I'm a pretty laid back person and while it is obvious many tenants are not happy I tend to just smile and try to avoid problems.

I've been giving these people the benefit of the doubt for months now despite the major delays and long waits for elevators, the 100 degree days when the AC wasn't turned on, the faux eviction notices they sent to everyone.

Recently the construction noise has been picking up considerable. When I moved into the building the Charles Smith people assured me all the construction was completed and I wouldn't have any construction noise. EVERY apt. is being refurbished now (with high end appliances that will never get used because anyone who would pay such high prices to live here with such horrible service is a buffoon.) This means most mornings at 8:30 AM you will be awakened by the sound of a jackhammer. Or you'll have to squeeze into an elevator with 14 guys from El Salvador who are painting and painting and painting. My halls have been painted twice now in the past couple months. This just in...its still too dark.

BUT the straw that broke the camel's back - today I woke up to find my magnificent city view includes a MASSIVE banner for Crystal Square with their phone numbers in GIGANTIC letters right across from me. Talk about an obstructed view. I didn't sign a lease with that in mind. Its akin to putting a giant pop up ad on the Mona Lisa. I used to have such a beautiful view. My friends all raved about the place and said they wanted to move into the complex. Now I wonder how interested they'd be.

Looking at the other buildings in Arlington I don't see anyone else plastering gigantic ads across the sides of their buildings.

Personally I'd like to go to Mr. Bainbridge's backyard and plaster a giant ad across it. My lease is up soon, I planned on staying but my beautiful spot is now dominated by a bit of an eye sore. And I'll have to try to explain to my friends when they come over why there is a GIGANTIC phone number plastered on the side of the building right outside my apt.

I like my physical apartment, its just everything around it that seems to suck. What a horrible thing to wake up. I'm not the kind of person to complain about things normally...but as of today I've had enough.

Stop being so ------- tacky and run the building like a professional would. The people who live are all professionals working in the city - treat us as such and stop running what once was a very nice place into the ground.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/16/2008
wake up !!! you are in the city !! you see billboards every where, this place is not in middle of nowhere....
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/30/2008
No, it's Arlington County and there really aren't any large billboards. Crystal Square is the only building in the neighborhood with those ads because they're so desperate to rent apartments.
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/01/2008
In regard to the Anonymous post on 6/16/08 - are you high? What billboards are you seeing? Hallucinations don't count. There aren't billboards anywhere in the Crystal City area. And actually, you'd be more likely to see billboards in the middle of nowhere than you would in Arlington County. Wake up.
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/02/2008
Just drive down Jefferson Davis Hwy. The only building with these big billboards is crystal square. And I believe the point being made was that Crystal Square charges extra for the "view" then obfuscates it with tacky banners. Not cool.
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/21/2008
Were there really 14 painters? And did each of them tell you they were from El Salvador? Not sure this has anything to do at all with your apartment issues, fool.
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/05/2008
As a Crystal City resident, I am so sorry that you've had to endure this. I think I remember wondering what the huge banner was when I was walking and figured that it would be there for a short while. This is totally uncharacteristic of Crystal City. I have never even heard of Bainbridge, who obviously bought from Archstone, which bought from the original Charles E. Smith Company. You've got a lot of choices in the Crystal City area and I think it's time to consider some. I've heard that people are moving out in droves in your building and some of those people have lived there for many years. To the person who took the "El Salvador" remark as racist, I am a person of color and did not. It is a fact that the vast majority of painters in the Crystal City area are indeed from El Salvador, and some of them treated quite badly. For anyone in the area who doesn't know, there is a plan up for review to bulldoze the entire Crystal City Underground (Underground and Plaza levels), so for Crystal Square residents and others you may not have direct lower-level access to the Metro.

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