555 — Local services in Washington

PLEASE DO NOT RENT HERE.

We have been here for nearly an entire year. Thank goodness we are moving out at the end of the month. Things were completely fine until they switched management companies. Here are a few reasons that you should NEVER rent at 555:

Elevators essentially useless. There are two elevators in this building and when the new management came in, they both have been working at the same time for maybe a total of 48 hours. MAYBE. You can expect to add 10 minutes to your morning and afternoon commute to wait for the one operating elevator to make it to you. There have been several occasions where BOTH elevators have been non-functioning. If you live on the 11th floor, congrats on your new workout routine. If you are handicap, just don't worry about getting home or leaving. This management and leasing does not seem to have a care in the world.

Since you'll be paying your share of the apartments facility electric, water, and sewer bills.. you'll never know how much your rent will be. In fact, our rent was supposedly $600 MORE this month. That's right. They wanted to charge us $400 for SEWER. $200 for WATER. Thank God, we didn't have our bill set up on auto-pay, which I advise you to never do at an apartment, especially this one. It is now a week into this month and they still have not figured out why these charges are so high. It could potentially have something to do with the pouring water from the ceiling on parking level 1 a couple of weeks ago. But who knows with this place!

Security is non-existent. For months the exterior doors and elevators had to remain unlocked for anyone to use (the one working elevator is STILL open for anyone to use). Anyone could walk into the building and ride on up to wherever they like.

Smoking, smoking, smoking. The residents here don't seem to care if you're not a fan of smoking. That ever-so recognizable skunk smell appears several times a day in our apartment. Seemingly floating in from the sinks or air conditioning. Don't open your windows either because the one's who do go outside to smoke, stand right next to the windows - allowing the smoke to float right up and into your apartment.

Staff attitude. For absolutely no reason. There are a few that are kind and will greet you as you go in and out. But the majority of the time you can expect an attitude for simply picking up a package or having a question.

Trash chutes... I'll give it to them because I'm impressed that this issue hasn't been a problem for a couple of weeks. However, we went through several months where the trash chutes were not functioning. This required trash to be piled up in each floor's trash room! Yay! It's sad that I'm impressed with a couple of weeks with no issue. It's likely to return, I'm sure.

Lease renewal. With all these issues - they wanted to up our lease renewal by 3%. I think this place should lower their rent by 25% or more!! And no one reached out to me with this offer. We were about 35 days out from our lease expiration and I had to email the PM to get this offer. Not sure what was going to happen if I didn't?? Every apartment I have ever lived in has gotten to me at least 60 days before with an offer to renew and the pricing. Context here, we pay $2100 for a one bedroom. For this price, you'd expect some decent management.

It has gotten so bad here that the residents have formed some sort of union or association to try to make a difference. I think they have had one meeting so far. Not sure how that went. Apparently there was some recommendation to the management about the water pressure being bad. So, there has been some effort to change the water tank?? Has not made one difference to us. Maybe that's why the water and sewer bill was so high this month?

Conclusion, this is a terrible apartment complex made terrible by the poor management. Don't rent here. They are starting some referral program, the money is NOT worth it. Please, please rent somewhere else and save yourself the trouble. There is so much more I could go into but am at the max...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT LIVE HERE. Please learn from our experiences.

IF YOU ARE A WOMEN. IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN. I BEG YOU. DO NOT LIVE HERE FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY.

