“Dear PoPville,
I’ve lived in an apartment in Capitol Hill for a year and a half. The apartment uses an allocation method to calculate water/sewer, which is “50% occupancy 50% unit square feet.” My bill has consistently been about $20 for water and $40 for sewer. For September, I received a water bill for $90 and sewer bill for $156 – 4 times the usual amount.
What protections do tenants have against outrageous increases when allocation methods are used? (more…)
From a press release:
“Community leaders are gathering Saturday, Sept. 23rd to launch a campaign for Ridgecrest Condominiums in Washington, DC’s Ward 7. It was condemned last year and the low-income owners were issued an order to vacate due to the unsafe conditions. However, many of them are still unmoved.
Instead, the Ridgecrest residents continue to appeal to their Condominium Association and have resorted to fundraising above the cost of the condo fees they already pay, in order to contract the needed repairs themselves. (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
My building is being sold to Frank Emmet Property Management. Does anyone know how they are as property managers? My building is currently rent-controlled.
Thank you!!”
photo by Emma K Alexandra
“Dear PoPville,
Last month, my neighbors and I were notified that our building was under contract with a new buyer. This kicked off the Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), which is a months-long process where tenants have the chance to form a tenant’s association in order to purchase the building themselves, find a different buyer, or negotiate specific terms with the new buyer (ex: rent concessions, a buyout to move, repairs etc). (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
There’s a new package fiasco at Camden NoMa following last summer’s Flats130 Package Debacle. We received notice that in the coming months, all 700+ resident’s packages will be stored in a self-serve room on one side of the building. We will not be able to access the room with our key fob, only an app (Chirp). (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
I ran laundry today in Dupont. In my building that I already pay 1700 for a studio. Excuse me? A month ago this was $3. No way that two loads of laundry is now $16 in an apartment that I pay $500 more than I paid last year to live in, with no improvements.
Update, my building responded with the following message…. (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
I’m currently apartment hunting in NW DC and I’m seeing something new to me. One rather large apartment building (425 Mass) claimed that the utilities which they bill for monthly, which includes water/sewer/boiler costs, total around $180 per month. I have never heard of a boiler fee personally, and in my experience water and sewer on the high end would cost maybe as high as $60 at the rate I’ve traditionally used water. (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
I have been renting an apartment that uses third-party billing (Conservice) to manage the building’s utility fees for several years. I recently moved out to my own place and I added someone to my lease so that she could take over, but there was a one-week gap between me moving out and her moving in. I’m a foreigner and I didn’t know that utilities need to be in the residents’ name at all times, so now I have received a Conservice bill of US$75 for this period (US$50 “vacant service fee” and US$25 “vacant electric fee”). Is this legal? (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
I hope I’m not the only one sending a message about the new e-check fee being applied to pay rent on many units across the city. AppFolio is now charging tenants $2.49 for e-checks. They were already charging a fee for credit card payments. (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
The last week of May, the co-op next to our co-op experienced a major malfunction of their HVAC system. Their response was to have a crane deliver a temporary HVAC unit the size of a school bus and a gasoline powered generator the size of a box truck.
The way the buildings are arranged, the neighbors’ mixed use (residential
and business) parking lot is between us along an entire side of our building, and within about ten feet of the exterior wall of our building.
Both of these machines were parked on the very edge of the parking lot, as close to our building as possible.
The generator was removed after four or five weeks. The HVAC machine remains (it has been seven weeks so far) and os possibly going to be here through October.
The HVAC machine sounds like a cross between a jet engine ready for take-off, the train-crossing alarm, a tornado warning siren, a glass harmonica, and someone sanding floors. This sound goes on around the clock. The sound is LOUD. The sound is both deep AND high pitched, so it both shakes our walls and floor AND penetrates through the glass and a variety of types of earplugs.
We have been told: (more…)