Note: It's not easy to warn your fellow renters about unethical, unreasonable, or unkind landlords. I wasn't able to get the below review on Google Maps and the BBB won't even take complaints about individual landlords.
But considering the review I had already written describes what was the single worst "landlord experience" in the 50-plus years of renting between my wife and me, I felt a responsibility to share it with others.
I wouldn't wish this kind experience on anyone, not even this particular landlord. In fact, I hope it helps him and others understand that you simply can't treat people the way he has and expect that to be the end of it.
This is a review of Nuan Wen (a.k.a. Mark Wen ), the owner
and landlord of 14601 NE 3RD ST BELLEVUE WA 98007 and other properties in that neighborhood on 146 PL NE. We are a family of four—with two little girls—who
lived in the duplex at the above address for more than seven-and-a-half years. We’re
responsible and considerate tenants, and despite Mark Wen’s stated desire not to maintain
his properties to what he called “European standards,” we were very friendly
and respectful with him and his family, even sending a holiday card each new year.
But things suddenly went bad after the other family in our
duplex went away on travel and four strange men moved in shortly after. I alerted Mark Wen,
thinking the tenants were trying to sublet/AirBnB his unit. Mark Wen behaved like he
didn’t know anything about it, so it was puzzling when Mark Wen repeatedly told us he
understood our concerns yet refused to address them. We pleaded with Mark Wen to
get to the bottom of it, but instead, Mark Wen soon reversed his
attitude toward us: he raised our rent by more than 19%, refused to repair a
faulty electrical outlet in our daughter’s bedroom, and much more. It was shocking and
highly disturbing to be so betrayed by someone we had treated so well and who had just told us, in email, “I am
concerning [sic] about this too.” But we were being forced out and would have to
put up with the very unpleasant situation until the end of the school year.
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This photo was taken when we got the keys to our unit in 2011. When we moved out in 2019, Mark Wen
claimed that the damage to the grass to the right of the driveway was our fault. |
Months later, when we finally found a new home and needed a
referral, Mark Wen lied to the agent about a particular instance in which I was
being considerate to my neighbors, telling the story to make me sound
difficult. That mischaracterization, presumably in an attempt to sabotage our
lease, may have been illegal; but we got the place anyway since the agent
himself thought Mark Wen lacked credibility. In the same conversation, Mark Wen told to
the agent that he raised our rent by nearly 20% because I was ‘a headache.’
That was an admission of retaliation.
When it finally came time to sort out the security deposit,
Mark Wen billed us for damage to the lawn caused by him and his own workers, for the fact that
the sun faded the cheap flooring around a rug (if it gets faded by the sun, I think it's safe to say it's cheap), and much more. Our lawyer—yes, we had to
get a lawyer because of Mark Wen—has compared him to a slumlord.
My wife and I now feel so entirely repulsed by Mark Wen as a human being that we may not even fight him in small claims court for the remaining security deposit he owes us. Simply having Mark Wen in our lives was toxic and made us miserable.
My wife and I now feel so entirely repulsed by Mark Wen as a human being that we may not even fight him in small claims court for the remaining security deposit he owes us. Simply having Mark Wen in our lives was toxic and made us miserable.
But sadly, this review has just scratched the surface so far and there are many more details of how Mark Wen treated me, my family, and his own property over those
seven-and-a-half years that our fellow tenants should know. It’s affected us both deeply and I've documented all my
wife and I could confidently remember in this list:
1. Mark Wen refused to repair an electrical outlet that failed in my daughter’s
room because, he said, it would make too much of a mess. So he offered me an
extension cord instead—but he never gave it to me. The outlet went unfixed for
around eight months until we moved out.
2. Some of Mark Wen’s duplexes have a shared water meter, and with Bellevue’s very
high water costs, this is no small detail. He claims it’s not a problem, but even without the
leaks I’m about to describe, it was a problem for us several times. Whether it
was neighbors not reporting or fixing a running toilet, their kid regularly
playing with the hose (or us filling our kiddie pool), or a handful of grown men unexpectedly moving in next door: it was the
source of many headaches for us.
3. Mark Wen tried to fix leaks in the water line from the street himself, but with
limited success and at unknown expense to his tenants. In the summer of 2015, there
was a leak in the water line coming from the street to the house. He dug a hole
and "fixed" it himself. But it started leaking again about three and a
half years later. The water bills were materially affected by these leaks, and Mark Wen wanted me to pay much more than my lawyer (who is also a landlord) thought I
should pay.
