Fred A. Smith Co

I have written about this company before, but my roommates and I have recently discovered that they can go to a whole new level of terrible. After trying for a year to control the mold problem, because FAS did not respond to the emails about it, our bathroom ceiling caved in (oh, they would respond to emails, but if you ask for fire extinguishers AND someone to kill the mold in your basement, it seems to be too much for them to handle at one time). This time we decided to call in the county inspector. Turns out, not only have we been living in a mold infestation all year, but two bedrooms are fire hazards, and therefore illegal. Each tenant has a separate lease, meaning FAS intended those illegal rooms to be leased as bedrooms. The property manager showed up very unannounced and unexpected today, and accused us of negligence. We will be very lucky if this does not go to court. Please do not work with this company. They are just short of being criminal.

crummy apartment

maintenance people never fix the problem

you have to put in a work order a hundred times before the stuff gets fixed

property manager is a jerk

the furnace in the kitchen is annoying

absolutely no kitchen space or cabinet space

pros:

affordable (but your deff getting what you paid for)

nice hard wood floors

and nice shower head :)

I recently applied for a competitively priced, beautiful apartment in the Northwest DC area. I got a call on Monday from an associate named Lina and was thrilled to hear that I was approved! I asked her to send me the next steps in writing and she said she would FAX over a letter of approval. I called the next day and Lina picked up. She apologized that the paperwork was not sent yet and said she'd check on it right away. She called me back within five minutes to say that the apartment was NO LONGER AVAILABLE! Upon asking for an explanation, I was told that her boss, Chris Wallace, had leased it to someone else. I asked to speak with him and have been calling for a week with no progress.



This is an unprofessional, slow, unresponsive company that is either really bad at communicating with its staff or misleads potential tenants. Stay away from this company. If this is what getting apartment is like with them, I don't want to know how it could be to be a tenant.