I have seen a massive decline in how the building is managed

I am not one for providing a review but in this instance, I felt like it was necessary:

I have been a resident of 3003 Van Ness since 2014. I moved out in early 2024. Over the years and very recently in the past few years, I have seen a massive decline in how the building is managed.

I will start off with the positives - the pool, utilities included in the cheap rent, and the maintenance staff are very nice. That is all.

Of course, with cheap rent, comes with issues which I list below:

Community Issues

  1. Building management is not accurately screening prospective residents; they just want the money. Unfortunately, there have been many issues that require the police and/or fire department to consistently come to the building. A tenant was falsely ringing the fire alarms. Someone poured gasoline on the west side and I believe the person just gained access to the building. A tenant was found stabbed in the west side elevator. Of course, whenever the police is involved and when the building decides to send an email, they say it is an isolated/domestic incident.

  2. There are mumblings of drug dealing occurring in the building in which the DC AG is looking into.

  3. The building’s common areas are not maintained. There are consistent broken lights in the courtyard; the cement flooring of the courtyard is not leveled; washing machines consistently break; the gym’s equipment is not maintained; doors do not properly lock allowing access from the public.

  4. The building is not good at communicating with its residents. There are short notices of “emergency” repairs or fire alarm testing. Sometimes the notices come after the fact

  5. It seems like water heater, or the heating/AC unit that runs the whole building consistently breaks down.

  6. I know people, especially those on the west side, have issues (noise and what not) with UDC students since the school uses the building’s apartments to house them.

Personal Issues

  1. I have had a huge rodent problem. A while back, I had an exterminator come and lay down sticky traps. He said the building needs to close all the holes (which he found in every room). He recently came back (a week before I am scheduled to move out) and was not surprised the building has not fixed the holes. He said his job would fix the holes but the building does not want to pay them. It is cheaper for them to have maintenance do it. This is a problem with other apartments too. When the building inspector came, he too made note of the holes and would tell the office to fix the holes. When it came time to renew my lease, I spoke with a leasing agent who became aware of my issues. Nothing happened. I think the rodents have chewed through the dishwasher’s wires which now don’t work. A week before my scheduled move out, I have been facing a persistent rodent problem every night.

  2. I had to go in person to the office to get a response to my numerous emails about the rodents. When I showed up, apparently they put my apartment number on the list for the exterminator to visit. They did not respond to my email telling me that. The least they could’ve done was respond to my emails.

  3. What is also infuriating is the fact that the building has no problem reaching out regarding what it takes to move out and ensuring they receive their money, and scheduling the move out inspections. However, they couldn’t bother take care of their residents when they have a rodent issue.

  4. Speaking of the building inspector, he found three outlets that do not have an automatic shut off which is a violation. He also found that my door entrance does not automatically close (another violation). None of these issues have been fixed. The building has been concerned with getting ahead of the building inspector and fixing the outlets in the apartments he has not visited to avoid these fines. The outlets issue is a building wide issue.

  5. I am unable to cook things at high temperatures and cook things on the stove top, because my smoke detector goes off. Another issue I raised with the leasing agent at the time of rent renewal who said someone would come take a look at it. Nothing happened.

Another issue that is out of management’s control but I would still like to point out, crime in DC has gone up and has infiltrated the Van Ness metro area. Given these circumstances, management should seriously take resident’s concerns regarding broken doors.

I am glad I went month to month instead of renewing my lease so I had time to find alternative housing. It is unfortunate the building’s management team has severely deteriorated the complex. I will say that if someone still overlooks these issues, they should move into the south side. The south side has less problems than the west.

I love the pool but Equity Residential is awful

I originally moved to 3003 Van Ness for the pool. It’s the main reason why I stay here. The location also is great — about a two minute walk to the Metro. The apartments are large and have hardwood floors.

However, the corporation that owns and manages the building, Equity Residential, is awful. It sells itself as a high-end provider of luxury apartments, but at 3003 it has run the building down and taken advantage of residents. This seems to be a company strategy because it has gone on since almost the beginning that Equity took over.

Equity was implicated in the rent “concession” scam — a way to circumvent rent control and overcharge tenants. The tenants association fought the company for years over this practice and it even got the DC Attorney General involved.