MOVING IN: I toured the building. The people seemed nice enough, a central area that is close to my new work location. Seemed like a good fit. I signed the papers. After signing, I am told I will receive more information through email about moving in. A week goes by but no communication. 2 weeks of nothing and I begin to call. 3 weeks and now I am calling 5-10 times a day any number I can find… still no answer. Now it’s been over a month. I am panicking as my previous lease was up and after 50+ calls and 20+ emails still no answer. I finally got a call THE DAY BEFORE I AM SUPPOSED TO BEGIN MY LEASE. They tell me I can only move in if I get a cashiers check for over $5,000!! I then proceeded to have to drive over 3 HOURS to my closest regional bank because I had moved from out of state. This is just one example of the completely useless people that staff this building. THE PEOPLE: I am all for helping people in tough positions. That being said, the people that live here are EXTREMELY rough. I literally saw an individual who frequently loiters around the street outside the apartment walk in with a CRACK PIPE. I PAY 3,000 A MONTH and somehow this guy also lives here ON MY SAME FLOOR. People reek of weed, say odd comments in the elevator, and own numerous aggressive rottweilers and pitbulls which absolutely freak out when you get on the elevator with them. This apartment is a glorified homeless shelter. I should not have to feel ready to fight every time I step into my own building but unfortunately that is the reality of living here.

THE ELEVATOR: Literally a week after moving in, 1 out of the 2 elevators stopped working. This might not sound that bad, but this building is 12 floors. Need to get up or down during a busy time? I am not joking, this has taken me almost 20 minutes before. Why not just take the stairs you might ask? Oh trust me I would love to but the key they gave me upon moving in only works with about half the doors it should!!!

MY APARTMENT: During the middle of the night (I’m not exaggerating literally like 2-3 am) I am frequently woken up by the extreme smell of cigarettes. I am a non-smoker and this has been so extreme that it will literally wake me out of deep sleep into a nauseousness that has made me get up and leave my apartment at 3 am. Ok this next part is just so insane it sounds made up. About a week after moving in, there was a MASSIVE brown stain from where one of the numerous attack dogs decided to go to the restroom. The “cleaners” here decided to try to clean this up but just spread this disgusting stain deeper and all over the entrance of my apartment. It’s been three months and this stain is still everywhere.

CONCLUSION: If I could timetravel, I would hold myself hostage until I agreed not to live here. I’ve been in bombings in the middle east that feel less sketchy than this place most days. Just make the right choice and live...

I have lived in the building since June 2021, and this is my experience so far.

Overall, the building is nice, and the amenities are great - the pool, while small, is never too busy, and the gym is well equipped and always spotless. I would also like to mention the concierge staff (especially Kim!), as well as the maintenance crew (Paul & Antonio) - these are the nicest and most helpful people you will ever meet.

Complaints:

Leasing office ignores feedback - while they always ask for feedback on new policies, negative feedback will be ignored. Their responses are also very slow, and more often than not, you will have to follow-up multiple times before you hear back.

No 24/7 concierge except on weekends - during the day, the front desk is sporadically covered by the leasing office staff. Once the concierge shows up at 4PM, the coverage is better but not great as it's still only one person that is responsible for monitoring the lobby, assisting residents, checking the common areas, scanning packages, etc. Due to this there were instances of residents being followed in by random people loitering around the building as there's no one inside to stop them.

No overnight security - we had this last summer, but it has since been replaced with an overnight concierge. This crew seems to be contracted on a per-need basis and we rarely have the same person 2 nights in a row. Some of them are great, some of them sleep at the desk.

Packages take forever to be scanned - because there is no concierge during the day, the leasing office will scan packages as they have time. When they are busy, the packages usually don't get scanned until the concierge shows up. Depending on the number of delivered packages, it can sometimes take up to 12 hours for some packages to be scanned. You cannot pick up the package until it's scanned and in the system.

Residents' garage - this level does not require a key fob and anyone in the building can access it (including guests and random people that find themselves in the front lobby). This led to cars being broken into in the past. As of writing of this review, this hasn't been fixed because the key fob access is "hard coded and cannot be changed".

Food/Grocery deliveries are not allowed upstairs - this was recently implemented and the reason we were given is "to allow the Concierge to remain at the desk in the lobby to monitor the front door and call box to keep non-residents out of the residential spaces." (email from the leasing office). This policy itself would be fine if we had constant front desk coverage, but as that is not the case, this is just another inconvenience of living here.

To summarize, the building itself is fine and most of the time you will not have many complaints. However, you will be paying a premium for "luxury living" while for the experience you can get in 99% of buildings in DC, many of which charge significantly...