Westbrooke Place — Local services in Washington

All in Chrono order:

early 2023: Some things are great. Others are unacceptable. Multiple issues are known but not attended to in full, incl. many days of unsafe pool conditions, w/ one or more issue at a time: cloudy water, green algae, too cold, no circulation, floor drains backed up and causing standing water in walkway, etc. Lack of bldg-wide comms topics and improper responses to repair requests. The same is true for elevator, fire alarm, party /noises and rodent issues brought to the attention of mgmt by multiple tenants. Close comms on a recent lack of hot water was rather decent but not until nearly 12hrs after the fact. If they respond with "we regret to hear that you had a negative experience with us,...", it will prove the point. They've had many, many chances to do better/the minimum.

Google: not showing an option to post a pic, of pool algae, etc.

Update: the pool has been clean in the few short weeks since, but there was no msg. to note successfully closed maintenance ticket. They hadn't closed the pool until it was made clean.

Early Fall 2023 update - the pool still has cleaning issues. Awaiting new pool contractor hired by new leasing office lead to make progress. Late Fall: pool improved. 12/23: pool.closed for rennovation

11/1/23: Gables listed in lawsuit against multiple D.C. landlords over price hike scheme, which helps explain 20%+ rent hikes requested of some tenants https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/01/realpage-landlords-sued-alleged-illegal-rent-hikes.html

2/2024 link: https://youtu.be/NrJR9CumsXM?feature=shared

12/23: Fire alarm and plumbing issues. More surprise plumbing/water damage issues than most tenants are aware of (see fans in hallway, repair noises in units and hallways) Mostly construction and (minor) permit delays = 2 months w/ no pool or gym. Repair tickets (rooftop tiles not stable) closed when repairs not made.

1/7/23: Leasing office permitted construction (circular saw cutting and constant hammering) to take place on wknds (Sat. 5pm, Sun.

The building is advertised as luxury, but is the epitome of disfunction and has severe rodent and insect problems, plus the management is essentially vacant when it comes to response.

To start, when applying they will require a $500 non-refundable “administrative fee” to submit your application (which is illegal in DC fyi) that you don’t get back if you decide not to sign a lease. Then as soon as you sign a lease they will practically ghost you, so you have to call dozens of times to even get info about moving or anything related to the building.

I lived here for a year and am so excited to have left, they tried to raise my rent OVER 30% despite being a good tenant who never caused issues, never missed a payment, never had a noise complaint, etc. etc. I only received a realistic rate after I fought back to management and pressured them to answer why there was any reason to raise a present tenants rent to that amount. In the end I realized I would rather live anywhere else than try to lower the renewal rate.

The building itself is very dated, with utility outages multiple times a month, elevators constantly being down (expect only one elevator out of three to operate normally), the roof has dislodged tiles that can easily cause injury or broken ankles, and the gym is the size of a shoe box and feels claustrophobic if more than once person is there at the same time.

My unit had a mice infestation for months and management and maintenance would intentionally close tickets just to avoid doing anything about it. They clearly don’t care about tenants and feign ignorance despite receiving dozens of emails and requests for it to be fixed.

During my time at Westbrooke, management did turn over and while I thought the new management would be better, they continued to avoid responding to any communications, including when trying to schedule a move out inspection. It should also be noted that the management company is actively under investigation for artificially increasing rent and anti-competition.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Westbrooke. I’m sure they’ll respond to this post asking me to reach out to “amend the problems” but I’ve tried to do so during my time and clearly they don’t care unless its posted publicly. Avoid this place, I’d leave a...

Lived there a year+ from 2023-2024, worst apartment building I’ve lived in plus the rude concierge team with high turnover rate( some of them are great aka normal people)

As many people( I think I saw one of my neighbours’ comment here) pointed out, poor management+ consistent issues with fire alarms, elevators, etc. I had flies randomly coming out of all pipes /ACs/ at home in summer and winter…. No cockroaches b/c I was mindful enough to kept my apartment extremely trash- free but there are cockroaches everywhere at the rooftop area. Constant broken facilities— elevators, water pipes, gym equipments and printers.

You can never reach out to leasing offices( some of them are great people too but again the entire team is too arbitrary) .

They also sent random guys to my home at 11pm to check on kitchen issues which I didn’t ask for and when I was away from home for 20 days , the maintenance team went into my home without notice. The entire experience was so terrible plus I paid so much rent—

I’ve lived the world, including metropolitans such as NYc, London. I have never lived somewhere like this that does not worthy at all!!! They definitely did a great job at tripping people to rent- the initial viewing experience, according to some of the people and from my self, were good somehow. The leasing guy was responsible yet he wasn’t there anymore.

Not to mention one time the leasing team asked me in my face to submit a 5 star review for the building— while I was leaving the building for work. Now you might know where all these 5 stars are from.

I would suggest that one of the sustainable ways to keep this apartment well- famed is to lower the rent if you can’t fix these issues- lol

1 star for these few people from leasing office and concierge who were at least nice and does their job responsibly. They made me feel less terrible when I enter the building. The rest gives me...