Serious elevator problems continue at 3003 Van Ness

Residents report that this evening NONE of the three elevators in the 11-story South building are working at 3003 Van Ness.

Tenants yesterday reported that only one of four elevators in the 11-story West building were working.

Also yesterday, a resident reported that he was stuck inside an elevator for about 10 minutes — the doors would not open. Such situations have also occurred in the past.

The Van Ness South Tenants Association has asked Equity Residential repeatedly over many years to repair the elevators in both buildings adequately so they were reliably, but for years Equity has refused. Earlier in 2025, the company announced that it would replace all of the elevators at 3003 Van Ness, but no specific timetable has been given.

Meanwhile, residents who are paying more than $2,000 per month in rent — in many cases much more — are forced to deal with frequent outages and have to climb up to 11 floors to reach their apartments.

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Friday December 5th update — the elevators in the South building and most elevators in the West building are working again.

Tenant association sends letter to Equity CEO Mark Parrell re: security failures

The Van Ness South Tenants Association today sent a letter to Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell, requesting that he take steps on the corporate level to improve building security at 3003 Van Ness. The letter focuses on the chronic problems with security doors leading from the street into the buildings, and from the garages into the buildings, which have been chronically broken for more than two and a half years.

“I am writing to you on behalf of deeply frustrated residents at 3003 Van Ness, an Equity Residential property in Washington, D.C., to request immediate action regarding the long-term, dangerous failure of Equity Residential to provide basic building security. This coincides with an elevated level of crime and extreme nuisance behavior at the property – so serious that the DC Metropolitan Police asked the DC Attorney General to consider prosecution of Equity Residential under the Nuisance Abatement Act.”

— Letter to Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell

The letter states that the security failures at 3003 Van Ness are so chronic that residents widely believe that they are the result of a deliberate corporate policy. It includes links to the more than 100 videos of broken security doors at 3003 Van Ness that have been recorded and posted online over the past two and a half years.

Specifically, the letter requests that Parrell take the following steps to help secure the building:

1.     Repair all security doors – from the outside into the building and from the garages into the building – using strong, commercial-grade materials that cannot easily be broken.

2.     Permanently repair and secure the front doors using commercial-grade materials.

3.     Increase front-desk security: require staff to check every person who enters; require non-residents to show ID, sign in, and be admitted only after their host resident is contacted and confirms permission (the policy before Equity took control of 3003 Van Ness).

4.     Require Equity Residential staff to inspect all security doors at least once daily. If doors break, announce to all residents the timeline for repairing those doors.

5.     If a door is found broken and vandalism is suspected, report the incident to the DC Metropolitan Police, review security camera footage, and share the footage with MPD. Install security cameras at doors that are repeatedly broken where vandalism is suspected.

6.     If 3003 Van Ness continues to suffer from an elevated level of criminal and nuisance behavior, hire an experienced, full-time, 24/7 security guard to patrol the building.

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The letter was copied to:

Scott Fenster, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Equity Residential
Brian Hanlon, Director, DC Department of Buildings
Brian Schwalb, DC Attorney General
Robert White, Chairman, DC Council Committee on Housing
Matt Frumin, DC Councilmember, Ward 3
Johanna Shreve, Chief Tenant Advocate, Office of the Tenant Advocate
Frances Nolan, Senior VP and Head of Property Management, Equity Residential
Stacy Aguiar, Vice President Property Management, Equity Residential
Josh Luper, Washington Area Manager, Equity Residential
Dan Burkes, Property Manager for 3003 Van Ness, Equity Residential

Updated information on 911 calls from 3003 Van Ness

For many months,, the Van Ness South Tenants Association has urged Equity Residential to tighten security at 3003 Van Ness by taking basic steps to secure the building — e.g., by repairing ALL security doors into the building so they can only be opened with a fob, and by checking IDs of all non-residents who attempt to enter the building. Equity Residential has failed to protect its customers by taking these simple steps.

At the same time, there continues to be a high number of calls from residents to 911 for police assistance — in many cases, to handle serious or dangerous situations.

