SUITLAND, Md. — Lt. Duane Smith owns a condo at the Tribeca at Camp Springs apartments and condos in Suitland. In an email to WUSA, he said his home security cameras captured two men in work gear entering his home two days ago.
“They had like two reflector vests on and it looked like they had some tools on the floor and in their hands,” he explained. “It looked like they were tampering with my locks.”
Here’s the hard part, Smith is not home. He isn't even in the country. Smith is currently deployed in the Middle East.
“Immediately, I'm freaking out cause I don't know what this is, or who this is, in my home,” he said via Zoom.
The video started a wild goose chase of trying to get answers. First, he called the property manager.
“She mentioned to me that she could not discuss things with me, that I needed to contact their legal attorney,” he said.
So he did that.
“He told me, ‘Sir, I am not tracking who you are, your address or any incidents going on there,’” Smith explained.
He said the attorney promised to call him back. But by the end of the da there were still no answers.
According to him, the condo mortgage is current. His bills are paid. He has never been contacted about HOA fees.
With no answers, he called the police.
“I overheard from the officer’s speakerphone, the property manager telling the police officer that I was behind on a series of months of mortgage payments and HOA fees of some sort,” Smith explained. “That there was an active lien on the property.”
All things that Smith said he asked about but got no answers. All of this is happening while he is thousands of miles away.
“I'm very vulnerable at this point,” he sighed out of frustration. “It's very hard to deal with such a situation being so far away.”
So WUSA called the property management team. A woman on the phone from the Tribeca Property said management did not sign off on locks to be changed. She added that Smith should contact their attorney for questions before she got off the phone.
Mind you, he has already done that.
Out of options, Smith said he will have to bring the military’s legal arm into the situation.
“They were fully supportive and said this is something that, ‘we will handle and deal with, with you,’” he said. “They said, ‘We'll make sure that we get this corrected.”
In the meantime, Smith is a soldier deployed dealing with skirmishes at home.