I've been living at Va Square Plaza for over 2 years now. The current building manager, Eileen Cyran, has been here about a year. Many of the positive reviews, you'll notice, are from when the previous building manager, Oscar, was here. There is a good reason for that. If it weren't for Eileen, this building deserves a perfect score, but with her here, it makes all the great amenities irrelevant. If I weren't already living here, I'd look elsewhere, just so I wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. I'd recommend you look elsewhere - at least until she's no longer here.

Her problem, in a nutshell, is that she micromanages the hell out of this place and often times does so in an abrasive, unprofessional manner. Sure, she'll greet you with a smile and will make it sound like we're one big happy family, but live here long enough and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Some examples:

1) Some people had been using charcoal grills and storing bikes on their terraces, which are both against the terms of the lease. I can see the fire hazard of using charcoal grills, but I think the only one who really had a problem with bikes on balconies was Eileen, or else Oscar would have addressed it before she got here. I don't really have a problem with her enforcing these rules so much as the way she did it: She hung these threatening notices in the elevators warning tenants of being reported to the fire department if all non-electric grills weren't removed by some absurdly short deadline (48 hours, I think she said). She also casted a similar threat about the bikes as well, in an equally short period of time. So, if you happened to be away on vacation during one of her ridiculous 48 hour deadlines, you may have had your bike removed or had the fire department remove your gas or charcoal grill/hibachi.

2) Downstairs, there is a community room, where people go to hang out, do work, or can be reserved for throwing parties. There is also a side exit to the building, which is convenient and can save you a little time if you're heading out in that direction. Well, I guess Eileen must have been bored - or the idea of having a convenient alternate exit to the building must have annoyed her. Anyway, one day she decided to hang a notice on the door saying it was actually a fire exit. Funny, any fire exit I've ever seen has an alarm or some sort of red sign on the door indicating as such. Since then, she says an alarm has been installed, yet it doesn't appear the door has been outfitted with any new equipment and still no official looking fire exit sign.

3) It says in the lease that parking spaces in the garage cannot be used for storage. Lots of people had always kept some things in their parking spaces, and it was never an issue until she got here. She left notes for of all the "offenders", and judging by the number of notes left, there seemed to be quite a few. Personally, I feel that it's a garage - who really cares if you want to keep a few things in your spot' She cited a fire code, yet that somehow doesn't apply to the heaping piles of building materials she keeps in various spots of the garage.

4) Around the Holidays, she has a "special prize" awarded to the person who decorates their door the best. I don't really have a problem with this idea, but I think it's kind of juvenile - this is an apartment building, not a dormitory. It really just seems like a sad attempt to placate all the tenants she's ticked off throughout the year. Quite honestly, I'm a little surprised she allows doors to be decorated at all.

She's also "bent the truth" about certain things regarding terms of our lease, but the details of which are beyond the scope of this review.

I'm looking to buy a place within a year or so, and while I will miss a lot of the building's great amenities, I'm definitely looking forward to getting out from under Eileen's thumb.

*****To the author of the other review, who cited some of my comments:

The notion that Eileen is concerned with safety is nonsense. I asked her nearly a year ago to hang up mirrors in the corners of the garage so you can actually see cars coming in the opposite direction around turns. I also asked her to hang up more speed limit signs because people drive around there too fast. Have either been done' -No.

I said earlier, I don't have a problem with her enforcing rules, even ones that I consider trivial and stupid, inasmuch as the way she does it. Don't you think it's ridiculous and obnoxious to cast threats and with 48 hour deadlines, when it's entirely possible that someone could be traveling and not get a chance to see the sign and act upon it' Do you think it's reasonable that she ask politely and not treat us like a bunch of inmates instead of rent-paying residents'

The side door was never a fire door or there would have been a sign. There is also no latch on the outside, so unless someone is holding it open, it is impossible gain entrance to the building through that door. I don't know about you, but I don't go outside barefoot. So, waking on grass is never a problem for me.

I'll move whenever I'm damn well ready, and you need to mind your business. If you happen to think Eileen is doing a good job, good for you, but there are a lot of people in this building who think otherwise.

User Responses
From: melhen05	Date: 08/08/2007
Notice that this building had almost perfect reviews until recently? Then a couple of disgruntled, messy neighbors want to ruin the reputation of the management of the building. tsk tsk Management and building A
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/05/2007
I hadn't thought about the "fire exit," but you're absolutely correct it is inconvenient to suddently make the door a fire exit, especially when it so clearly never has been before!
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/08/2007
I live here. These negative reviews are spot on from my experience with both Oscar and Eileen. It looks to me like one REALLY angry resident (above) has triggered a little mini-landslide of people venting about what it's like here. Myself now included. Sorry to burst your bubble melhen05, but your comments on every negative post on this site are off the mark and don't change reality to your personal perspective. I'm glad you haven't had a negative experience here... write your own review. As a previous poster said, Eileen is the micro-managing nosy HOA president. There's a very large difference between addressing real problems and slipping notes under people's doors about things even your neighbors aren't complaining about. Gagging on second hand smoke at various places in the building is also something you apparently don't experience. That doesn't make the posters "a couple of disgruntled, messy neighbors". Nor does an unairconditioned top floor hallway. For the "neat and tidy garage" folks, head on down to G4, and look between the two elevators. You will find, as described elsewhere, a huge mountain of bricks and cinder blocks immediately adjacent to parking spaces. I don't have a bike in my parking spot, but I see them in the garage on occasion. If those residents are getting notes under their door about fire code violations and the like (which I don't doubt given my experience), wouldn't you think the brick mountain should be removed? The perfect reviews this building enjoyed until recently perfectly correspond to the change in management. Looking back over them, however, the rigid regularity and extremely terse wording is a bit disconcerting. Every month someone posted an across-the-board 5-star review with less than one paragraph declaring everything about the building to be "perfect" and "more than I could ask for"? I'm not much of one for conspiracies, but at least read back through them if you're shopping VS. Good luck evading the wrath of the Lease Police. If you do, the price and amenities will make you happy. If you don't, you'll post a negative review here and have melhen05 tell you VS is paved with sugarcoated gumdrops.

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