The tenant association has used Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other methods to compile 911 statistics for calls originating from 3003 Van Ness. The list of calls for 2025, through the month of August, can be found at this link.

Follow-up inspection on Sept. 7th finds that doors are STILL broken

For more than two years, members of the Van Ness South Tenants Association have been reporting to Equity Residential that many of the security doors at 3003 Van Ness are broken, allowing easy access to the building. This is particularly concerning giving the high number of police calls to the property for various incidents, some of a serious nature.

On August 26th, the tenant association reported to Equity Residential building management that six security doors at 3003 Van Ness were broken. Tenants also recorded videos of the broken doors, which was posted on the tenant association website and on YouTube.

In an email response sent on August 28th, property manager Dan Burkes reported that all doors had been repaired, or would soon be repaired.

However, a follow-up inspection by the tenant association conducted on September 7th found that the doors remain broken. Notably, the main door of 3003 Van Ness has been broken for months. The front desk does not check visitors to the building, making it possible for anyone to enter.

During the recent inspection on September 7th, the tenant association recorded six more videos of broken doors at 3003 Van Ness, demonstrating that it is simple for anyone to enter the building, or go from the underground garages into the main buildings, without difficulty. These videos appear below.

The videos are also posted on the tenant association’s YouTube channel, which includes well more than 100 such videos recorded at different dates over the past two years. Overall, these videos demonstrate a systematic neglect of security at 3003 Van Ness.

Tenant inspection finds that security doors are still broken

An informal inspection of security doors at 3003 Van Ness conducted on August 26, 2025, has found that SIX doors leading from the exterior of the buildings or from the underground garages into the buildings are STILL broken and can be opened without a fob.

The tenant association has been reporting these broken doors to Equity Residential for well over two years. Equity frequently ignores such reports, or it “repairs” the doors using residential-grade materials, which are easily broken again. As a result, intruders can enter 3003 Van Ness at almost any time with little effort.

To document these continuously broken doors and security lapses, the Van Ness South Tenants Association has recorded well more than 100 videos of these doors over the past two years and has posted these to its YouTube channel.

You can see the recent videos from the August 26th inspection below.

Letter to Department of Buildings regarding elevator policies

The tenant association today sent a formal letter to Brian Hanlon, Director of the DC Department of Buildings, requesting clarification of its policies regarding elevators.

Previously, DOB employees had said that DC regulations require that only one elevator in an apartment building be in working order. However, that appears to contradict the plain language of DC law.

In the 11-story, 300+ unit West building of 3003 Van Ness, two of the four elevators have been out of service since mid-December 2024. (One of the two appears to be working intermittently now.) In the 11-story South building, one or two of the three elevators is frequently out of service.

Equity Residential has said that it will begin replacing all seven elevators in the two buildings later this year, proceeding one elevator at a time, with work on each elevator taking several weeks. However, the tenant association has been complaining to both Equity Residential and to city agencies about elevator malfunctions for many years — therefore, residents have little sympathy with Equity’s claim that it will take many more months even to start replacing the elevators.

According to DOB policy as currently stated, such severe disruptions are permitted by law. However, the plain language of the law appears to state otherwise:

“The owner of any apartment building or a house consisting of five (5) or more floors which contains one (1) or more elevators shall maintain the elevators in good working order.” (14 DCMR § 502.1)

“Any alterations, repairs, or replacements necessary to maintenance or restoration of elevator service shall be provided by the owner promptly after the stoppage or malfunction in order that service is restored as soon as reasonably possible.” (14 DCMR § 502.2)

Read the entire letter to DOB and previous correspondence at this link.

Tenant inspection finds that security doors are STILL broken

An informal inspection of security doors by members of the tenant association has found that multiple doors are still broken, after having been reported to Equity Residential many times over a period of three years. In the past, Equity also has been fined by the DC Department of Buildings for these same broken doors.

The doors allow easy access from the underground garages to the hallways of the South and West buildings. It is easy for intruders to enter the underground garages via the loading dock door, which is frequently left open, or by following a car through the main garage door. For this reason, it is critical that the security doors between the garage and the buildings lock properly.