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Our experience started okay but progressively got worse

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Moving from out of town in 2013, 3003 Van Ness had an appealing offer -- advertising a competitive rate with all utilities included, close to a metro and grocery.

While I'll explain the rest of our experience later, the highlight (or lowlight rather) for me is really the false advertising and deceitful pricing. Upon asking for our renewal rates after a year (and again after 2 years), we were informed that if we opted to go month to month (which is your legal right in DC, we would later find out) our "concession" of about $1000/month would vanish and we'd suddenly have a 50% increase in our rent. They coerced us into renewing for 12 months. Despite escalating it to the regional manager, we were not provided with any other options that year or in future years. We pointed out the double digit number of vacant available units renting for less than ours, but they did not care about anything other than how to squeeze us for more money. We'd later find out these practices would be investigated by the Attorney General.

Smoke comes through the ventilation system

I am smelling marijuana smoke in my apartment right now which is circulating through the common heating system. This has been a persistent issue since June 2020, and has dramatically increased since August of this year and has become unbearable in the winter months when I am unable to prop the windows open to air my apartment. It is unacceptable that non-smoking residents of Van Ness are subjected to constant second-hand smoke - this is a health hazard. There is acrid smoke in my kitchen and bathroom every evening that comes in through the ventilation system because of which I am unable to enter those areas.

Current resident

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The building is pretty nice but the management is pretty bad

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The building at 3003 Van Ness itself is pretty nice. The floor plans are very large and the building is very convenient to the Red Line metro and Giant (1 block away). Most of the front desk and maintenance staff are also great, and try to do the best they can to assist residents with whatever we needed. The pool and gym are pretty nice too, and there is a parking garage onsite. In terms of space and location, there are probably not many better than this place--it is both relatively quiet (at least compared to AdMo and Dupont) and close to everything.

But the management is pretty bad. The building is managed by Equity Residential, a company that cares more about saving as much money as possible than anything else. My experience has been that they will nickel and dime you at every opportunity.

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Management flat out refuses to do what it takes to keep residents safe

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The only good things that can be said about 3003 Van Ness are that the floor plans are large and it's close to the metro. The building is unsafe, the staff is incompetent, and the owners of the building are unscrupulous.

LACK OF SAFETY. During the three+ years I lived there, there were somewhere between ten and thirty burglaries that had similar circumstances: there was no forced entry and they took place during the daytime. In my opinion, if someone is getting into locked apartments without forcing entry, that means that the burglar(s) had keys to the apartments. That's pretty scary. Valuables such as jewelry, electronics, and credit cards were stolen from residents. Management refused to purchase security cameras for elevators and hallways.

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It was lovely at first – but later felt like a dystopia

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When I moved into 3003 Van Ness in 2012, it was a lovely, convenient building with a responsive management company (one of the reasons I chose the building). By the time I moved out last year, I felt like was escaping dystopia.

What happened in the interim? Equity Residential, which perpetuated a massive rent scam on tenants, took over management of the building. They rented apartments to UDC without insisting UDC provide oversight for young people who had never lived alone in an apartment building before and thought they were in a college dorm (if you have a noise complaint about students partying at 2 am, Equity says to call the police rather than requiring UDC to step in and ensure the rest of the tenants are not suffering a decrease in their quality of life.)

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My roommates and I generally liked the place, but beware of bad mold

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I moved out of 3003 Van Ness in 2018. For the most part, my roommates and I liked this place. The questionable rent scheme and deteriorating garage conditions that others mention were definitely present during the years we were there, but didn't bother us much. We liked the pool, individual heat/cool controls in each room, and that the maintenance team was pretty quick to respond to issues. Room sizes were generous and had big closets.

However, in 2018, we started to notice black mold coming through the A/C units and then through the walls. It was appalling - growing on the vents of our units and huge patches behind wall hangings. It was also present on the hallway ceilings blowing out from the air vents, and the building would just paint over it until it returned again. My roommate and I started to have health problems, and realized we could not live there any longer.

