Some residents of a Prince George’s County apartment complex have filed a lawsuit against their landlords over what they describe as “an egregious failure to provide a safe, accessible, and sanitary place to live.”
Before residents can step inside one of the upper units at Park Tanglewood and Riverdale Park, they have to get off the elevator where they’re walloped by an unimaginable smell, according to the lawsuit.
Inside one unit, closet doors are falling apart and tape appears to be the most commonly used tool to fix anything, including broken windows, the lawsuit states. Mice have chewed through furniture, and when a resident banged a chair from the kitchen table, they said that rodents fell to the floor and scurried about, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Prince George’s County Circuit Court against Tanglewood Venture, the owners of Park Tanglewood in Riverdale Park, as well as Franklin Group Properties, which managed the complex until 2022, and Wingate Management Company, which has since taken over that role.
“Park Tanglewood is the poster child for neglect, negligence, carelessness, recklessness in the state of Maryland, if not in the entire country,” said attorney and state Del. Vaughn Stewart, who is representing residents in court.
The civil lawsuit, filed by a group of residents with the backing of CASA, a group that advocates for immigrants in the region, claims those companies knew about the living conditions that residents endured, including unreliable heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. Issues with hot water and roach infestations are also cited in the lawsuit.
Rather than fix those problems, the lawsuit says the management companies did nothing, in violation of state and county law, as well as “the terms of the leases” signed by residents. They also claim their landlords tried to illegally collect rent for over two years after their rental licenses were revoked — and then worked to retaliate against residents that stood up for their rights.
“What these owners and these property management companies have put these regular Marylanders through is unconscionable. We wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemy,” Stewart said.
A handful of residents spoke at the event, including Ileana Gonzalez, whose apartment was toured by reporters and others.
“From the first day we moved in, we encountered problem after problem,” she said, through a translator. “The first red flag was when we were handed a filthy apartment. We thought it was just a minor issue that would soon be addressed. Unfortunately, things only got worse — far worse.”
Stewart said the fact that residents of the apartment complex tend to be immigrants, including some who are undocumented, is one of the reasons their problems are ignored.
“They thought the residents, many of whom are immigrants, would not have the resources and would not have the courage to go against them,” he said. “Absolutely, it’s connected.”
‘Clearly not’ a safe place to live
Prince George’s County Council member Eric Olson said he was made aware of the problems here earlier in the summer, when the air conditioning didn’t work. What he saw appalled him, especially when he found out that the building had been cleaned up ahead of time with management knowing local leaders were going to be touring.
“What I saw was unacceptable,” said Olson. “Exterior doors broken, not working, not safe. Unacceptable. I saw people who had to throw away their furniture, and babies that had to sleep on the floor ringed with solutions so that the bedbugs and the cockroaches wouldn’t get them when they slept. Unacceptable.”
The lawsuit also states that security is a major problem, with nonfunctioning doors allowing “vagrants, addicts, and other nonresidents to sleep in and roam the hallways.”
It also detailed a lack of functioning smoke alarms, elevators and wheelchair ramps.
WTOP reached out to all three defendants cited in the lawsuit but has not gotten a response.
In 2016, Prince George’s County financed $25 million in bonds, and gave low income tax credits, to Tanglewood Venture to help Park Tanglewood acquire and rehabilitate the complex, which is populated by low income residents.
At the time it was approved, then-District 3 Council member Dannielle Glaros hailed it as an important part in “protecting affordable housing” in that part of the county. Councilman Olson, who wasn’t on the county council at the time, said if any public money, whether federal or local, was given to the owners, “it’s even further unconscionable.”
“They’re supposed to provide housing that is up to code, that works for people, that is a clean, safe place to live,” Olson said. “And it is clearly not.”
In addition to financial damages, the roughly 30 plaintiffs also want their landlords to immediately begin to exterminate the mice and roaches that also live in their apartments, and come up with a plan to keep them from returning. The suit also demands an immediate repair to HVAC problems as well as the elevators there.
“One heartbreaking thing is a lot of tenants were afraid to complain,” Stewart said. “They didn’t want to complain because they genuinely thought that the owners of these companies were just scraping by themselves. They thought they were doing their best.”
Stewart noted that the parent companies listed in the suit “are extremely wealthy companies owned by extremely wealthy individuals,”
“They’re extremely lucrative. Their cash flow, their revenue, their profits, every year are in the millions of dollars. They have the money. They know what the conditions are, and they have ignored their cries for help because they don’t care,” he said.
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