However, over the past three years, these security doors have been in an almost constant state of disrepair, and can easily be opened without a fob. Equity Residential has been warned many times, including by the Department of Buildings, and by the tenant association.

The tenant association has recorded well over 100 videos of broken security doors at 3003 Van Ness. However, the $25 billion Real Estate Investment Trust has made little effort to repair these doors properly. Half-hearted attempts to fix the doors use cheap, residential grade materials, and so the doors are broken again within days or weeks.

See videos of three broken security doors below, recorded on July 16, 2025.

Tenant president files legal brief againt Equity Residential in rent case

Tenant association president Harry Gural filed a final brief in his appeal of a previous court decision in his 8+ year case against Equity Residential for the “rent concession” scheme, by which Equity circumvented DC rent stabilization laws and overcharged residents.

In 2016, the $25 billion corporation filed suit against Gural for failing to refusing a $362 per month rent increase ($4,344 annually) — approximately five times the maximum legal rent increase that year.

Equity frequently demanded residents pay rent increases from several hundred dollars per month to $1,500 per month — although under pressure it usually negotiated a lower rent increase, although still often more than the legal amount.

Gural blew the whistle on the company to the DC Attorney General in 2016, leading to the lawsuit District of Columbia vs. Equity Residential Management. Former Attorney General Racine and his attorneys won the case, getting $1 million in restitution for residents of 3003 Van Ness.

Gural appealed an administrative court decision in 2019, winning on appeal with a strong decision by the Rental Housing Commission. Gabe Fineman, a former resident and board member of 3003 Van Ness, filed a separate landmark case and won on appeal, paving the way for Gural’s victory on appeal.

The case was sent back to the lower administrative court, which ruled this time in Gural’s favor. However, it failed to assess the full penalties allowable by law for overcharges made in bad faith, which now exceed $50,000. Gural was forced to pay more than $30,000 out-of-pocket into court escrow while he defended Equity’s case against him in Superior Court.

The case is a textbook example of what happends when large corporations and their corporate attorneys target renters in administrative courts.

Fortunately, the “rent concession” scheme appears to have been permanently ended in Washington DC. Gural is the last tenant who is still being overcharged — a situation that hopefully will change soon.

Tenant’s Reply to Equity Residential’s Responsive Brief

Tenant association meeting scheduled for June 5th

The Van Ness South Tenants Association (VNSTA) will hold a general meeting for all residents of 3003 Van Ness on Thursday, June 5th, from 8:00 to 9:00 pm. The meeting will take place in the social room on the first floor (pool level) of the South building.

The Van Ness South Tenants Association represents residents of both the South and West buildings of 3003 Van Ness. All residents of 3003 Van Ness are invited to the meeting. There is no cost or obligation.

The tenants association encourages residents to spread the word about the meeting via word of mouth, email, or their social networks. For example, you can repost this post on X.

Or better yet, print the flyer below by clicking on this link. Then post it in the bulletin board of the laundry room on your floor.

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Updated record of 911 calls from 3003 Van Ness released

The tenant association has released an updated record of 911 calls originating from 3003 Van Ness. In past months, calls were made to 911 for help with incidents recorded as:

Assault, burglary, disorderly disturbance, domestic violence, drug use, drug distribution, elevator rescue, fire alarm, gun incident, knife incident, noise disturbance, overdose, property damage, robbery, sexual assault, stabbing, suspicious person, theft, and verbal harassment.

These monthly records of 911 calls convey an approximate sense of the problems that have occurred. On the one hand, these are calls for help — not arrests. On the other hand, there are many incidents which occur that do not result in a call to 911.

The very high number of calls — many for serious offenses — are the reason the tenant association has worked hard to pressure management to improve security at 3003 Van Ness. Specifically, the tenant association has repeatedly requested that Equity Residential repair broken exterior doors in order to prevent unauthorized acccess to the buildings, install working video cameras that are actively monitored and record and save video, and hire a full-time security guard.