Major security concerns at 3003 Van Ness

I have family that live at 3003 Van Ness and have for several years. I was really happy with the location and ease of access to public transportation, so I moved here myself a couple of years ago. I saw the property deteriorate very fast after I moved in. I found that the Equity Residential leasing office could not properly fix issues in my apartment the first time and had to return twice, three times, and four times to resolve clogged drains, and blinds that don't properly close, dishwasher problems, and more.

I would assume that a large Fortune 500 company such as Equity Residential would take interest in making their DC property an excellent place to live. This is unfortunately not the case. While the location is so nice there are systemic problems with security on the property and management responsiveness. We have had a fair number of break-ins and no tenant follow-up to inform everyone as to what was happening. There was a stabbing here a few weeks ago and management did not inform tenants until long after it happened. The place was swarming with police in riot gear, and we were told by our front desk personnel to shelter in place.  I've found that dogs are allowed to live on the property that are dangerous to the community and attack other dogs. This is a real concern because my dog was attacked in the garage in December.

On the positive side, management is now meeting with several of us on a bi-weekly basis to discuss issues around security and building maintenance. We are hoping this instills some action by management so we can all live happily and securely on the property.

Maintenance problems

Maintenance on the building has all sorts of problems. Maintenance in our units has plenty of problems too, including the time to work on an issue is not soon. For example, one thing was an electrical problem in a power switch and rather than fixing it they replaced the expensive bulbs I bought and never came back. It was to be a temporary fix and was more than a year before I put them back in the sockets as the replacement bulbs caused heat in the room.

A big thing right now is they do not want to give us our packages. Pretty much everyone is working from home right now. Our companies expect us to be able to get stuff here as they FedEx something in a hurry and that is wrong. Even if we get a message to pick up our package they will not give us the package. I had a fast FedEx the next day so my spouse could do a COVID test and they would not give it to us.

This building at one point called this a good place. Does it say anything that even they realized they had to take that sign down?

Initially pleased -- but not now

I moved in 4 years ago and was initially pleased but I am not now. We have no security; broken external doors mean that anyone can enter from the street; and we have had stray people sleeping in the conference room.

There are frequent substantial water leaks in apartments. My neighbors moved out temporarily due to a huge leak. And management never fixed the apartment properly, leaving mold in the apartment until the tenants moved out when their lease ended.

I had rats living under the hood of my Prius. The rats like the wire material. Fortunately, I found out what was happening before the wires were eaten through but I had to pay to repair and fumigate the car.

The pool is great; the location is great. But don't move in.

Resident of several years

I would not recommend living here to anyone

I moved into 3003 Van Ness in 2018 and was initially pleased - convenient location, decent amenities, and solid square footage for the price. However, my opinion of both the building itself and management specifically has gradually changed over the course of my time here (drastically so within the last year and a half).

From frequently broken washing machines (and entire laundry rooms rendered unusable as a result of flooding, sometimes on a weekly basis), to warped flooring (with replacements delayed, and, in the case of my own apartment, by the installation team deciding not to show up on the scheduled replacement date), to major instances of police activity (multiple domestic incidents, an armed intruder requiring no less than 20 police officers equipped with riot gear, and an instance of a resident being stabbed by another intruder, also requiring significant police presence), habitability and safety are now my foremost concerns.

Not smoke-free as advertised

The leasing office only responds now if I call and during business hours. So if there's smoke after business hours, no one is here to help or even walk down the hall to confirm what I'm suffering through. Maintenance was here to fix my closet (separate story about that bar collapsing within a week here) and taped over the bathroom vent when we told them about the smoke (they were also not surprised by the news). We've since added two more layers of tape which is still not enough. Sure the units are large and balconies are nice, but if you're allergic to smoke, have asthma, or just don't want your unit filled with smoke on a near daily basis, this is NOT the building for you. The smoke is causing headaches, sore throats, and scaring our pets. If that's not what you're looking for during a LUNG BASED pandemic, this is NOT the building for you.

I was caught in a classic bait-and-switch scheme

I was caught in a classic bait-and-switch rent scheme at 3003 Van Ness apartments. The apt was advertised for $1800.00 a month online -- no mention of "concessions." When I came in to sign the lease, the leasing agent told me to (and I am NOT making this up), "pay no attention to the other $3200.00 a month rent numbers and language about concessions, you don't need to worry about that. We have a rent deal with the city to keep our prices affordable."

