The Landlord Lens - D.C.’s Worst Landlord Has 100+ Violations — Now the City’s Had Enough

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

A Washington D.C. landlord is facing serious legal action after racking up more than 100 housing violations. From hazardous living conditions to blatant code violations, the city is finally stepping in. In this video, we break down what happened, what it means for tenants and landlords, and how this case could signal a major shift in enforcement. #housingcrisis #DCLandlords #tenantrights #rentalproperty #realestateinvestor 

Over 100 code violations, mold, sewage, rodents, asking humans to live in, that's pretty, pretty evil. Where's the accountability on the part of the building inspectors, right? Where's the accountability on behalf of the landlord? And where's the accountability even on behalf of HUD, right? Hey, everybody, welcome to Landlord Lens. Today I'm joined by our co-host, Seamus Nally, to discuss some of the headlines coming out of D.C. and the slumlords that are being attacked there. John, I'm excited to dig in on this topic. I actually lived in D.C. for a little while.

You did? I didn't know that. Very clear picture of the areas that we're talking about. In this case, unfortunately. Let's see the recent press conference that Brian Hanlon put out. I have to say, when I walk out of some of these buildings, there have been a couple cases where you walk out angry. You walk out upset that there's somebody out there that is willing to provide housing in that condition. And DOB director, Brian Hanlon, says the new initiative starts today, and the department is already zeroing in on some of the worst landlords in the district.

A focused inspection initiative launched by Colonel Sanders himself. Brian Hanlon. Brian Hanlon. Oh, John, I'm sure the situation can't be that bad. Let's take a look. The conditions of the building, it's just crazy. Walking around the apartments where Michael Adams lives. man, this has been like this for years. They didn't put orders in for this and no one came out.

You'll be overwhelmed by the damage, which prompted the DC Attorney General to sue the owner. You have these broken windows right here, and that's not all. You have a busted up door right here. Department of a building is already leaving behind some signage. But the Attorney General's office saying that not only are their violations outside the building, but inside. It's barely power in the building. People sharing power. They shan power from. different houses, the holes in the wall, and then we put orders in, no one never came out. Even these images cannot describe the smell. Contractors out here telling Seven News, this is sewage. They had all these leaks. The water is rising, damn the knee high. Right on that line on that

wall, you see the border. That's how high the water was. The attorney general reporting 100 violations in the past two years. All right, John, I take that back. Well, usually come in on the side of the landlord. There's no doubt in my mind that this specific land. landlord is a complete piece of shit. A complete piece of yeah. Over 100 code violations, mold, sewage, rodents, asking humans to live in, that's pretty evil. It's absolutely abysmal. And what's really disgusting here is not only the conditions these people are living in, but also the fact that there's 1,400 some violations that led up to the lawsuit, right, that was brought against Edwards, the landlord in this situation. And it doesn't

seemed like anything was done along the way to kind of prevent this, to stop this, right? And so where's the accountability on the part of the building inspectors, right? Where's the accountability on behalf of the landlord? And where's the accountability even on behalf of HUD, right, the housing authority in D.C. to say that, listen, we miss this one, right? Hand up a little bit. We didn't enforce. We didn't inspect.

We didn't look into the situation like we should have. to protect our citizens. What typically plays out in these situations when the government fails to hold folks accountable in these kinds of places is they will say they didn't have enough money. We would have loved to have solved this problem, but we just don't have the resources to solve this problem, right? You've heard that line from city officials all the time. And that's one of the things I'm worried about is we didn't have enough money. And the city council gets together and says, well, how should we get?

that money for these people who need the money to make slumlords get in trouble. It's a ridiculous sentence, but that's literally what's probably going to happen. And they're going to consider things like fees on all rentals, which is going to impact your single family in your neighborhood. Yeah, I mean, I know everyone's shocked that maybe a government agency wouldn't take accountability at all and would ask for more money and levy more fees. The problem with that, right, is all fees that you charge. to landlords eventually get bundled and passed down to the renters and rent.

