Brian Lee couldn’t believe his eyes when he walked out of his friends’ apartment in Berwyn House at about 2 a.m. one night last fall to discover that his car had been towed — again.

In one night, the Montgomery College student lost $350 and spent hours tracking down his vehicle, which was towed twice after an outdated sign pointed him to the wrong parking space.

Lee discovered what many off-campus students and their friends have recently come to understand about parking in College Park. Between poorly marked lots and strict parking enforcement policies, some say they feel as if their vehicles are in constant danger of being towed.

Lee said his Honda Civic was towed within an hour of his arrival. It took him another hour to find the tow truck company’s phone number because he could not find any signs and was forced to call Berwyn House’s emergency line to arrange a time to pick up his car that evening.

Lee paid $175 for his car and asked the tow truck driver where he could park in the Berwyn House lot.

“They didn’t give [me] any new information about where to park,” he said, so he returned to the apartment building and parked in the farthest corner of the lot. “With so many empty spots it felt like I could just park anywhere,” he said.

But his assumption was wrong, and he left his friend’s apartment to find that his car had been towed again. Lee repeated the procedure, shelling out another $175.

“They could have cut me some slack,” he said. “They made me feel dumb.”

Senior criminology and criminal justice major Stephen Geraci had his Honda CRV towed from the Berwyn House lot while visiting friends last fall. When the towing company didn’t answer its phone, Geraci said he called the police.

“We didn’t know if the car had been towed or stolen,” he said.

Maj. Cathy Atwell, a spokeswoman for University Police, said that Geraci’s reaction is common. “We have had difficulty with vehicles being towed from apartment buildings and then reported stolen,” she said.

Two women were arrested at gunpoint outside the University Health Center Oct. 8 while driving a car that had been mistakenly reported stolen in July. The car had actually been towed and impounded.

But towing woes are not unique to Berwyn House. Senior mechanical engineering major Andrew Watson said he has seen “at least six” of his friends’ vehicles towed and impounded in the six months he has lived in the Heritage Park apartment community on Metzerott Road.

“Even if you have a permit … they will tow you if you park on the line, and they will tow you if your tags or your registration are expired,” he said. “What business is it of theirs if your tags are expired?”

While Atwell defended the towing of vehicles with expired tags because they are not allowed to be driven on public roads, she called the policy of towing cars that park on the line unreasonable. “I do not believe that is legal,” she said.

“Most of the time, when someone’s vehicle gets impounded, immediately they are mad,” said Tika Mitchell, an office administrator for Topshop Towing, the company that patrols Berwyn House. “They are not familiar with their parking rules and they are upset. … It is a costly lesson, but we are contracted to do a job.”

But Taima Smith, a leasing consultant at Berwyn House, said the current administration “inherited” Topshop Towing from the previous management.

“They just asked permission to tow on our property,” she said. “We don’t pay them … I have never seen any written contract.”

Nevertheless, she said, the management is satisfied with the company’s enforcement of the building’s parking policies. She noted that Berwyn House changed its parking policy in early September, about two weeks before both Lee and Geraci said their cars were towed.