Tenants speak out against rat and bug-infested apartments

Residents of the Lynbrook and Brookdale garden apartments on N. Beauregard Street in Alexandria’s West End are fighting a landlord they say is failing to properly maintain the property – leading to rat and bug infestations.

“It’s outrageous,” says community organizer Elsa Riveros of Tenants and Workers United, which is educating tenants about their rights and pushing the landlord, Morgan Properties, to address the problems.

Together, Lynbrook and Brookdale have 1,456 units, mostly serving a working-class population. Morgan Properties purchased those apartments and four others at Mark Center in 2017 from JBG Smith.

Rats and bedbugs 

Riveros said Lynbrook and Brookdale were poorly managed for years, but things got much worse during the COVID pandemic.

After TWU representatives and tenants met with City of Alexandria officials, including Mayor Justin Wilson, the city sent code inspectors and pushed Morgan Properties to make improvements.

According to Helen McIlvaine, director of the Alexandria Housing Department, there have been extensive repairs and pest control measures taken in the past few weeks, but Riveros disputes that claim, saying many problems remain.

When Riveros began knocking on doors earlier this year, asking tenants about their concerns, one of the biggest complaints was about rats, mice, and insects.

She saw traps inside apartments with five or six rats and children covered in bedbug bites. “They live inside drywall. There is mouse poop on rugs where children play. It’s gotten out of control.”

If a property manager agrees to come to an apartment to eradicate the vermin, the tenant is told they must empty all cabinets and closets and stay home all day – meaning they lose a day of work, she said. If they aren’t home, they are charged $150. Often, the exterminators don’t show up. so the procedure must be repeated the following day.

Disgusting conditions

When Riveros visited tenants, she saw filthy carpets, leaky toilets, busted cabinets, and broken appliances. And when repairs are done, it’s usually a shoddy job with duct tape.

Riveros describes one incident where a pipe broke at 1 a.m., spewing sewage on the tenants. The man’s daughter ended up in the hospital. “It was disgusting,” she said. “And when he went to the office to complain, “people were laughing.”

“Why do they think they have the right to treat someone like that?” She says. “On top of everything else, they are nasty.”

Overflowing trash in the parking lot.

While there are a few positive reviews of Lynbrook on ApartmentRatings, this one is typical: “If you like roaches, mice, filthy hallways, trash all over the parking lot, painted rusty bathtubs, non-working HVAC . . . you’ll love it here. If not, it will be a nightmare. This is the projects at luxury apartment rates.”

According to ApartmentRatings, the rent for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at Brookdale is $1,350 to $2,311.

The impact of COVID

The property managers became much less responsive during COVID, Riveros says. The office was often closed and staff wouldn’t answer the phone. During the heatwave this summer with the temperature exceeding 100 degrees, people couldn’t get managers to fix broken air conditioners.

Tenants who’d previously had two or three jobs found themselves out of work as restaurants cut back and office and hotel cleaning jobs dried up. “There’s a lot of stress,” she says. Some tenants have had to sell their cars, pawn their jewelry, and seek loans from family members to make rent payments.

Riveros says Morgan Properties failed to pass along rent relief funds to tenants, and many people didn’t know they were eligible for assistance. The Alexandria interfaith organization ALIVE! provided an important safety net, offering tenants food and financial assistance.

Tenants are charged extra for water, trash pickups, and repairs, she says. Parking is a problem, too. Tenants with a car get one parking space – but only if they have a driver’s license. People without a space must park blocks away and have to have to continually move their cars so they don’t get towed.

So why do people move to Lynbrook and Brookdale? Riveros says managers show them “a gorgeous model apartment.” When they come back ready to move in, their unit turns out to be filthy and infested with vermin. If they back out, they lose their security deposit.

Help from the city

For Riveros, one of the biggest challenges was getting tenants to file complaints with the City of Alexandria. She notes that some tenants come from cultures where it’s best not to question authority.

When Tenants and Workers United brought tenants to meetings with city officials, they began to get their message across. “We’re encouraging them to find their voice,” Riveros said.

McIlvaine, the housing director, conceded that the city hadn’t been aware of how bad things were at Lynbrook and Brookdale because tenants hadn’t lodged formal complaints before TWU got involved. “There were a number of conditions at the property that absolutely need to be addressed,” she acknowledged.

She suspects tenants didn’t want to make waves for fear of retaliation, so tenants can now submit anonymous complaints with Alexandria’s Housing Office.

The city’s code department has enforcement powers, she said. Landlords could face civil fines if they fail to address code violations.

The city formed a partnership with Morgan Properties in August to resolve the issues, McIlvaine said. The company completed a mandatory indoor and outdoor vermin extermination plan, placed baiting stations in rodent burrows, cleared out the sewer lines, and hired staff to disinfect dumpsters.

According to McIlvaine, Morgan completed inspections by mid-September and all repairs should have been completed by now.The company also partnered with the city to ensure tenants get rental assistance and hired tenants and high school interns to work in the office, she said. And now that the eviction moratorium has ended, the city is working to provide financial assistance from state and city funds to people who owe back rent.

Riveros questions whether Morgan Properties is actually doing what it promised, noting that the rats are still there and things are not being fixed.

“Is the city supervising the job Morgan Properties is doing?” she says. “Or do they just believe what MP is doing without verifying if those statements are true?”