Falkland Chase

I’ve lived in 3 separate units at falkland chase for the past 8 years. The previous owners were harsh and very blasé in their dealings with residents. When new ownership took over, I found it incredibly easy in working with management and front office reps to fix any problems I had and they were/​are very helpful and responsive. Currently, I am working on transferring to another unit for size reasons and Elaine, Brandon and Alby have been great! They looked out for available units to suit the specs I needed and have always kept in touch! I find that to be a very important and necessary quality when working with people at my job, so having it where I live is a top priority as well. The maintenance staff is kind and prompt. There have been times where something may need an extra visit or two to get completely fixed but they are quick in the time it takes to do so. I’ve had issues with draftiness with the windows, but it’s worth it when it comes to the customer service, location, and amenities nearby. Happy tenant!

I lived in Falkland Chase Apartment from September 2012 to June 2015. I really liked the location, proximity to downtown Silver Spring and the metro, walkability, and ability to park my car. I did not like that I had to walk to another building to do laundry. The washers and dryers were frequently in disrepair; even though I reported them needing maintenance multiple times. The recycling bins always seemed to be overflowing. The staff there is not nice and often gave me the third degree when I asked to get maintenance done. Throughout my time there I needed my toilet replaced, my dishwasher replaced, an exhaust put in the bathroom, a ceiling fan replaced, my HVAC fixed MULTIPLE times, and there was condensation on the windows every winter. There was also MOLD on the walls after every winter. Their response was to not call it mold and give us a crazy concoction to basically bleach the mold off the walls ourselves. Also visitor parking is a nightmare. If you want more than one friend with one car to visit you and park in the parking lot; it is a huge headache to deal with. The location and cheap cost for the area are great; but the leasing staff members are rude.

This would have been a 5 star, BUT they pulled some really shady money crap on my roommate on his last month here.
The actual apartments are great and the grounds are beautiful. Gorgeous old trees and many other types of bushes and flowers. Lots of playgrounds, dog parks, and just general nice places to walk around. Falkland Chase south is so dreamy.
I have never had ANY problems with mice, rats, roaches, etc. I had some ants, but that was mostly my fault and bleach spray got rid of them. My room was a little drafty, but I put foam strips in my windows and it stopped the problem. The plumbing is great. Never had to use a plunger with the toilet. Showers have great pressure in them. The water is a little hard, but nothing too bad. They have package concierge locker that is open 24/​7, so even if you’re not home UPS will still safely drop off your package.
In general, I really like living at FC. Me and my boyfriend renewed our lease and probably will next year.
With that said… the leasing office is a den of thieves. Keep paper copies of every receipt and correspondence you have with them. Only speak through emails so you can show them what they said. They constantly tell you one thing and then change it the next time you speak to them. If something happens to your account, you need to call them daily or they will never fix it. Even if they are the ones who messed up on your account, you will still get a letter saying you need to go to court for not paying rent. When this issue happened, I asked them specifically if they were still going to send a court order, they said they wouldn’t, but lo-​and-​behold, look what the sheriff dropped off.
If you get your issue resolved in the 10 days you have before your court date, they will get their lawyer to call it off and you don’t have to go. This issue was only resolved when my roommate re-​paid the rent he already paid for that month. Now he has to take them to court to get his money back…
Conclusion: If you move into FC, only pay rent with money orders or cashiers checks so that FC can’t play games with you and say that your check bounced. If you can do that, you’ll pretty much avoid all the big problems we had and living at FC will be great.

This is the message I got if I want to renew my lease. They stated it would be 9% increase in my rent. They have only made very small changes. Charge large fee’s and seem to continue to disregard the community. The property manager does not listen to concerns: See email below:
Thank you for your email. The second term lease is at an automatic 9% increase from where you are now. Please let me know if you would like to continue. Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Travis Hodge

I have lived here several years and this place continues to crumble. The new owners JBG are worse. They have hired a malicious towing company and don’t allow all residents to have guests cone unless they can get a limited number if passes prior to them coming.
The complex has roaches and other vermin. The plumbing is always backed up and the management is rude.
They refuse to clean up the handicapped parking spot that is full of mud and dirt. The mud also is on the stairs outside causing a safety concern for residents living here.
The cost may seem lower than other apartments here but you have to pay water, sewer and electric bills. The apartments also have lead paint.

