“So – thoughts? Who helps and who hurts? Asking for a friend (or myself, who needs a new apartment).”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Clif Burns

“Dear PoPville,

I’d like to hear from DC renters about property management companies they love renting from and property management companies that make their lives a living hell. I think we can all agree that property management companies wield a lot of power over how accessible and fair DC housing is, city-wide. But when we talk about “our landlords” we tend to speak about it individually (“My landlord is ignoring me, my landlord is screwing me over”). Thing this is, those individual actions add up and shape quality and accessibility of fair housing in the city as a whole, especially when large property management companies hold huge market share over certain neighborhoods.

I’ll start:

I lived in a house in Shaw manged by Duke Lash of DSK Property Management for 4 years. Duke is awesome. He was fair, helpful, and accessible. Once our piped bursts and he and his wife spent an entire Friday evening at our house helping us sort through the problem. He worked for the owners, but he was a fair arbiter between parties. If something wasn’t going to be addressed by the owners, he explained why and gave us other options. Duke, you’re great.

On the flip,

I once spent three years requesting a new screen door b/c the one that came with an apartment was a rusted pile of junk that didn’t fit on the track. The A/C in the apartment was an old, forced air system and didn’t keep the unit very cool. On hot days, I liked to give the AC a rest and leave the balcony door open to get the breeze, which I couldn’t do without a screen door (holy mosquitoes). The first two years is worked if I propped it just right and patched it with duct tape. The third year it was a no go. The management company–Chatel Management–twice tried to force me into signing a one year lease in exchange for the door (I paid extra to be month-to-month and preferred to stay that way). The second attempt came after a testy email exchange over the door, when I received an email that my rent was going to go up $400 the next month (!!), but if I signed a one year lease they would make it a little less and consider the door. I get it if the owner doesn’t want to replace my door (and per DC housing code they are not required to) or my apartment is a bit below market value and they want to raise the rent, but a property management company that can’t convince an owner to throw down $50 for a door but is willing to hike rent by $400/month as a seemingly (but un-provable) retaliatory action for requesting one isn’t really doing it’s part to make DC a fair and affordable place to live.

So – thoughts? Who helps and who hurts? Asking for a friend (or myself, who needs a new apartment).”