security

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.

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.