I picked Falkland Chase because of three things: a friend recommended it due to the great office management, the proximity to the Silver Spring Metro stop, and the three dog parks.
The proximity to the Metro has not changed, but everything else has.
The management changed hands to a bigger company, JBG. Since then, although the office staff have been very nice, they have not been especially responsive when it comes to problems. It took months for them to clear up a clerical error in my account. I still have problems with ants, and I know others who do, too. And the problems with the dog park continue to increase, and, despite many people talking to the office and complaining about them, nothing gets done.
Now, there are three dog parks, one on each block. This is a great thing. But there are far and away enough dogs to justify keeping up all three. The most popular and most used dog park is in the southern block, and it is the worst of the three. All the grass is worn away. The fence, due to erosion, is way too low in places. When it rains, it takes days for the pools of water to go away, and when dogs drink it, they get sick. The surface was covered in fine gravel, which was unsanitary and dirty. Recently JBG finally dumped wood chips on the surface, and dogs got sick and the conditions are getting back to as unsanitary as they were before they dumped wood chips.
There are other problems that we as a community have with JBG: to name another, they have handled the parking situation very badly. Out of a concern that people were giving their one guest parking pass to friends who would park here in order to go to the Metro, JBG has implemented a backwards way of handing out 15 guest passes per day. This would be less of an issue if the office were open 24/​7, but it’s not; you have to run in and grab a pass while they are open. Also, they wrote us letters about how limited the parking was, but then they took four open spaces and marked them for the office staff. They have simply ignored our complaints about that. And now, they are implementing a policy that states, if you have not moved your car in 7 days, even if you are a resident, you will be towed.
I generally like my apartment, my neighbors, and the grounds, but I am paying too much to be unsatisfied. I would not recommend dog owners move in without checking to see if their dog gets along with the dogs in the north or west parks. And, if you have a car, the parking situation is likely to get worse.
**Will update my review as these situations are resolved. And I hope they are, soon.

Stay away. Most of the reviewers are spot on.
My wife and I lived here for a year and a half. The only pluses are the location and the fact that they allow dogs.
The apartments are drafty, moldy, full of bugs and vermin and frigid in the winter.
The leasing office does the absolute bare minimum for upkeep.
One winter night when it was about 15 degrees outside I parked in front of the building with my emergency blinkers on to run groceries in (due to the lack of parking I didn’t want to trudge through the arctic air with 2 – 3 loads of groceries). When I came back out a tow truck had hooked my car up. I tried to reason with the tow truck driver but he became very hostile and threatening. One of the community rent-​a-​cops came over and sided with the driver and I was forced to pay $ 50 cash to have my car unhooked. I went into the leasing office the next day and the leasing manager did not seem to care. They did nothing to refund my money or get to the bottom of the situation. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

I moved into Falkland Chase for the location near the metro and proximity to downtown, and because I qualified for the income modified rent. In 2010, for approximately $ 1050, the rent for a 575 sq ft 1 bedroom was reasonable. The next year they raised the rent to $ 1125, still reasonable. The third year I didn’t qualify for the income modifiaction and the rate was going to jump to $ 1,350. This place is only worth about $ 1,050 because it’s old, terribly insulated so you’re utlity bills for hot and cold months are ridiculously high ($ 80 – 125), only carry Comcast so you’re stuck with that service provider, have pest problems like any old building would have, use the cheapest material to line the bathroom floors and kitchen floors which never can be scrubbed clean, and do the crappiest job sealing the wooden floors.
Yes, its quaint and the grounds are lush with trees and grass but that only counts for so much. And, Montgomery County doesn’t have any cap about how much rents can be raised per year so you’ll find higher rate hikes than in DC that does have a percentage cap. There’s also more availabity to rent from homeowners in DC too where you can negotiate the best deals. Plus, Maryland has county taxes on top of state taxes. The value for renting here and living here just wasn’t worth it.
And, the office staff is just plain rude and hostile. But don’t worry, they leave every 6 months so you’ll have another person to deal with just needs a paycheck and learns to be short with everyone.

