Fred A Smith Company

Bryann is the most efficient part of this company! He helped my roommate and I get into an apartment within a very short time-​frame and is always available to answer questions and relay messages. Bryann is extremely pleasant and alwaysstays true to his word. In my opinion Bryann should be the property manager, just saying…

I recently moved into a property managed by fred a smith co. The realtor Bryann helped me find the right apartment that met my needs and has been EXCELLENT at correcting any and all problems I have had. I have recommended him and the company to friends looking for an apartment and know that any maintence requests will be handled timely and done right!

Bryann
IS
AMAZING
I have been having issues with my heat and the landlord was not being as solution oriented has he should be… But Brian?! He’s always checking on me making sure that the plumbers were coming to my house. Making phone calls for updates about my heat and when it would be fixed. He is just awesome, period.

The Leasing office takes no time to take care of obligations, Brian is the rockstar there! Every time I have questions or need help he is doing everything possible to assist. In general people who are working at Fred A. Smith are so wonderful and do everything to help.

Russ and Bryann are terrific. They have been super helpful with the entire process, and have not let us down once we were moved in with questions, maintenance requests, etc. Any reviews who say otherwise have not met these guys!

FAS rents some very reasonably priced properties, which can be hard to find in the District. I rented an apartment from them for 4 years. The property manager, Ken Ross, was responsive to my maintenance requests. I would recommend renting from FAS.

crummy apartment
maintenance people never fix the problem
you have to put in a work order a hundred times before the shit 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 :)

Man this place sucks…
If you don’t need a running toilet and a collapsing ceiling and enjoy being completely ignored for any maintenance issues, this rental company is for you!
Oh and wait… they also like to lie about SUBSTANTIAL breaches of contract. I am glad that I have all the paperwork and correspondence and that they are really, really poor at keeping track of their lies.
Our entire building was complaining about the this company. Their prices seem fair, but then, when the ceiling comes down and your toilet is not working for 2 weeks (!!!yes, 2 weeks), you know where they are saving their money.
Look a little further and you will find a better place.

I have a disabled aunt who’s been trying every avenue to get things fixed like a leaking washing machine, broken dryer for her apartment. A hole in her kitchen that mice crawl in and out of, a crack in her wall and a rusting toilet. Shes been fighting for a year to have these things fixed. Today she waited at home and missed her classes only to be dodged by this company again when they were to send a maintenance person put to fix her issues. This company is the worst. I’ve been calling on her behalf and they simply do not care. They pretend to listen and then you hear nothing.
Do not fool with this company.

I wish I’d read the reviews before we signed.
We leased an apartment from them last November — we dealt exclusively with the on-​site building manager and she was, and still is, wonderful. We leased because the rent was $ 200 lower than any other place we’d seen and the apartment was bright and very clean and had a brand new kitchen. Even though it was empty in early October when we toured, she let us pick a move-​in date of mid-​November.
Three months later the paint on the bathroom ceiling and walls is peeling. So we put in an online service request and stick a box fan in the window to exhaust the room thinking it’s the humidity from the shower making it peel. Not fixed. Two months later, they do an annual walk-​through inspection of the smoke alarms and we point it out to the building manager because by now there is mold growing on the ceiling. She has a plumber stop by within a few days and he’s super nice, but tells us he can’t do anything because the upstairs people won’t let him in their apartment to check for leaks from their bath into our ceiling. We wait two weeks more and then just decide to scrape all the paint and crumbling skim coat and treat the mold ourselves because we’re afraid of getting sick from the mold. About a week after that, painters show up and patch and paint the ceiling WHILE it’s raining outside. So, the paint has started peeling again. No idea if there actually WAS a leak.
Snow was rarely shoveled from the front walk until 2 or 3 days AFTER the storm. Once it took FOUR days, and I was about to buy a shovel and do it myself because we have a few old people in our building and I didn’t want them to fall.
The common areas are cleaned once a week which is really nice — until we learned that the building manager was paying for it herself. FAS didn’t see the need for a clean entry and laundry room, apparently.
A few other things have broken that we fixed ourselves because honestly, who can wait a few months when the toilet handle snaps off?
This summer we noticed a little bit of staining and puckering in the plaster above the windows in our living room. Then it rained for two days straight and it was obvious water was leaking into the wall between the upstairs windowsill and our lintel. It’s not just the rain that was the problem — the upstairs neighbor’s AC unit is leaking water all down the brick wall and that’s eroded the mortar and rotted the steel lintel above the windows. Water is continually leaking into our walls; the wall above the window and ceiling are crumbling and now I see water damage at the base of the wall as well. It hasn’t been fixed because the building manager is fighting with the management company to have it done properly… She said the last renter had the same problem and thought that FAS had fixed it. FAS just wants to have it painted over, much like the ceiling in our bathroom.
TL;DR: You get what you pay for — It’s not worth the cheap rent to live in a place this poorly maintained.

