Since the week of Thanksgiving, many residents at the Marylander Condominiums in the Langley Park area have been struggling to stay warm.
Jason Van Horne, who lives there with his 73-year-old mother, said they remain bundled as nighttime temperatures dip into the teens.
“I’m dressed in a robe, pajamas, socks, coat — just to sit in my house,” Van Horne said.
He said space heaters are their only hope, but those are causing electrical outages.
“Electricity keeps going out, so we’re constantly without any heat,” he said. “No way to cook. Refrigerator is not on, so no way to preserve our food — nothing.”
It’s a dire situation at the condo complex, which is home to many low-income residents. The Prince George’s County Office of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement deemed several of the buildings “uninhabitable,” posting orange flyers ordering around 100 families to “vacate immediately.”
Van Horne said he and other residents, who pay close to $1,000 in condo fees, have filed multiple work orders since August, with little progress.
“We’re living in unfit living conditions. We pay mortgage and condo fees that rival D.C. prices, and we’ve got elderly, young kids, all walks of life that live here,” he said.
According to residents and the company that manages the property, Quasar, a member of a nearby homeless encampment broke into a boiler room used for heat and damaged the system so severely that a simple repair is not possible.
The encampment poses another problem for residents. Van Horne said it’s typical to find people from the encampment sleeping in hallways, as broken locks make it easy for “homeless and drug users down the block” to get in.
Condo management says vandalism, aging systems to blame
Kenneth Brown, a broker for Quasar Property Management, said his company was brought on by the condo association in April after years of alleged neglect and mismanagement by the previous firm.
He told WTOP the property was an “absolute mess,” with no money in the bank and outdated infrastructure, including an old, centralized boiler system and low-capacity electrical wiring.
The problems worsened the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Brown said, when members of the homeless encampment — described by management as an “open-air drug market” — broke into the mechanical room, stole a circulating pump and tampered with valves.
The break-in, Brown said, caused high-pressure blowouts in nine of the complex’s 19 buildings, leaving residents without heat and causing extensive water damage.
“There is no quick solution,” Brown said, noting repairs could take months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A full modernization project, including new electrical systems and individual HVAC units, will cost an estimated $8 million, up from an initial $4.5 million projection.
Brown said when his management company came on board, the condo association had no money in reserves. Doubling condo fees and seeking financing wasn’t enough to come up with the funds needed to modernize the complex, which is why he says they’re now also asking for financial help from the county, Pepco and the state.
“I’ve got ulcers going on this one, because we were sort of limping along until we got to Thanksgiving. That final act of vandalism is just something that couldn’t be recovered from,” Brown said.
This isn’t the first time vandalism has impaired the condo association, Brown said, and its efforts to install fences and repair doors have been insufficient. He said the complex needs the county’s help but isn’t getting it.
“We’ve been reaching out since we took over in April with the county to try and solve this open-air drug market adjacent to the property. We had no responses — months,” Brown said.
County council member calls situation ‘frustrating’
Prince George’s County Council member Wanika Fisher said the county doesn’t pay for private building maintenance.
Fisher said her office is working to find emergency housing for residents. Her team has reached out to the Department of Housing and is exploring rental assistance options.
Fisher acknowledged the homeless encampment has been a persistent issue and said the county has cleared the area multiple times, although people return. The problem, she said, has grown worse in recent years as homeless people displaced from D.C. have moved into Prince George’s County, creating new challenges for security and housing.
“We’ve gone out, and our county executive has gone out. We’ve cleared that back area several times, but the reality is, people come back even after we clear it out,” Fisher said.
She said her office has recommended to the condo association that it hire private security and take other security measures to secure the property.
Phil Dawit, managing director with Quasar, criticized the county’s response, saying private security cannot dismantle organized criminal activity operating across multiple properties.
“It is the responsibility of law enforcement to disrupt organized criminal activity and to protect innocent, law-abiding citizens and, especially, children,” Dawit said.
Fisher explains county’s limits and next steps
Fisher also said the county’s Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement must cite violations when inspectors see them, but can waive those citations once repairs are made.
“We’re always happy to work with the management company and the residents to find a solution, but part of the solution is going to come at a cost — to secure the building, to fix the building, to fix the condos. When you defer maintenance, this is the impact of that,” Fisher said.
This situation, Fisher said, embodies why the county rarely approves new condo developments, as governance failures often lead to severe maintenance issues.
Meanwhile, Van Horne must continue to bundle up and endure the cold. He said he and his mother don’t have anywhere else to go.
“Please, have compassion for the residents of the Marylander Condominiums that pay their bills on time,” Van Horne said.
WTOP has reached out to the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement and the county executive’s office for comment but has not received a response.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