Unless you love mice and rats, then you shouldn’t move here. But if you do enjoy your slippers being gnawed it and completely ruined by rodents then this is the place for you. You know you read some reviews, and it’s like oh that’s an isolated experience or maybe the reviewers is just embellishing. I know you don’t know me, but trust me.
A couple of months after I first moved in, I saw my first mouse, they came in and exterminated and I never saw it again UNTIL WINTER. Jesus. It was hell. I got to the point where I didn’t want to go into my kitchen at night. December 2011-​February 2012, there were 6 mice and one rat that got into my apartment. They put out sticky traps, which there is nothing like walking into your apartment and hear a filthy rodent stretching and gnawing at its leg on a sticky trap.
Exterminator was called 2 – 3 times, maintenance came in to close up holes. But they NEVER tried to remedy the problem and that was how are mice getting into my 2^nd floor apartment like they live there.
Oh and I got robbed. The property manager Douglas told me «well these things happen». So I told him, he should make a brochure that says «Falkland Chase: Where crime happens»
And then there’s red and yellow mold in the bathroom. And the laundry facilities are not convenient and located in a different building. Oh and the card that you use for the washer and dryer has to be reloaded near the leasing office. Which depending on which building you live, that’s a 10 minute walk.

this review is for the leasing office.
I know most people come to the reviews to assess life at a potential new home however, the service I received while just trying to get information about available units was less than stellar. I felt the need to express my angst on Unilocal.Thank you for being a friend, Unilocal.
I came in on a saturday during the late afternoon and from the looks of things the staff in the office weren’t too happy with having customers strolling in during the last hour of business hours.
When I walked in, a leasing agent was assisting someone else so i went to the plush couch, plunked myself down, grabbed a pack of mini oreos and waited to be acknowledge.
It didn’t happen.
I sat, looked at my watch, looked back over at the leasing agent and waited. I realize that she was working with someone else but it would’ve been nice to at least be ACKNOWLEDGED. She continued on as if i didn’t exist.
I waited a little over 10 mins, telling myself if it hits the 20 minute mark with no one saying anything to me, I may as well leave. If they treat potential would-​be renters this way imagine how bad the service would be after one signs a lease.
But, just as the time was about to stroke my 20 min deadline a figure emerges from a back office.
First off, i didn’t even realize anyone was there. Secondly, if someone else was there why didn’t the girl at the front at least inform them of a new customer waiting to be assisted?
when this 2^nd leasing agent came by she expressed shock that i wasn’t acknowledged then asked me why i didn’t come to the back office.
Me: I didn’t know there was anyone back here
her: well you should’ve come back here to get me
Me: I didn’t know anyone was sitting back here
her: There’s no sense of you just sitting there
Me: (pointing to a sign I just noticed while walking to her desk) Your sign here says «employees only»
her: You should’ve came back here
So i’m already annoyed.
She tells me of a one bedroom apartment that’s for rent but —
— it’s on a road that’s going to get completely demolished in the spring so i have to move
— she didn’t give me a guarantee but said that they’ll «probably» be able to put me in another apartment somewhere else on the property once construction begins
come again?
So she offers me an «upgraded» apartment that has new appliances and some new finishes… but the rent’s almost $ 300 more than the one that’s on the path of destruction.
She seemed a bit curt with me at times, with a bit of snideness. I just never got the warm fuzzies from this office. So after viewing the apartment I promptly picked up my things and left.
To me, if they treat potential leasees who have yet to plunk down their hard-​earned recession dollars as second-​class citizens I can only imagine how they treat actual residents… especially if they have any problems.
Just my 5 cents and a novella.