4. Even though his first fix attempt failed after a couple of years, Mark Wen refused to hire a professional plumber to come inspect his second fix attempt when
I asked him. He expected us to trust him and his plumbing skills again.
5. When I disputed the water bill after he claimed to fix the leaks without the
help of a professional, Mark Wen refused to share his correspondence with the water
company from which he claimed to determine how much we owed. Again, he expected us to
simply trust him even after he had shattered our trust.
 |
This hole, just outside our backyard, was left only
partially covered like this for more than four months until we moved out. We have two small children. |
6. Mark Wen left the holes that he dug to fix the water line only partially
covered for more than four full months, despite the small children in our
household and others nearby. We complained about it and he did nothing, so we have to consider this to be
part of Mark Wen’s pattern of retaliation, though if it wasn’t in retaliation, it
certainly shows the kind of pride Mark Wen takes (or doesn’t take) in his
properties, and the kind of quality Mark Wen believes is suitable for his tenants. And that’s where this
list is headed now.
7. Mark Wen told me to dig a small trench in the yard so water could drain away
from a puddle that would grow into the garage. If I wanted to prevent water from coming in the
garage, I had to do this instead of him clearing and fixing the overflowing
gutter and downspout that caused the problem.
 |
Here's the second hole, also left only partially covered
for more than four months until we moved out.
There are many children living in the neighborhood.
|
9. Mark Wen’s properties may still have old and inefficient single-pane windows. I had to buy several rolls
of weather stripping to combat them. After seven years, the cost of the energy
wasted on replacing escaped heat (and those rolls of weather stripping) could
have gone a long way toward upgrading the windows. But we found that what Mark Wen doesn’t want to pay for, the tenant does.
 |
| Our neighbors, the ground bees, just next to the first hole pictured above. |
10.Mark Wen made us buy rubber washers needed to repeatedly fix a decades-old
leaky faucet. When tightened "too much," (i.e., what most people would
call “closed”) the faucet would drip, and it got worse as the rubber washer would
get mangled. The old faucet actually consumed rubber washers and Mark Wen thought
this should be the tenant's expense.
11.Mark Wen made us buy the replacements for the yellowing, brittle translucent
plastic panels under the kitchen's fluorescent lights when they began breaking. They, like almost
everything else in the unit when we moved in, must have been very old. He
wouldn't pay for their replacement, so I did. They're not cheap. When he
remodeled the kitchen, I had to stop him from taking them away.
12. Mark Wen wouldn’t fix or replace our frayed and falling-apart sliding screen
door; he told me to fix it myself. He made us feel lucky to have a sliding screen door in the first place, so
I did fix it. For a couple years at least, the other unit in our duplex didn’t
even have one and when they did get one, it seemed to be in even worse shape
than ours.
13. Mark Wen replaced a rotten fence with new posts, but reused the same rotting
fence panels, with nails so rusty and boards so rotten that they would come
lose when hit by a Frisbee or child’s soccer ball. Less than two months later, the gate right
next to the section of fence he last “repaired” was falling off due to
rust, rot, and gravity.
14. Mark Wen owned several properties in the summer of 2018, but not a stud finder. The towel bar in one of the
bathrooms had been loose since we moved in, but my young kids made it worse and
the screws fell out of the wall one day. I did my best job to fill the holes
and even redid the orange-peel texture on the wall. I told Mark Wen I could install
it, but since the length of the bar only lets you attach it to one stud, I
wasn’t sure where to put it. He installed it himself, only to tell me he didn’t
screw it into any stud. I asked him why, and he said, “I don’t have a stud
finder.” He owned a million-dollar-plus home and several rental properties
valued at over $900K, but no stud finder. No. Stud. Finder. (I’m a renter and I
have three.)
15. Mark Wen never painted the south exterior wall facing the backyard, which has
been cracking and peeling into the yard for years. He said he would, but he didn’t.
16. Mark Wen and his wife left
dripped paint on the new kitchen floor after they painted the ceiling. My wife and I wondered if they expected us to clean that up after
them, too. We did our best—it was our home after all.
