D.C. Tenants Move From Building in Fear

So we think that the serious problem between landlords and tenants that results to threats arson happen only in movies.


D.C. Tenants Move From Building in Fear
Owner Denies Wrongdoing in Vandalism, Threat and Arson

By Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2006; C01

In trendy Adams Morgan, in the midst of a protracted eviction battle this fall, came the broken windows, cut electrical lines, a death threat from strangers pounding on doors and a brazen arson that caused a fleeing tenant to fall from the second story and break her leg.

The District recently ruled in the tenants' favor in the eviction fight, saying they did not have to move out while the landlord renovated the worn, three-story, gray-brick apartment building to bring it up to code. But it was too late.

By last week, all but one family had given up and moved from the 12-unit building at 1846 Vernon St. NW, a block from the bustling 18th Street entertainment strip. And that family plans to move, too.

"We were very scared to live there," said Rabia Begum, 20, a Montgomery College biomedical student who had lived in the building. "You don't know what could happen."

With a shrinking pool of affordable housing, landlords in Washington frequently urge tenants to move so they can convert apartment buildings to condominiums or, as in this case, renovate rental units. But the battle on Vernon Street between the management and tenants, most of whom are from Bangladesh, was especially ugly.

Tenants have accused management of orchestrating a campaign of fear and violence to get them to give up their rent-controlled apartments to make way for extensive renovations that ultimately would generate higher rents from new tenants.

The building's co-owner, Perseus Realty of Washington, denies any wrongdoing and suggested last week that tenants were behind the vandalism -- perhaps in search of financial gain.

The Nov. 5 fire, which investigators quickly declared an arson, remains under criminal investigation by police and fire authorities. No arrests have been made.

D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents Adams Morgan, has been holding investigative hearings to examine whether Perseus and the building's management company, Barac Co., have used undue pressure to get residents to move out of various buildings in the District. Barac officials would not comment on the dispute.

Perseus also owns an adjacent 12-unit building at 1840 Vernon St. Residents say that there has been no similar vandalism but that the management has been urging tenants there to move out as well.

Only a few tenants remain in that building, said Natalie LeBeau of the Tenant Anti-Displacement Program at the nonprofit Housing Counseling Services Inc.

"There has been a solid year of pressure, using a variety of techniques," LeBeau said, referring to both buildings on Vernon Street.

LeBeau said that the District has had many other contentious eviction battles and that in some instances the heat or electricity was suddenly shut off or "somehow, windows get broken." But she said this case stands out and added, "I've never had tenants accuse a landlord of arson."

The dispute at 1846 Vernon St. dates to August 2005, when the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs approved an application by Perseus to evict tenants there and at 1840 Vernon St. The agency agreed that the building was unsafe to live in while it was being brought to code. The company cited a study that found structural deficiencies, environmental hazards and unsafe levels of asbestos and lead paint.

Managers sent notices telling residents to move within 120 days and offered each leaseholder $1,000 to relocate. Tenants said they were never told that they could return to their units later at the same rent, a right they have under the city's real estate law.

"The tenants were asked to vacate permanently," LeBeau said.

Not so, said Woody Bolton, a principal of Perseus Realty. Tenants were offered other places to live and given written materials telling them they could return to the building, he said.

The tenants scored a victory in September 2005, after Graham intervened. The city rescinded its approval of the evictions, concluding that the study on asbestos and lead levels was for an apartment in Leesburg, not on Vernon Street. Perseus Realty says the mix-up stemmed from a clerical error: The study was in fact for Vernon Street, the company said, but was printed on the wrong stationery. The company asked the city to reconsider.

The city conducted its own safety inspection, leading to bureaucratic glitches and delays that Graham later called unacceptable.

Throughout this year, Barac, the management company, frequently knocked on doors, offering money to tenants if they would move out permanently, the tenants said. Some did.

Others resisted. Management raised the offer to a few thousand dollars. Some people still balked.

In late September, things got scary, tenants said.

First, a tenant who has since moved out said two strangers pounded on his door late one night, yelling obscenities and saying, "If you don't move out in 48 hours, we will kill you."

About noon Oct. 16, the former tenant said, electricity was cut off in some apartments. The former tenant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears for his safety, said he went downstairs and confronted two men at the electrical box who were cutting wires. He called police, and the men vanished.

About midnight the same day, the former tenant said, someone broke a window in his apartment door and one across the hall.

"I didn't sleep one week," he said. "They cannot do it with American people, these things."

Then came the fire Nov. 5. About 10:30 p.m., residents heard the building's front door slam, followed by more loud noises.

Begum, who was doing homework on a laptop in the living room of her second-floor apartment, recalled seeing flames through the window on her apartment door and underneath it.

"I was just shocked," she said. She and her family ran to the balcony, and "we started screaming for help. Meanwhile, my brother and I started calling 911. I thought we would die."

Neighbors put out the flames before firefighters arrived, Begum said. Authorities declared that the fire had been set after they found evidence of an "ignitable liquid" in the basement and on the second floor.

Begum said she immediately suspected the management of arson.

She remained in her apartment until the fire was extinguished. Other residents described harrowing escapes. One man, speaking on the condition that his name not be used, said his wife and two children, who had arrived from Bangladesh two months earlier, had to run through the smoke down two flights of stairs. He was not in the building at the time.

Nearly everyone escaped unharmed. But a 45-year-old woman who lived on the third floor was not so fortunate. She started climbing down a drainpipe with one of her children when she fell from the second floor, according to two neighbors and the fire department. The child fell on her and emerged unscathed, but the woman broke her leg, the neighbors said.

After the fire, management again increased the incentive for tenants to move permanently. They raised the offer to $15,000 to $20,000, according to the residents.

In a statement defending Perseus Realty's handling of the matter, Bolton said owners have "continued to work with the tenants to grant them substantial assistance in the face of escalating structural and environmental concerns."

The tenants might be to blame for the fire and other incidents, Bolton contended. He said some allowed too many boarders in their apartments, running what amounted to "substandard rooming houses."

"The ownership believes that many of the building's recent problems stem from tenants trying to evict their illegal sub-tenants so they can vacate their apartments and take advantage of the relocation assistance grants," Bolton said in the statement.

"Some tenants may have used intimidating tactics to force their sub-tenants to vacate the property; it is also possible that evicted sub-tenants have vandalized the buildings," Bolton's statement said.

To that, Begum responded: "I absolutely disagree. They just made up something randomly."