I moved out of F.C. for numerous reasons, many of which have been listed below (mice, poor management, limited parking etc.). I brought in a subletter to take over the last 2 months of my lease and before I could even cancel my automatic withdrawal account, F.C. with drew my next monthly rent. It has been over 4 months since this occurred, and I still have not been fully reimbursted for what they took from my account. I have called at least 15 times and each time I’m told my money is being processed and should be sent soon… not holding my breath!

I’d actually like to give Falkland Chase 2 ½ stars. A year ago, a would have given them 4 stars, but my opinion has fallen drastically in the last year.
I’ve lived here for three years, one in an apartment and two in a townhouse and pretty much agree with the other reviewers.
The main pros of living here are the location (close to downtown Silver Spring and the Metro) and the fact you can have a dog. I also have to give them credit for a nice landscaping job and excellent clean-​up during snow storms. The buildings are old, but I don’t consider them a con because inside, they are well-​renovated and have a lot more charm than many places. I also like many of my neighbors and do think that the nice playground and two dog parks on premises make it «family friendly.»
Falkland Chase also used to have an excellent office staff and good maintenance, but that is NOT the case anymore.
The office staff are rude, inefficient and hard to deal with. They take weeks to deal with resident requests (if they deal with them at all), but will get an eviction notice to your door within hours of «unpaid» rent (even when it has been paid on time, every time). They lose documents, give bad information and rarely follow-​up with problems. It took me 3 months to get simple lease renewal documents from them (maybe I should have taken it as an opportunity to get out) and 1 month for them to call animal control about a raccoon in my attic (despite daily requests). There are a few nice people working in the office who will try to help, but overall, they are pretty hard to deal with.
I’ve also experienced a serious mouse problem lately. My house is clean and I don’t leave food out, but I can’t seem to get rid of these mice. Maintenance came to lay traps once, but hasn’t shown up again even though I’ve sent several requests. I hear them running around at night and find their poop on my couch (yes, my couch) and the floors. I understand it’s an old building and these things happen, but I’m pretty sure the staff are just ignoring my complaints.
I will be looking for somewhere new at the end of my lease, which is too bad, because it used to be a great place to live.

Power is constantly down, so you will be spending $$ on hotel rooms for a/​c or heat!
A/​C has gone out 6 timThe month of July. YaaaY!
There IS a pet fee, monthly. so tack that on to your rent.
They raise the rent 28% for month to month at the end of the lease. WOW!
They will just walk in to your apartment without calling or announcing themselves. so if your in the shower, oh well. If you are at work, they will go in anyways! no 24 hour notice. they do not follow the law here. (servicemen and office alike!)
Office staff is rude. they do not treat you like a human being, they treat you like a piece of dirt, and feel that they are too «Above» you to care about your concerns.
Comcast always out.
Laundry room always has issues.
And The Mold is insane! (they just paint over it, yet it bleeds through.)
Steer Clear if you want a reliable, Safe living environment.
I will never live there again.

