Outside 4480 C St. SE, one of the properties D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has been neglected by its landlord. (Image from D.C. Fire and EMS via the D.C. Office of the Attorney General)

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced a series of lawsuits on Wednesday targeting the owners and managers of buildings in wards 7 and 8 for issues ranging from building neglect—resulting in vermin and mold, among other conditions—to a lack of security, leading to continual gun violence and drug activity.

In one lawsuit, the AG’s Office is suing the owner and manager of three buildings in Ward 7, calling for monetary relief for tenants and for the court to appoint a receiver to take over management. The other two lawsuits focus on three apartment complexes in the Buena Vista neighborhood. Racine alleges the owners and managers have not adequately dealt with gun violence and drug activity, and calls for them to buff up their security procedures.

“These cases are part of a pattern of cases we’ve been bringing for a number of years,” says Jimmy Rock, the assistant deputy attorney general for the Public Advocacy Division, noting that Racine has added four full-time attorneys dedicated to housing and community justice.

In one of these new lawsuits, the AG sued Mehrdad Valibeigi and The Bennington Corporation over its management of three properties in Ward 7: 4559 Benning Road SE, 4569 Benning Road SE, and 4480 C Street SE, which have a total of 35 units, nearly all of which are low income residences.

Under the Tenant Receivership Act, the suit calls for the appointment of a receiver—a neutral third-party—to take over management to “safeguard the health, safety, and security of tenants from a landlord’s continued failure to address housing conditions.” The lawsuit also seeks monetary relief for residents.

Rock says the case is based on tenant complaints, as well as inspections from the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and other agencies. He says the office is “seeking a receiver because conditions were so bad that someone else needs to be put in charge of rehabilitating that building.”

Raymal Gregory, a tenant there for more than 30 years who has taken Valibeigi to Landlord-Tenant court multiple times, says in an affidavit that “the roaches have been a problem for a long time. They were a problem when I was a kid and I’m over 40 years old now.” Residents say mice and bedbugs are an ongoing issue, as well.

Multiple tenants say in legal filings that nails consistently fall out of their ceilings, and describe any repairs as “patch jobs.” In one affidavit, resident Phyllis Colbert says that her water stopped working at the end of June and wasn’t fixed for two months.

Other issues at the residence include visible mold growth, violations of D.C.’s fire code flagged by D.C. Fire and EMS (Colbert describes her unit as a “fire trap”), and inspection violations, according to the suit.

The lawsuit states that the landlord’s failure to address these violations “in a timely manner is particularly egregious in light of the fact that all of the tenants have modest financial means, and therefore lack feasible alternatives to the unsafe and unhealthy rental accomodations inflicted upon them.”

When reached by phone on Wednesday afternoon, Valibeigi said that he had not seen the lawsuit, but denied that he was a negligent landlord. He called the allegation that a tenant did not have water for two months “mind-boggling.”

“There are two things to this,” Valibeigi says. “One is whether these landlords are the victim of certain tenants who know how to maneuver the legal system to avoid rent, or we are talking about the neglect by the D.C. government.” He says there are no mold problems in the buildings, and has not seen the mold inspection forms from this summer included as exhibits in the lawsuit, which found visible mold growth in the buildings.

As for the vermin issues, Valibeigi says that he uses pest control and extermination services in the building, and blamed tenants’ homekeeping habits for the continued problems. “The problem is if there is roaches or mice in one apartment, it goes to the others. That’s why extermination companies are in business.”

In another lawsuit, the AG’s office is suing Vista Ridge Limited Partnership, Castle Management, and Washington Housing Corporation, which own and manage the Forest Ridge and The Vistas apartment complexes in Ward 8’s Buena Vista neighborhood, which have 399 units in total.

The suit uses the Nuisance Abatement Act, a law that lets the city file charges against property owners who permit illegal drug, gun, and prostitution-related activities.

The complaint outlines how activities at the federally subsidized buildings have included “multiple homicides, the execution of search warrants, and seizures of drugs, drug paraphernalia, firearms, and related materials.” The AG’s office says that D.C. police have received more than 2,200 calls for service over the past year, and there have been nine unsolved homicides on or near the properties since 2007.

In a letter dated March 6, 2018, Racine asked to speak with Vista Ridge management about complaints his office received about illegal firearm activity and alerts them that an investigation has been opened up against them. “The law places the responsibility on you to ensure that your property is not used in a manner that is detrimental to the welfare of the surrounding area,” he wrote.

These tenants also deal with neglectful living conditions, like sewage leaks, inadequate heating, mold contamination, and rat and bedbug infestations, according to the lawsuit. All the while, management has “consistently demanded and collected full rental payments for all of the affected units,” the complaint says.

Racine’s office is also suing Castle Management, along with Stanton Glenn Limited Partnership over its management of the Stanton Glenn apartment complex, a total of 378 units also in Buena Vista. Similarly, the suit says the company has violated the Nuisance Abatement Act over its “continued failure to abate the firearm-related activity.”

Castle Management has not responded to requests for comment. The lawsuits call upon the court to order management to “implement proper security safeguards,” says Rock.

In August, Racine reached settlements with two residential buildings and two businesses in Deanwood under the Nuisance Abatement Act, in which owners agreed to providing full-time security personnel, security cameras, better lighting, and fencing, as well as banning non-residents who have previously “participated in illegal activity” there.

Racine’s office is suing other owners of apartment buildings under the Nuisance Abatement Law, including in Eckington, Petworth, and two in Anacostia.

Rock says that the D.C. Attorney General’s office is investigating other District buildings under both the nuisance and receivership laws. “You can certainly expect other lawsuits like this.”

Previously:
D.C. Attorney General Sues ‘Neglectful’ Property Owners In An Effort To Bring Down Crime
After Suing, D.C. Negotiates Plan To Improve Living Conditions At Congress Heights Buildings