6 month update– still having a variety of problems with FAS.
Earlier in the year, all three of the occupied units put in complaints about mice. It took them over a month to get someone out there to spray/​put in traps. I literally came home to a dead mouse on the couch, put in a complaint and still got no response.
Every month we get a «$ 300 late fee» even though our rent is ALWAYS turned in on time. We never pay it and never will. If they send it to you, don’t pay it. They will literally cash my check and then still send a letter about the late fee. They also take until the middle of the month to cash rent checks which is incredibly annoying.
Now we are having problems with some electrical outlets. I’m skipping over the online process and just calling them. Hopefully that will get it fixed within the month at least.

I wish that I could give this company zero stars, but that’s not possible.
If you are looking for an apartment to rent from them, that MAY work, but they are truly terrible when it comes to condo property management. The president of the company, Julie Cremin, was VERY personable and communicative in the beginning until we needed repairs or upgrades done to the common areas. Yes, they have a way to call and leave a message online and NONE of that works. No one has EVER returned the call. I was given someone, Chris Wallis, who is NEVER around and NEVER returns a call. We just weren’t that important to them which is sad. Our building only has 4 units.
Wherever I can give a review online about this company, I will. Don’t use them!

Since my last review, the new problems have been:
–toilet that gets broken every few weeks. The CVS people downstairs got used to us asking if we could use their bathroom
–leaking ceiling. It was during a rainy week and they said they needed to wait 3 days for the rain to dry up before patching the roof. So for 3 days, I keep switching out buckets and garbage cans full of nasty brown ceiling water. Finally, they sent someone to re-​patch the roof with some kind of waterproof tar.
I moved out of my apartment run my Fred A Smith almost 2 years ago but I still maintain contact with the friends who took over the apartment.
Fast forward 8 months after I moved out, and the friend who took over my room told me the leaking was back. This time the water leaked all over her laptop, ruining it. Once again FAS sent someone to paint over the roof with the black tar substance. The matter was addressed but then leaked again 2 – 3 more times within the year. My friend told me she tried to address the issue with FAS but they refused to do anything other than repaint the roof with the tar. She also mentioned that the ceiling in the living room and other bedroom had similar bubbling in the paint and cracks indicating it was also structurally unsound.
Today I logged into Facebook to see that this morning, a HUGE chunk of ceiling (5’x6’) in their living room came down. (See pic). If FAS had just fixed the ceiling structure over the 2 years of complaints about the leaking ceiling instead of just painting the roof with tar, this would not have happened.
This is just a PSA to not rent from them. They are completely unresponsive and irresponsible. What if someone had been sitting or sleeping under the ceiling that caved in? After all that, all FAS could say was «can you find a friend’s place to stay while we fix this?»

I pay over $ 3K/​month for an apartment and my maintenance requests go to a voicemail box. I never ever receive a call back saying that they received my message, even after leaving multiple messages. I have waited weeks to have basic repairs done. If you need a plumber, plan to wait a week or more. You might need to use the porta-​potty outside for a week while you wait, or get a hotel room just for a shower. The repair people show up unannounced and ill-​prepared because they don’t have the details of the problem. There is zero communication back to the renter. Really, for the price I pay for rent, I expect good service.

Terrible– do not rent an apartment from this group. Avoid at all costs if you’re expecting professionalism, honesty, responsiveness, or a company that goes by DC law. Avoid.