So lets weigh out the pro’s and con’s:
Pro’s:
–only 2 floors (don’t have to run up and down all the time)
— good mini gardens all throughout the property
— you can own a cat or a dog if you want to without being charged extra
— there are dog parks on the property
— there are ceiling fans in all rooms (so when it’s hot as balls outside you can still keep cool)
— central air conditioning (summer) and heat (winter), you control it
— I got free cable because someone before me didn’t shut it off or was stealing it from the folks living below me (THANKS NEIGHBOR!)
— the Maintenance folks are QUICK. I’d put in a request for whatever I needed and BAM, a few hours later my sh** was taken care of and I would have a note letting me know what they did, what time they were in my apartment and all that jazz (golden).
— location was awesome, I was so close to downtown Silver Spring and DC. Red Line Silver Spring station is literally a 5 minute walk or less from the apartment property which is PRIME since it’s super congested in that area now.
Con’s
— I’m pretty sure that there was someone that was homeless living in this underground hallway in the basement of my building (but this can become a half pro because then they dead bolted that door so I couldn’t move things in and out of there)
— Laundry units were not inside the same building I lived in, had to drag my digs everywhere (not ok during certain times of year)
— the locks for the outside doorway sometimes didn’t lock, so anyone could have gotten in
— my mail lock was busted and nobody came to fix it for me :-(
— hope you like field MICE, the kitchen (behind the fridge, stove & dish washer) was full of 3 mice. I called management to handle this and hid all potential food issues on my part, but even after I cleaned up etc, I would still find mini mouse poop on corners of the floor etc. NOT COOL or OK. At least they weren’t rats, but I’m not paying to live with creatures from outside.
— parking was rough, if you have a car you’re not going to want one living here. Spaces for parked cars is really tight and there’s not enough for all the folks living there with cars. I’d literally have to rush directly home after work just hoping that there was at least ONE SPACE left for me. By 6pm all the spaces were already filled up, on weekends it’s much easier to find parking, but I don’t recommend owning a car if you live here and can manage without one. You can park on 16^th St. but only after 7pm and then you have to move it by 7AM, so if you don’t normally get in that late, or get up that early, it’s a PAIN to have to drive it around hoping that someone has left for work so you can take their spot (there’s no guarantee)

We’ve officially lived here for a year and cannot say enough nice things about Falkland.
Best price for what you get in all of Downtown Silver Spring. Where to begin… Very pet friendly (all breeds/​sizes of dogs welcome).Lots of space and storage… townhouses have yards which are maintained by management but are left to the discretion of the owner as far as usage (gardening is encouraged, kiddie play stuff, etc)… closet space! … Very close to 16^th Street, Colesville Road, Georgia Avenue, East West Highway, the District, the Beltway and PG County… walking distance
to a multitude of shopping/​dining areas… 1 block from the SS metro… playgrounds … dog park… great office staff …
friendly neighbors (having a dog doesn’t hurt) …kid friendly.
Drawbacks: Parking is awful — invest in a parking space. Some dog owners are less than diligent about cleaning up after their pups — look out for poo. No washers/​dryers in homes — hikes to the laundry facilities can be tedious and sometimes all machines are in use.
Not leaving anytime soon.

I’ve only been here a few weeks but I am very happy so far. I have lived in several neighborhoods in Silver Spring, and I can honestly say that this is the first neighborhood that I can feel safe walking my dogs alone at night. My building is very quiet even though my upstairs neighbors have a young son that I have yet to see. I only know that he is there because I have heard his voice in the hallway as he exits with his mother. My dogs love it here because there is a small dogpark pretty much right in our backyard, which assures them a trip every evening after work, and there are plenty of other regulars who take their dogs at the same time, so they always have plenty of friends to play with. I love my apartment… we have great wood floors, french doors that open into in our good sized kitchen, and lots of closet space. My only real complaint is the lack of ventilation in the bathroom, which means I have to wipe down the walls around the shower daily because mold starts to form. Hopefully this problem will be solved with one of those little window fans, and I won’t have anything to complain about. If any issues pop up during the duration of our lease I will come back and revise, but so far so good!

This place is one of the only affordable apartment complexes in Silver Spring that allows dogs. I lived here from May 2005 — May 2006, mainly because my roommate had a weiner dog and I was trying to get residency for the University of Maryland.
While I absolutely loathed living in Silver Spring (sorry, I missed the city too much) Falkland Chase was a pretty good deal. I had a first floor two bedroom in a four-​plex, which was nice except I could hear my upstairs neighbor’s footsteps. There was communal laundry facilities, which sucked. At least there was never a line!
Falkland Chase is an incredibly short walk to the metro, depending on which unit you live in. There is a Rite-​Aid, Einstein Bagels, Starbucks, Giant, CVS, and numerous restaurants very close by.
This is not luxury apartment living, but if you are just looking to pay cheap rent for a place that is not falling down, is clean, and has decent landlords, Falkland Chase is a good bet.