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.)
Equity also showed disregard for its full-time tenants by illegally renting empty student apartments short-term to outside groups with often very young members who were left unsupervised or failed to follow building and pool rules. Fortunately the Van Ness South Tenants Association made sure this practice ended.
Meanwhile, 3003 Van Ness has seen an increase in the number of formerly homeless voucher tenants who have little if any support services from the DC government even if they need them. Equity seems to ignore problems even if they result in increased police calls or disturbing activities that affect other residents who repeatedly bring them to Equity's attention.
Equity makes little or no effort to provide security. For example, it would claim its policy is to have the front desk monitoring who comes into the building and to call up to tenants before allowing admission, but that doesn't happen. Exterior doors are broken for long periods and/or left unlocked. And even when this results in criminal activity perpetrated on tenants, Equity claims no responsibility – it merely tells tenants to call the police.
The maintenance of the building also suffered. Equity's lack of attention even to the most superficial maintenance -- like damaged paint on elevator doors or hallway walls -- should make anyone concerned about what is not being maintained that tenants don't know about.
I would never, ever recommend any building managed by Equity after this experience.
Woman in her 60s