Gotta agree with both other reviews on this one: the worst in DC. I lived in Adams Morgan in an FAS apartment for a year with a roommate. And it was horrible. In sum:
Dishonesty: We were never informed that our apartment (english basement) didn’t have its own temperature control; the house above has full power over that. We figured that out a couple months later, when winter started. Even a subcontractor who came to look at something said, «Man, that’s kinda f***ed up…» And despite the fact that our lease states that we are to be billed for 2/​7s of the total energy bill of the house, we were consistently billed for ¹⁄₃. Not a huge deal — a few bucks a month — but obnoxious enough. No one at FAS responded to requests to correct this.
Upstairs neighbors: Obnoxious. They rained cigarette butts and garbage from their porch down onto ours for a year. Politeness didn’t work, passive aggression didn’t work and I’m not the open hostile type. Since FAS does not care for the property, the garbage remained the whole time.
Lousy apartment: Though it had been freshly repainted, much of it quickly deteriorated. Water stains, a thick crust behind the radiators (what IS that??), rusty outlets and switch panels and deteriorating cabinets should give a broad idea of the extent. We provided them with a list of about 2 dozen issues to be repaired. They eventually completed well under half of them (the easy ones) and ignored further inquiry. Which leads me to…
Slow to nonexistent repairs: The radiator in my BR never worked. Let me repeat that — The radiator in my BR never worked. Keep in mind that this was winter 09/​10, one of the worst in DC history. I called/​emailed them lord knows how many times. They apparently sent someone once, but you wouldn’t know it, since they never informed me and the radiator continued to not work. My roommate’s BR window had gaps of up to 1″ around it, allowing both cold air and the neighbors’ cigarette smoke to pour in ²⁴⁄₇. FAS’ solution? That shrink wrap insulating tape that is designed to supplement a functioning window, not serve as primary insulation. When I asked them to come fix his window again, they told me they already had. And never came again. Depending on the neighbors, temperature varied from the upper 80s to the upper 50s all winter. This is illegal. I slept at my girlfriend’s most nights. My roommate slept in a winter hat every night for 3 months.
Insult to injury: A staffer asked me to leave my keys in the freezer upon moving out (it was a Sunday), and so I did. I was billed for a $ 200 lock change. They insist that the keys were not there. I have called several times and left messages, and have not heard back even once. The security deposit finally arrived the other week, with the balance removed. They have my money and show no indication of negotiating. They win by default.
At a certain point, it becomes easier to my life to just ignore these problems, let it go and live with the inconvenience. After a while, I stopped re-​requesting the same repairs. I can only assume this is the sole reason that they are still in business. I hope that someone less resigned than myself will take these guys to housing court for providing substandard homes and failing to fulfill their part of the contract.

Dear Fred,
You’re a bum. It’s over. I am ending our relationship.
I call your emergency line and get a voicemail box. I tell you I think there’s an electrical fire in my unit and you NEVER call back. I tell you the fire department arrived and disabled our fridge and you let us go for days without. You’re worthless.
By the way — thank your buddies for knocking over my clean laundry when showing off my place to new tenants, dbag.
I am not renewing a lease at a higher rent. I’d rather live with Vula and her 36 cats (23 alive) from last night’s episode of HOARDERS.
Have fun dickin’ new tenants around,
Jeffrey

This is the worst management company in Washington, DC. They are extremely unresponsive and don’t follow up on maintenance requests. We had a number of maintenance issues.
–We did not have any heat in one bedroom from November, and the problem was not fixed until late January when I had to physically go to the office and ask them to fix the heat. They were extremely rude to me and told me that they had fixed it, and they checked on their excel sheel and found out that noone had gone out there. They never followed up on this request.
–We had a leaking shower that they never repaired, even though we notified them about this problem.
–Our air conditioning unit was broken and was not fixed for over a month. They claimed that we did not change the filter which was incorrect. They later found out that a sub-​contractor did a subpar job on fixing the air conditioning.
–We had a serious mouse problem that took them a very long time to follow up on. Our front yard was in terrible shape and they never fixed it.
–The ceiling in our bedroom collapsed. They came to repair it quickly, but again it was a «subcontractor’s fault» and not theirs, and the fact that they did a shoddy job.