At Inigo’s Crossing, a luxury apartment complex in North Bethesda, residents can enjoy a spacious game room with four flat screen TVs, ping pong tables and a pinball machine, a fitness center and a garden with flowers and plants at the entrance. Residents are also dealing with a stinky situation–a delay in trash collection that has accumulated in the complex’s trash chute up to the ninth floor.
The seafoam velvet ottomans and Tom Ford coffee table book in the building’s front lobby give off an essence of opulence luxury, until one enters the first-floor elevator which smells like rotten garbage.
The trash pile-up prompted residents at Inigo’s Crossing to be concerned about their health, pest infestation and fire safety at the complex.
One concerned resident, who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns of retaliation and fear of eviction, told MoCo360 that there has been no trash pickup in two weeks. This resident has lived at Inigo’s Crossing for more than 15 years and never experienced an issue like this until now.
Dupree Hatchett, the property manager at Inigo’s Crossing, told MoCo360 that the complex has been dealing with “interrupted service” of their trash management for about a week, but plans are underway to begin the clean up on Monday. He hopes by Wednesday, all the trash will be gone.
According to Hatchett, the pile-up occurred due to an “invoice error” with the property’s waste management department and caused a delay for trash pickup at the complex.
Residents at Inigo’s Crossing have not been able to use the trash chutes for more than a week, and instead use trash receptacles that are placed in the trash room of each floor.
Since the trash pile-up has made it impossible to use the chute, Hatchett said he has made sure each floor’s trash room has been cleared away in the morning to make space for more trash.
Hatchett told MoCo360 that he has heard resident’s complaints and is putting forth a plan of action to clear the trash. He said last Friday he attempted to amend the issue with a scheduled clean-up, but the waste management service did not arrive.
Upon entering the apartment’s trash loading dock on Monday, the smell of rotting food filled the air. At the dock, 12 overfilled two-yard dumpsters lined the lot. Swarms of flies made themselves at home in the approximately 3-foot-tall pile of trash bags sitting on the side of the lot. In the loading dock discarded furniture, cardboard boxes and more trash bags lined the walls.
Inigo’s Crossing, located at 5405 Tuckerman Lane, is one of the many luxury apartment buildings in North Bethesda that boast “quality living” with recently completed multimillion-dollar renovations, a pool and accessibility to nearby walking trails. The building has 427 units and the rent ranges from one-bedrooms for $1,394 per month to three-bedrooms for $3,196 per month according to their website.
The building is owned by the residential property management company, Two Coast Living. It was formerly owned by JRK Property Holdings.
Another resident, who also wished to remain anonymous due to concerns of retaliation, said she reported the problem to management multiple times and when nothing was done, called 311–the county’s non-emergency hotline–to file a complaint about the trash.
She told MoCo360 that she is most concerned about the way the complex has been openly storing the trash outside on the ground.
By 1:45 p.m. on Monday, a Waste Management vehicle showed up at Inigo’s Crossing to clear out the 12 dumpsters sitting at the loading dock. This solved part of the issue by freeing up space to discard trash. The next step is the effort to empty the trash chute, all nine stories high.