17. Mark Wen had to come back to our home four times across almost two weeks to
repair the same sink drain instead of hiring a licensed plumber. A new kitchen sink,
cabinets, and floor were installed by contractors. After connecting the sink to
the drain by himself, Mark Wen had to come back repeatedly to get it to stop
leaking. It was a major inconvenience for us as we had to keep the cabinets
empty for so long, but it was cheaper for Mark Wen than hiring a licensed plumber, so that’s what we got.
 |
This is what it looked like many months after Mark Wen
tried to plant grass on a mound in front of our unit.
|
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This is what it looked like a few weeks after I repaired
the bare spots under the swing set, just before moving
out. It wasn't hard, but it took some care (and money).
|
19. Mark Wen regularly missed or ruined opportunities to improve his property by
cutting corners. When spreading grass seed, he didn't bother to wet and scratch up
hard-packed dirt, never mind kill the weeds first. I've seen him cut down healthy bushes
and trees. I’m sure I spent more money and effort on our backyard—fertilizing
twice annually and pulling weeds—than he did on the front yard grass of any of his properties in the neighborhood.
20. When he did the remodel, Mark Wen and his contractors trampled a large section of grass in the backyard that I’d worked to improve. Not only did I have to clean up after them, Mark Wen had the nerve to take money for the damage from our security deposit.
 |
This photo shows flattened, brown grass that was damaged the previous summer, but some
clumps have since begun to recover. The summer before this photo was taken, Mark Wen and his workers trampled this area of our yard on their way to and from the kitchen where they were working, yet he listed this damage as justification for keeping a portion of the security deposit. |
21. Nuan Wen (a.k.a. Mark Wen ) betrayed our
trust in a hurtful way we think no landlord should act. It was shocking and
spiteful, destroying our mutually helpful seven-year relationship.
Soon after the neighbors in our duplex went on what was supposed to a
month-long family vacation to their home country, four adult men moved in.
Understandably, my wife and I, the parents of two small children, grew
concerned and even anxious about safety. I told Mark Wen about this, and he claimed
ignorance and expressed concern, stating in a number of emails to me “I
understand your concerns,” and even claiming “I am concerning [sic] about this too.”
But to my knowledge, Mark Wen refused to confront the men to
find out what was going on in his own property. He certainly refused to even
tell me if he did. When the father came back roughly a month later without the
family and continued to live with the other men, Mark Wen waited a week to ask him
about it. I’ve never seen a landlord so lackadaisical about his tenants’ use of
his property, so I have to assume what seems most logical to me: that he knew
what was going on and lied to us all along. In my mind, the other logical
alternative is that he was simply too afraid of confronting these men who had
taken over one of his units.
No, I don’t know the truth, but it’s not for a lack of my
trying. Even Mark Wen’s wife later complained in an email about my “bugging” them
with our concerns, and I responded that of course I was bugging them because
“you never told us anything like ‘don’t worry about it.’” Mark Wen’s reply was,
“you're adults and I am not in the position to tell you what to do.” Again, we
were concerned for our family’s well-being, and this is how Mark Wen and his wife
treated us: with as little communication as possible.
This is what has compelled me to warn others about Mark
with this recounting of all the unpleasant demands and behavior that my
wife and I could confidently remember. After our experience, it's clear to us that tenants need to protect themselves: take photos, get everything in writing, and save all email correspondence.
22. Mark Wen raised our rent by nearly 20% in retaliation, apparently for our
expression of concerns and subsequent complaints about his betrayal, as
described above. While it was an obvious case of retaliation, we couldn’t
prove it until he admitted it to our rental agent, who called asking him for a referral.
23. Mark Wen wanted me to sort out the water bill with my neighbor and the four men
who moved in. When I declined, he asked me to accompany him to talk to my
neighbors about their water use. This makes me think it’s more likely that Mark Wen was just too afraid of confrontation with these men to do anything, so he gave
us the run around.
24. Mark Wen lied to a rental agent about us in his effort to give us a bad
referral. Among other things, he tried to characterize this excerpted emailed
request from me to him as complaining about my neighbors, when I was
being considerate for my neighbors:
[Before moving out, my neighbor] put
an extremely bright bulb in the front door light which you left on last night. It’s
smart to leave it on (we do) and it doesn’t bother us at all, but it’s
so bright, I’m sure our neighbors across the street would appreciate it if you
replaced it with something less bright.
Fortunately, the agent saw through Mark Wen, saying he lacked credibility, and gave us the lease.
25. Mark Wen told me he doesn’t want to maintain “European standards” in his properties. Mark Wen and I were standing in the yard, next to my car, when he began telling me about some of his more troublesome tenants. Mark Wen then told me that he didn't want to maintain "European standards" and that he had managed to get one of his “European” tenants to understand this and leave. I’m not sure what else we talked about after that as this was the only thing I could think about and the first thing I told my wife about when I walked back in the house. In hindsight, what he said there says an awful lot about him, his approach to property management and his approach to the people who are his tenants.
