Gelmarc Towers

RENT AT YOUR OWN RISK
Nestled between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan as well as a quick walk to Woodly Park. Short commute to work, museums, and theaters. Within walking distance of two metro stations – Dupont Circle and Woodly Park. There are 4 buses that use the Columbia Road route. 42,43,L2 and H1. Walking distance to Target located at Columbia Heights.
THE BAD:
Gelmarc Management Company does not take care of this building. No real fixes to problems just band-​aid solutions. After 8 years, the only new changes have been to the furniture in the lobby and the washers and dryers in the basement.
*There is always a problem with one of the elevators. Water sometimes leaks into them. How? I do not know.
*At least once a month the water is shut off for hours for an «emergency repair.»
*Security officers work between the hours of 7pm and 3am. They sit in the office, surf the web and hand out packages.
*Fire alarm constantly go off not as often as before but on the regular.
THE UGLY:
The building is constantly leaking water. Most apartments have some form of water leakage problem especially above and around the radiators. We’re talking so bad the ceiling and the plaster on the walls fall. You won’t see this on any tour of the apartment because they will have scrubbed off the chipping paint, plaster and painted over. Again, its a band-​aid job. Not a fix.
The overhead pipes in the laundry room leak a great deal.

It’s slowly falling apart, piece by piece. The owners of this building invest NO money into the building, and the maintenance guy is expected to constantly repair this place, one piece at a time. It’s an impossible task and this place is constantly falling apart.
Expect the water to be shut off approximately once a month, sometimes twice a month. Expect the air conditioning to be shut off every other week during the hot summer months. Anticipate water leaking through your ceiling from the a/​c unit above at least once per summer. Expect to see mice traversing through your apartment as they discover the numerous holes throughout the building. Expect your kitchen and bathroom sinks to constantly be plugged — Drano won’t help; they’ll need to shut the water off in the entire building to fix it. And the elevators will be «broken» about once a month.
Understand that the windows are so thin (and illegal by current construction codes) that they might as well be non-​existent. If you face Columbia road, you’ll hear buses every 15 minutes, loud-​as-​hell police/​ambulance sirens every half hour, and drunks every weekend. The windows are about to fall out onto the street (the caulking is nearly crumbled away), and if they were to break, they would create deadly shards. They don’t make thin window glass like this anymore for a reason. Unfortunately, Gelman Management hasn’t thought to replace them since the original construction in 1950. It’s a liability that will one day kill someone, and in the meantime, you won’t be able to sleep as they offer NO protection from sound, and little protection from the elements.
The only happy people here are the old ladies who are paying $ 400 a month (rent cap). They’re also probably deaf, so the sound doesn’t bother them. And their glaucoma prevents them from seeing the mice. Expect to pay over $ 1,400 a month as of January 2008.
But the location is good!