Construction and Management Problems at 317 E North Ave Baltimore

Due to the poorly executed reconstruction work on the apartment building, along with the landlord's rental agents' deadly disrespect for the tenants, I left my apartment at 317 E. North Ave Apt. 313, Baltimore, Md. after the lease was up. The bathroom had a step-in shower, but when I moved in the drain pipe was not connected and the first shower I took ran water into the apartment below. My unit was not the only one rented out with an unconnected shower drain. After the drain was installed, shower water still ran into the apartment below. I had to duct tape along the base of the shower and the bathroom floor, because it was not sealed by caulking. 

Our elevator was not working for around ten days. The rental agent sent me an email saying it was going to be worked on, but never said how long the elevator would be out. There are plenty of residents who do not use the Internet. Management never posted signs saying it was out of service, so we had to wait at the elevator long enough to give it up and walk the steps. We should have been informed, so we could plan our trips out and stock up with food & other needs so we did not have to go to the store again until the elevator was running. Plus, there's possibilities of resident's relatives or friends offering those residents a temporary place to stay or to run errands for them - those among us residents who no longer can navigate steps very well. 

The landlord had to replace the elevator's mainboard, which required manufacturing. I understand that these things happen, and that mainboards need to be ordered and manufactured, but not telling the residents that the elevator would be out of service for approximately ten days is not right.

That is the noisiest, most shaking elevator I was ever in. It sounds like rusty cables and worn out hydraulics. The craziest thing I've seen the elevator do sometimes is right after the door begins closing the elevator jumps up and down several inches. That is freaky. 

When the elevator was out of service, I had to use the steps in the center of the building, which was very difficult due to painful arthritic knees, degenerative back disease and shortness of breath. I am 70-years-old. So I went to the fire escape stairs at the end of the building - stairs that are not marked as being for fire emergency use only - to see if they were less painful for me to use. They weren't, but when I tried to reenter the hallway, the doors are locked to prevent anyone from getting out of that stairway. I was up and down those stairs finding doors locked. It was so stressful that it had me seriously upset, having difficulty breathing, physically stressed - with increases in bodily pain - to the point I feared a heart attack. 

I had a pocket knife that I used to jimmy a door open. Had there been a fire, as we upper floor residents escaped downstairs and if the fire moved fast into the lower levels of the stairway, preventing us from descending the stairs, we'd be trapped. I see that as a gross violation against fire safety.

For the final several weeks of me living there, the rear entrance door, our most used entrance and exit, has a failing lock system. Sometimes the electric lock held, but other times the lock did not prevent the door being opened. Leaving us residents in danger of becoming victims of crime. 

Our apartment doors only have one lock - a deadbolt. My apartment door is hung so sloppily that you can see through the cracks into the hallway, and it was so high off the floor that I could see the hall light shadows of people walking past or stopping at the door. A 12-year-old kid could easily kick those flimsily locked apartment doors open.

   

The kitchen floor of 313 has a dangerous trip hazard, caused by floor tiles not installed levelly. A person could be tripped and fall right on the stove. I only tripped on it once, when I first wore some shower shoes. I have degenerative back disease that - several decades ago - has been aggravated by a small slip of my boot sole on an ice-cube-amount of water on a motel hallway floor, and that little slip put me back in the VA hospital's physical rehab section. 

There are no handrails on the one step in the apartment and the several steps in the hallway I had to use. The dark stain on my wall was from me placing my forearm against it to use the flat wall like a handrail. 

The hallways are the weirdest I have ever encountered. They slope downwards, and have two humps in them. Could be good fun for toddlers to roll down on in little ridable cars. But the weirdness makes me concerned about other odd construction not visible. The building was originally two sets of townhomes, each set first constructed over a hundred years ago. I suspect that the hallway humps have something to do with connecting the townhomes together. I looked at the front of the building to see if each original living unit was lower or higher then the ones next to them, but they are level by the street view. 

I used a brand new office chair with rollers, and the living room floor pealed up under the wheels. The floor is a fake wood decorated tape wallboard kind of cheap garbage. 

Twenty-some-mile-an-hour winds make the roof rattle, because it isn't nailed down tight. It sounds like 5 to 10 mph stronger winds can break the roof off in pieces and carry it away. There are leaks in the roof that rainwater has come from and damaged the living room ceiling and walls. 

Then I had to keep quiet about all that or fear retribution - from people with 24hr access and keys to my home.

What worries me most is that the visible evidences of lousy reconstruction indicates that there are unseen problems, some of which may be electrical fire hazards. The entire building might collapse.

The resulting anxiety and depression I experienced came close to killing me. Several times, on several different days, I could feel life going out of me. I had to calm myself down and talk myself through those sickening, terrifying feelings of hot vomit flowing all under my skin. I did not have the money to move into a new home, and needed help just taking a few heavy suitcases out of that old apartment and to storage. 

Together, all that probably cut some years off of my natural life expectancy.