at 11 PM or later, you may find your car tailed by a teenage gang member riding a bike. His job is to function as the gang's spotter, relaying information about who comes and goes via his cellphone. The gang tends to congregate in front of 3408 Pearl Drive, but they occasionally go on "walks" throughout the complex. God help you if they decide to make an example of you.

In the several months that I have lived here, I have witnessed the youths slowly progress from feral packs of teenagers to more professionally organized, adult gangs (I would almost guess that they have a tiered system of recruitment). I have to assume that some of them are armed with automatic weapons. The gentleman sitting on my front porch last night holding an automatic handgun certainly was. I remember it was bright silver. A Ruger or Smith & Wesson, I think.

I myself was attacked by seven gang members in the middle of the street outside of the main office building on June 13th, in full view of an area supposedly monitored by TV cameras installed to maintain security for the cars. I wound up with a dislocated finger, three chipped teeth, a broken nose, and a ruptured eardrum. I was worried for several days afterward, as the trail of blood (which was not cleaned up until three days later) led directly from the spot where my nose was broken to the door to my apartment. Police response time was roughly 15 minutes, after I called them myself. They caught no one, but why would they' Honest people do not dare go out on the street after midnight.

I put in a request to have those security cameras searched for evidence as to the identity of my attackers- whom I have since overheared gloating about their attack on me (as I was standing on the front doorstep of my apartment)!- but I have received no response from the management. That was over a month ago.

The bottom line is, if you are sane, you will not live here. It is, in the most literal sense, a deathtrap.

One word of warning: you will see a bunch of very nice pictures of Station Square on the Morgan Properties website. These pictures were taken in the brief period after the 2007 renovation when Silver Hill became Station Square. They show what, under other circumstances, might have been a pretty nice place to live. They do not show the gang members sitting on the porch. When I came to Station Square in November of 2007, there was not a single gang member in sight. There are, on average, six or seven of them visible at minimum every single day now, at all hours except early mornings.

Understand that I am giving you this information because I do not wish for you to endure what I have endured. Life at Station Square has become something I never experienced before- something akin to what my great grandmother's family probably felt in the days leading up to her and her family fleeing Poland to come to America in the late 19th-to-early-20th century pogroms. In the month since the attack (and the four or five near misses since that night- two of which involved me driving my car out of the complex when it became apparent that gang members were trailing me or covering the entrance of my apartment building), I have come to associate the fall of night with dread. I have found myself having to use meditation techniques to ward off panic attacks when darkness comes. And for the first time, I have seriously considered purchasing a firearm of my own.

Is this what life is like for the people of Iraq' God help them.

I will be leaving Station Square forever in 4 days. It has taken me this long to find a better place. I would urge anyone with any sense of self-preservation to look at the crime statistics for the area to which they are planning to move. Try using Homefair's city profile report. ( http://www.homefair.com/real-estate/city-profile/index.asp ). For the record, the 20746 (Station Square) area code has the following statistics:

Murder risk: 215
Rape Risk: 63 (women do not walk the streets at night)
Robbery risk: 177
Assault risk: 161

The national average is 100 for each.

Sincerely,

MBE vWhRVi5nYYIuEh4W7K3l

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/05/2008
I have been at this complex for over a year, and have made a couple of posts on here in reference to the poor maintenance and office staff, but I have never felt unsafe in this community. True, there are TEENS who hang out by the store, but I have seen PG making an honest effort to curb that. And there are TEENS who hang out around the complex, but calling them a gang is a bit too much. I am a single woman living with two small children and I have never once been harassed by any of them..if anything a few have held doors and said hello. Our young men have it bad enough, they don't need one person labeling them all as gang members due to their bad experience with one or two.
From: Bartron	Date: 08/13/2008
Listen to me very carefully: when a bunch of children of the same age hang out with each other, it is a group. When a bunch of teens and young adults wearing the exact same clothing (white t-shirt, blue jeans, short dreadlocks, black caps) hang around at 1-4 AM on the doorstep of one of the apartment buildings drinking malt liquor and send a spotter on a bike with a cellphone to report on the identity of anyone driving into the apartment complex, it is a gang. I would guess that you have not been harassed by them because they do not regard you as a potential threat. On the contrary, as a single mother with two young children, you would be subject to preferential treatment precisely because your children are (or will be, in a few years) prime targets of recruitment. Also, your ignorance of the situation in Station Square means that you are less likely to spot the signs of gang activity until your children are thoroughly entrenched in the gang lifestyle. Bear in mind, Station Square's gang activity becomes most apparent between 3-5 PM and 7-11 PM, just before and just after most working adults come home and retire indoors for the day. Unfortunately, my job pretty much forced me to enter and leave the apartment complex at prime hours for gang activity. You, on the other hand, miss most of the action.
From: needmymoneyback	Date: 09/16/2009
im sorry for what happened to you and hope that justice got served, but i need your help, when or if u still reside there do u have roaches or mice?? im tryna move there in late sept 09, i just broke my lease of 3days with oakcrest towers roaches all over in bldg 2110, i was so upset, o m g! i cant take that, so thats my only concern thank u for your help and take care

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