So from that perspective, right, it doesn't necessarily fix the problem. I'm always a fan of increasing efficiency as opposed to expanding bureaucracy. And so, you know, assuming the building department in D.C. doesn't work from home. I hope in their office they have a top 10 list, all the violations that are taking place, and they're just working down that list, right? Because where else would you start, where else would you start cracking down outside of the place with 1,400 violations, right? Yeah, it seems very, especially in these types of cases where 80% of these violations

seem to be done by 20% of violators. It seems like a relatively simple task to focus on the people who have violated thousands of times. You have the lists, right? It's not like this is some shocking discovery these people are bringing to us that these people are running bad businesses providing crap housing. Yeah, and I think different than our typical rhetoric, which is very much pro-landlord, the reason for me it's so important that these sorts of situations get cut off early

on, and they don't disintegrate the situation which we saw in this video. And decisively. Decisively, exactly, is to, is being. Because these are the exact situations that give landlords, like much of the turbo tenant users, like myself, a bad name, right? Yeah. There's one of these photos I'd like to pull up really fast of the bathroom in one of these units with the grime and the mold. This goes viral on TikTok all the time. And people are making the association with the landlord that provided this housing unit to somebody.

legitimately actually thought that, yeah, you should pay me a bunch of money to live in this place and use this bathroom. And then they're making that connection with that person to independent landlords who are running a single family in their neighborhood. And it's just, it's super disappointing. I'll also say there are some policy outcomes that might happen that are actually good. One is the HUD has been talking about this idea of a healthy homes campaign and pointing to some metro areas, including D.C. as pilot locations, where part of their eligibility criteria

to be subsidized with a voucher is that your home is a healthy place to live. So this is things like lead paint, mold, grime, these kinds of things. That could be a positive way government might enforce where, you know, the less fortunate in our society have to live. And then there have been this initiative of repeat offenders, which obviously should have been. been standard operating procedure since we had apartment buildings like 1890s maybe right like that probably should have been part of the role there there's been discussion in other cities like LA Jersey City that have been floating this idea to focus resources on these repeat offenders in the slumlords downtown um which could could actually be positive outcomes uh in the functioning of those

those departments absolutely and it's it's not hard as a housing provider right for you to provide a rehabilitation plan, right? What are you going to do to restore the habitability of a building? That's something that wouldn't be that, doesn't need to be that onerous on the landlord to prove that if there's been repeated challenges, right, or violations. I don't think that aspect is unreasonable. I will say, however, given the fact that there's 1,400 in this one case that we're talking about, violations and that the follow-up appears to have been extremely slow, I am skeptical that adding anything new to this process isn't going to do more than just create a larger backlog and slow things down even more. So I would actually like to see a method with which there's a rapid follow-up

on these, maybe even faster reporting in terms of what are the numbers in a given city. And cities take upon themselves to try to improve their healthy living conditions by drastically reducing the amount of violations, right? And you can make that a real rallying cry for a housing department in an area. I think it's important if they're concerned about these new regulatory bodies deploying additional inspectors every year or something to their unit. Well, what do you do? And these are these are things I'm just going to share that are things we recommend in general. The first is document everything and make sure you don't lose the documents. Ideally, digitally store them, before and after maintenance photos, before and after move in photos, move out photos, right? Take a

bunch of photos and keep them organized. Do your own self-inspections. Maybe find an inspector every once in a while. Maybe it's annual. Maybe it's biannual that you can have go out and write off your property. And then the two things, things that are easiest for these types of inspectors to write violations for, rats and moisture. Now, some of you, like if you're in Denver where there isn't really a rat problem and it's dry all the time, you're probably safe from any of these. But if you got D.C., Baltimore or any of those more wet areas that can definitely show up. Last two things, know your local appeal window. In D.C. It's 10 days. What's your town? And join a small owner coalition.

because you are not who these people are demonizing in the media, and you should not be the target of any regulations. And the only way you can really make that show up is if you join in with the other small owners in your area. Absolutely. I'm going to share a tactic that I think is a little, it's not intuitive, but that's as a landlord, root out and try to learn the maintenance request. Tendants are often quick to just sit on certain situations that maybe,

happening. Maybe it's a leak in the toilet, right? And so ask. It's one of the reasons that within Turbotenant, when you pay rent, we send what we call a rent or check-in, which is asking just that, right, do you have any maintenance requests? How are things going? Because it's super important for you to know what is happening in that unit. That's why I like the suggestion of doing additional inspections. It's important for you to know what maintenance challenges may exist in that unit. So it doesn't devolve into an emergency, right? Things that are very inexpensive and easy to fix. often turn into a much more expensive headache that creates issues with habitability down the road.

Yep, absolutely. I think rooting out the maintenance request is a really good call. You'll probably notice that some tenants are worse or better than others at calling out issues. Absolutely. And some are maybe too good. The floor is creaky. You're always going to have to walk that line of what you can actually fix.

Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye on DC and other metros and what they're doing. If you have your own habitability questions or any issues in your city, leave a comment. Smash the subscribe button and the like button. And we'll see you guys later. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. Landlord better from anywhere for free at TurboTenant.

com.