The next year, my rent shot up to $3400.00 per month, OR I could sign another lease for $2300.00 a month for 12 months. TRAPPED! I could not afford to move, so I had to go in debt for a year to pay the 2300.00, then sell most of my household belongings in order to afford the move.

I am still paying off that debt two years later, and it hurt my credit score. I moved into 3003 with a 800 credit score, and left with a 597 score because I was trapped and had to pay rent on a credit card ....

I took Equity to court, but their big lawyers won in mediation. I could not afford a lawyer, and the DC Office of the Tenant Advocacy refused to help me after the said they would.

Mary
40s

I got a notice demanding a $500 per month rent increase

The first year my rent wasn't so bad. Then I got a notice saying that my rent would increase by over $500 a month! I thought it must be a mistake. I went to the leasing office and they said that it wasn't a mistake but that they could make me a better deal if I would sign a new lease. I was really busy at work and I didn't have time to move or even look for another apartment so I tried to negotiate a better deal. I wound up paying an increase of $150 a month -- still more than I could really afford -- but I was kind of relieved.

At the time, I didn't know anything about rental housing law or about rent stabilization. I later found out that the maximum legal rent increase is 2 percent plus inflation -- far less than what I ended up paying. I ran the math, and it turns out that I was overpaying by at least $100 a month. That's over $1,000 for the year -- a lot of money. I wish I had known then what I know now.

Name withheld
Graduate student

Equity demands rent increases of 10% or more

I have been dealing with Equity Residential and their abuse of rent concessions since 2014. They routinely propose rental increases of 10% or more to re-sign and threaten to remove the concession entirely if I went month to month. With my most recent lease, they finally agreed to meet at 5% to re-sign, only after I consulted the tenant advocate association and threatened legal action against Equity. I am so happy to see that someone has taken action to connect the many many DC residents affected by this practice and would be happy to help however I can.

Name withheld
Age early-20s

They were overcharging me by $300 per month

This is currently called 3003 Van Ness and owned by Equity Residential, a $23 billion corporation from Chicago. When I moved in all of the older residents talked about how it has declined. I had to see for myself. I lived here for three years and each year my rent skyrocketed. This is supposed to be a rent controlled building but they get around the rent control by putting an absurd number in your lease and then giving you a discount or concession the first year. In my case the listed rent was more than $1000 higher than the actual rent the first year. Although the rent increase is controlled by the city, they shrink the concession (uncontrolled) to raise the actual rent.

When I left, the best rent I could negotiate with them was hundreds of dollars a month more than what they immediately listed my apartment on the website. That is, they were overcharging me by $300 a month. People are willing to accept above market rents so that they will not have the inconvenience of moving or the difficulty of negotiating with the building. It is a racket where they exploit their tenants. Unfortunately, it is also indicative of their general attitude of squeezing the tenants to increase their profits from the building each quarter. They do this by increasing fees, cutting back on maintenance staff and doing away with amenities.

Age 60s

A "bait and switch" scheme - and other problems

I’ll start this review by saying that the two stars stand for two things: location and square footage. This complex is in a great location, just a block from the Van Ness red line metro stop. The apartments are spacious and in pretty good condition. These two things convinced us to live here and for 10 months we loved it.

Now on to the bad part. Equity Residential actively participates in a “bait and switch” rent scheme. We viewed a 800 square feet unit in October 2015 that was listed on the website as $1,770/month. Julie, the leasing agent, told us that since we were moving in during the slower winter months, that the rent wouldn’t go up that much after a year. We loved the building, location, amenities (pool - which is not managed by Equity, by the way) and we even had friends in the building that had moved in within the last year.

We proceeded with renting the unit and at the time we put down the security deposit and signed the lease, we saw that the “monthly rent” on the lease was listed as $3,400. Underneath that section, the lease said we were receiving a “monthly concession,” which brought the monthly rent owed to $1,770. We were told that this was a formality. We signed, not understanding that this was the “bait” of the “bait and switch.”