The building has really gone down. There recently was a serious problem with roach, mice, and bedbug infestation. The tenants association was very diligent and contacted local, state, and federal goverment officials and agencies before management took action. It is not the worst building that you could live in, but it has many problems. Fortunately, there is a strong tenants association that constantly struggles with management to improve the conditions of the building. They also established a food bank for residents with very-low incomes.

There is a very high turnover with the management staff. Almost all of the ones in the past ten years have been estremely rude, unprofessional, insensitive to the needs and concerns of the senior citizen and disabled residents, and are incompetent and/or not well trained. They are tremendously slow or unwilling to respond to complaints and emergencies.

Management and maintenance men do not comply with the law and have entered apartments when there was no 24-hour advance notice or no emergency. They rarely leave any notice or document to inform the residents that they have been in their apartments or to explain the reason(s) they were there. Some residents have notified management that they do not want them in their apartments when they are not home unless there is an emergency or advance notice and they still enter their apartments. I have waited many times the entire day for them to come and make repairs and, for whatever reasons, they usually wait to come when I am not at home. Some residents have noticed that someone had entered their apartments or items were missing from their apartments when they returned home after being away for long periods of time. Deceased residents or those with extended hospital stays sometimes had items taken before their families or they arrived. They have allowed other residents to enter the apartments of some of those to take some of their belongings.

The quality of the work of the maintenance staff is sometimes inferior and they do not appear to have had much training. Up until the last year, the landscaping was outstanding, but now it leaves much to be desired.

There has been some parking issues. In recent months, management has not given the residents parking stickers and some of the residents' cars were towed. They had to go through alot before they got their cars.

The walls are very thin and you can easily hear the conversations of residents, their television, and noise that is associated with many of their normal activities such as flushing the toliet, washing dishes, etc. when you pass their doors and/or live next door to them.

There are only six washers and five dryers for all of the residents in the more than one hundred and fifty units in the building.

The community is relatively safe.

Overall, I guess Friendship Arms is average for the DC Metropolitan area and has problems that are similar to many others.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/04/2008
This place is a decaying senior/disabled/low-income hellhole staffed by rude, shoe-dragging morons with bad attitudes. If you're a non-------- American visitor, you will be hassled at the front office and given the "third degree" for no good reason except for the obvious -- you're not welcome there. Very sad, depressing environment.

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